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Chimerix

NewBee
Registered Member
Nov 13, 2006
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I spent Sunday brewing up a 5 gallon batch of Honolulu Hefeweizen. It's a recipe courtesy of the LHBS (although truth be told, the only thing Honolulu about it is the location of the brewer). Anyway, I pitched the yeast in the late afternoon.

(I've also decided that I have brewed my LAST beer until I buy a wort chiller. Waiting 6 hours for a wort to cool is just silly.)

Anyway, back to the story. The recipe recommended White Labs Hefeweizen yeast WLP300. I took the LHBS recommendation, but with some trepidation, as I've read very little positive about White Labs here. Funny, how what's gold in one world is crap in another. Reminds me of the Chronicles of Amber. Alas, Zelazny, you left us too soon!.

Again I digress. When I woke up this morning, there was barely any activity. Like 1 bpm, but that doesn't really count, since I had the blow-off tube in place and a large jar (formerly peanut butter) playing airlock / collection basin.

Came home from jury duty to find that the Jiffy jar was nearly full, bubbles are coming out so fast that it's more like a continuous stream, and a "chuck" of foam makes the 5' trip from carboy to condiment jar in about 40 seconds!

God, it's a beautiful thing. The power of properly motivated yeast is truly awe inspiring! I keep coming back to just sit and stare at it, with this idiotic grin on my face.

Heh.

As if I actually had anything to do with it. ::)
 
Wheat beers in particular can exhibit some pretty impressive fermentations ..... The 6 1/2 carboy I used as a primary for a Bavarian Hefeweizen I made a few months ago needed a blow-off tube in it for 4 days!

That sure was a fine beer which, by the way, was pitched with White Labs Hefeweizen Ale IV (WLP380).

- GL63
 
I've used WhiteLabs for most of my beers. They do seem to need a starter (which I generally haven't been doing) to get the best performance, but I've been happy with the results. Pitching just the tube gives me a little bit of underattenuation (FG 4-6 pts too high), but that's forgivable. The best part of the liquid yeasts is the variety, which is currently unavailable in dry beer yeasts. As soon as they come out with dried Hefe yeast, though, I'm on board. $6-7/tube is a lot.

Wheat beer ferments are crazy. My witbier had krausen for 2 weeks! Woohoo foam stabilizers!
 
i like wyeast better than white labs. i like the activators though, no starter and short lag time. in my experience its been only a few hours. the propagator which says to make a starter took about 12 hours to get going with no starter. the white labs took almost 24 hours both times i used it.
 
I've had WhiteLabs start up in 6-20 hours, no starter. Have yet to try the Wyeast packs.
 
After, um, let's call it about 52 hours, the power ferment has waned. Don't get me wrong... it's still fermenting agressively, and there's still head up into the neck of the carboy, but the tube isn't full of foam, the the bubbles are now coming out as individual (though sizable) blips. Still, wow! What a ride! I'm guessing that it'll be about the day 4 mark that I feel comfy swapping blowoff tube for airlock.

It's sitting here in my secret lab, wearing one of the black t-shirts that I'm not allowed to wear outside the house. Blip. Blip. Blip. Blorp. Blip. Sooooo relaxing! :cheers:
 
As far as short lag-times are concerned, wait until you rack a batch of freshly chilled wort on top of a yeast cake in the bottom of a fermenter that you just emptied the finished beer out of. I've done it 3 times so far and the longest lag time I've had is 55 minutes, and the shortest a mere 14 minutes. It's impressive to say the least!
 
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