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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org


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Contents:
  Weissbier: rule of 30 and open vs. closed fermentation (Kai Troester)
  Re: Hefeweizen and wit brewing (Mark Zunkel)
  brewing hefes (Bill Wright)


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Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:42:50 -0400
From: Kai Troester <kai at braukaiser.com>
Subject: Weissbier: rule of 30 and open vs. closed fermentation

The rule of 30 for Weissbier brewing comes up on occasions. I'm not  
sure which author introduced it to the (American) home brewing  
community but the place I found it first was in Eric Warner's book on  
brewing Weissbier. There he says that the sum of pitching and  
fermentation temp should equal 30C. This never made sense to me and I  
had not come across anything similar in German brewing literature  
until I read Narziss' Abriss der Bierbrauerei where he makes a brief  
mention of an old rule that Weissbier brewers had: The sum of the  
pitching temp and the ambient temp of the fermentation room should be  
30C. Note that it refers to the temp of the fermentation room and not  
the actual fermentation temp itself. This was to make sure that the  
maximum fermentation temp doesn't exceed 18C. This rule made more  
sense to me but you have to keep in mind that it depends on the size  
of the fermenter.

Based on that I don't think that the rule of 30 applies to home  
brewing. What is key for brewing a good Weissbier is pitching colder  
than fermentation temp and keeping the fermentation temp between 17  
and 18C (63-65F). If the rule of 30 makes you do that, great. But I  
think that that rule of 30 gets too much credit and was actually never  
intended to be used the way we are using it.

As for open and closed fermentation, I have a hard time believing that  
it is the back pressure from the water column in the airlock makes a  
difference. That pressure is equal to about 50ft in elevation change  
which would mean that brewers in Denver should be making dramatically  
more different beers that brewers on the coast line. If there is a  
flavor difference between open fermentation and fermentation in a  
carboy with an air lock it must be something else.

Kai




Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:48:55 +0200
From: Mark Zunkel <mzunkel at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Hefeweizen and wit brewing

You might also want to try bottle conditioning it for a period of longer
than 7 days.  The higher the temperature (over 65F) and the longer, the more
esters will appear in the final beer.  Then do a final lagering under 45F to
drop the yeast.

Mark Zunkel


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Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:46:40 -0800
From: Bill Wright <gourmetak at gmail.com>
Subject: brewing hefes

I remember years ago in the HBD (I would guess 1997-2000) George De
Piro, a frequent contributor and award-winning homebrewer of hefe's,
saying that it was important in the brewing of wheat beers to
underpitch the yeast.  I do not have the time right now to track down
specific posts, but you might do a little research in the archives.
As I remember, George won the wheat beer category in the MCAB and went
on to become head brewer of a micro in New York.


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