this is the truly neglected style. i may have had one once, but honestly that was i think the only time i ever saw it on the shelf. just a kristal version of some big name like schneider or so.
im kind of tempted to make one just to get cleaner packaging and i dont see the harm.
just thinking 60-pale or vienna/40wheat, 149 single infusion mash, whirfloc and add gelatin later
any special thoughts?
For a Kristallweizen, or any weizen, I’d go with at least 50% wheat to appease the brewing gods.
i dont want to. not to make a statement but the reinheitsgebot and all german beer regulations are completely ignoreable for me.
vinylguiacol4 (or whatever) is present in both barley and wheat and im aiming for a clovey clear beer. reducing wheat to 40% makes me more comfortable in terms of mashing since i dont like hassles.
What would this even taste like? For me, a wheat beer needs a bit of haze, i feel like the haze carries over the yeast character. If you filter out the haze, wouldn’t you be filtering some of the Flavor profiles?
What would you use to filter? Depending on your technique, it may also impact your flavor.
Nope, tastes pretty much the same but a bit crisper.
Kristallweizen is a well-established German style, with its own flavor profile.
FWIW, Kristallweizen is the one Weizen that is actually often served with a slice of lemon in Germany.
as a reference point - think of some of the darker weizenbocks - due to their maturation they tend to be much clearer than most weissbiers and that is actually kind of the intense flavour im looking for. i dont intend to filter the beer, just encourage settling, and minimize reintroducing yeast into it. i feel that its very possible and honestly would result in better flavour stability.
im just thinking of taking the flavour elements i like in a weissbier and making them more drinkable, shelf-stable, not being tied to common preconceptions about this style. re: crispness - dont know if i will go more towards a balanced across the board water profile or follow the advice i heard from a renowned american wheat beer brewer to go RO and just add calcium chloride, making sulfate effectively zero.
lol that is funny and i had no idea. tbh i did NOT hate it when witbiers with a lemon or orange slice were in vogue in the mid 2000s. i thought it was fun and miles better than pale lager at the bar.
I wonder what effect that will have on clarity. Since you’re not filtering, would the beer take a long time to settle, considering the lower calcium content?
My experience has been that if you let a keg of weissbier sit in the keezer/kegerator for a month, it will turn into kristallweissbier on its own. No need to filter.
It also looses some of its estery goodness, too.
yes, same i recall it not vring an inherent property of weissbiers. good to note the perceived loss of esters datapoint. i shoyld check my own notes from the past.
I’d be careful in making the assumption that correlation = causation re: yeast haze and ester character in a weissbier. I think the esters are fleeting more so because of age rather than yeast presence. It just happens that the yeast is falling out at the same time. Otherwise, rousing the keg/bottle would bring all the esters back (which it does not, in my experience). I think it is reasonable to try to start out with lower haze, then cold crash to get a Kristallweizen that is ready to drink quickly before the esters start to fade.
I agree with Eric, the esters are fleeting because of age. Weissbier is best drunk fresh, 5 days of primary fermentation and a couple of days after force carbing the beer is ready to drink. After a month, the esters really start to fade. Which is one of the reasons I haven’t brewed a weissbier in a decade, as much as I like them, as I’m not one to kill keg in a month anymore. A local craft brewery has a great weissbier on tap in the summer, getting a growler or two in the hot summer months is good enough to quench my thirst for them.