On my last 3 wheat beers I brewed with Safbrew WB-06 they all have finished really sour and stayed that way. It’s not an infected sour and the beers I brew alongside with us-05 all finish normally. I have had to use kits recently because I have absolutely no time between work and work. 1 was a dunkelweizen from the beer nut in Salt Lake City, the other 2 were standard weiss kits from the same store. I followed standard procedure, for a partial boil, cooled with a chiller and put them in a fridge with the temp controller set to 62. I then kegged and all three were just sort of sour. Almost tannin sour. As I said before, pale ales in the fridge right beside them fermented perfectly.
Nothing other than the fact, I have a hefe on tap that was fermented at 62f(my standard procedure). I could not figure out why it was so tart, even with a maltier than normal grain bill. Its definitely not my favorite. Reading your post made me realize it was made with wb06(normally I am a hefe iv guy, but the yeast was old and I didn’t have time to make a starter)…
I get some tartness from some weizen strains. I don’t think WB-06 is all that tart, but it’s more tart than none-at-all. I also like to lacto-ferment part of my wheat beers, though, so my tartness scale is probably a lot different than yours.
Brewed the same recipe with Wyeast 3068 with Safale 06 recently and the 06 is way more tart. Both were fermented at 72F through 2 weeks. Loved the results with the 3068. Not so much the 06. Sour candy without the sweet? Maybe a bit much, but so far not a fan.
I just did a yeast experiment with WB-06 vs. 3638. Bottled just 3 days ago. At bottling, upon tasting samples, the primary differences were that WB-06 had a distinct tartness, plus some odd red apple ester that I personally do not enjoy. 3638 definitely won this battle. More details provided on the NB forum:
The NB forum is even more dead than the AHA forum. But yeah, both still exist.
Tartness is in the taste. I have not taken pH, but could do so later. It was easily detectable tasting side-by-side against the other beer fermented with the identical wort under identical conditions but with Wyeast 3638 (which had no odd tartness at all). FWIW, my taste buds are BJCP-Certified, and I sure as hell know tartness when I taste it.
EDIT: The tartness is similar to Lacto. But I’m pretty sure it’s not Lacto. It’s not THAT sour. Not yet anyway.
Does anyone think temperatures have do deal with the amount/level of tartness this strain gives off? I just finished a röggenbier and used this strain. Much more clove phenol than banana is what I ended up with and I fermented in the lower end, around 62*. Personally I enjoyed the tartness with the rye, I have never brewed with a Hefeweizen strain until this beer.