WL300 and HefeWeizen brew - best temp for banana/clove

Ingredients
1

I’m a newbie who just brewed an all grain HefeWeizen with WL300 yeast. I wanted a LOT of banana and clove and was told to ferment very cool… like at 62-64*F to get the most banana and clove. I also thought I read that somewhere.

BUT, I just saw a post on another forum where someone was told NOT to ferment cool if desiring banana and clove.

I’m confused… ??? What is the best temp to get the most banana and clove … cool or warm??

Thanks for any help…

2

300 will give you a lot of banana either way. Higher temps give you unwanteds in your beer too though.
Ferment at the proper temp and I think it’s more important the strain of yeast you choose to get the flavors you want from the yeast. Hefe IV will give you the cloves/spiciness.

-OCD

3

So, the best advice is to try it yourself and see what you like.

However, my advice is that as long as you pitch enough health yeast, fermenting cool produces a well balanced ester/phenol profile of banana and clove.  WLP380 at 62 degrees is my preference.  But you should definitely try and find out for yourself.

4

Thanks guys…

I keg’d the Hefeweizen and it tasted fine but not being carbed yet I couldn’t tell for sure.

I appreciate the feedback … and will look into WLP380 as well.

Thanks again…

5

From what I understand, the 300 is the same yeast strain as the Wyeast 3068, which I have used a few times.  With the 3068, I kept fermentation around 72 degrees, trying to get more nanner, but it ended up tasting like sulfur more than anything.  62 is supposedly the best temp according to JZ, which is where my next brew will ferment.
PW

6

Most German Breweries ferment their weissbiers in the high 50s/low 60s. There are some who ferment warmer - but it will ultimately depend on the strain. My experience has always been you get a much more authentic HefeWeizen if you keep the temps on the cool side. If you want banana and clove you need to use WLP380 HefeWiezen IV. WLP300 is mostly banana.

7

I ended up fermenting it at 59-62*F and it turned out great with a lot of banana. But the clove was almost non-existent. I love clove.

I’ll try the 380 next time.

Thanks Major!!

8

Another thing you can try is a ferulic acid rest at 111 degrees for 20 minutes. This increases 4- vinyl-guaiacol which the yeast use to tun into the clove phenols. IME the beers that I have done a ferulic acid rest on have had a little more clove character than those that didn’t. Not write home to mama more, but more none-the-less.

9

Being a new brewer I’ve never done anything but single temp mashes. I tried to do a rest but did it at 125*F but was still afraid I would not be able to get my temp up to where I needed to go before filling my MLT. Even at 125 I ended up having to have to take some liquid out and heat it up (sort of like a decoction) to get to my mash temp (I’m using an Igloo cooler so I couldn’t add direct heat to the MLT).

Next time I will try to do things differently (maybe thicker intial mash for the rest then add some very hot 220 water etc.). Obviously still learning… ;D

Thanks again Keith !!