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  • Belgian Wit Bier

    Grootings all,
    I'm having trouble at the moment with the amount of yeast in suspension in our Belgian Wit. It's our biggest seller, easily 300Ltrs over the bar a week. The problem is that the boss and customers find it "too cloudy" when it first comes on tap with a new batch. I was using Wyeast 3944, but switched to 3522 for a better floc. The brew smells and tastes great, but it just has a lot of flocculation problems.

    I normally crop close to 50Ltrs when it's first transferred to the bright tank (conical), then served from the 2nd valve. That usually does the trick. This time around, I've had to try and filter off some of the beer, then return it to the tank, hoping that this'll help to clear it up some.

    Any theories?

    Brew Before Dishonour!
    TIM Thomas
    Head Brewer
    Five Islands Brewing Company
    Wollongong, NSW
    Australia

  • #2
    Wow............

    Tim,

    Aren't tastes an odd thing?

    Up here, we made a Wit and it was as cloudy as a Hefe-Weizen. Our customers loved it.

    Nearly all wheat beers in the Northwest US are cloudy.

    Regards,

    Comment


    • #3
      If you have a microscope check the cell count of the "too cloudy" beer, and compare it to your "acceptable" beer. Then you know what your target is each time.

      Yeast flocculation is strain dependent. Your brewing liquor alkalinity has a great impact on a yeast ability to settle post fermentation. Your yeast harvesting practices also influence settling characterisitics.

      So check your water, does the alkalinity fluctuate from day to day? This is common in a municpality where water is harvested from a well field, and the sources switches throughout the day or week. Harder water equals earlier flocculation, but also equals a chance you may not reach attenuation.

      Zinc will help your yeast flocculate. This can be added prefermentation in several forms, probably the safest is to use a natural yeast nutrient, yeastex(R) or servomyces(R). If you do that already, add a bit more until you hit the right result. It will also help out your peak cell count and reach attenuation.

      Make sure you pitch the proper amount of yeast. Monitor your peak cell count. If you aerate with oxygen, your peak cell count may be too high. If the yeast does not flocculate well you could carry over too many cells into the finished product. If your beer loss increased recently it could be a possible result of high oxygenation levels.

      Chilling the beer post fermentation will help you settle more yeast. Adjust your brewing schedule so that you can get an extra week of aging time as close to 0 c as you can get. Follow this process microscopically, and know the rate of settling in your hardware.

      Lastly, did your raw materials change? New malt, new wheat/oats etc? Did any of your mashing procedures or fermentation parameters change?

      Most of the haze left over in "wheat beers" is not yeast, but proteins. So a change in raw materials and process could alter the appearance.

      Good Luck,
      B
      Last edited by zbrew2k; 04-08-2005, 10:24 AM.

      Comment


      • #4
        flocculation additives maybe?

        Couldnt you just try adding in some Whirfloc or even good ol' Irish Moss to help settle out more yeast? Or does this stuff just work on proteins?

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        • #5
          Copper finings such as Whirlfloc / irish moss etc. are designed for kettle use. Things need to be hot and in motion for them to work properly. Their use (in the kettle) could help tremendously if the problem is excess haze protein type haze. For the cold side, an isinglass type and a silica type fining would most likely work best for fining / clarity. Using the three, and a trick or two (time, temperature, etc.) it should be relatively easy to produce very bright beer very quickly. Using kettle finings and time and temperature alone it is still very possible to brew "bright-ish" beer. (For those adverse to the use of "fish" in their brew)

          To help with flocculation, check as above, yeast growth, and nutrition, water ion content, etc. Calcium can also aid flocculation. I think there was another thread a while back that went into this in more detail.

          Cold aging always helps, too!

          Cheers,
          Ron

          Comment


          • #6
            Cheers guys, thanks for the replies.

            We haven't changed any of the raw ingredients, same ol' 50/50 wheat/pils, but possibly the yeast is over oxygenated.

            The boss rang me yesterday just after I posted, and asked me to come in this morning to filter the wit. All that yummy yeast character that makes a wit is now gone. I have no problem with the look of the beer, I as a brewer expect this style to be cloudy, like a hefe, but I just make the beer, not the desicions.

            Thanks again,
            BBD!
            TIM Thomas
            Head Brewer
            Five Islands Brewing Company
            Wollongong, NSW
            Australia

            Comment


            • #7
              transfer, transfer

              try transferring it a couple of times. the yeast wil only floc so much when there's a high population.

              cheers! JOHN

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