• Welcome to the new forum! We upgraded our forum software with a host of new boards, capabilities and features. It is also more secure.
    Jump in and join the conversation! You can learn more about the upgrade and new features here.

Low Fermentation Temperature for a Hefe

philm63

Grandmaster Brewer
Joined
Jul 6, 2012
Messages
372
Reaction score
0
Location
Plain City, OH
Brewing my first Hefe this weekend and I am thinking of pitching at 60 F, and letting it go to 62 F for the first few days. I'm using WLP300 and have a healthy starter crashed and ready to go. I also plan on hitting the chilled wort with pure O2 this time (finally got my system put together). My fermentations normally take off within 6 hours or so.

Knowing all this; can I expect a slower-than-normal start to my fermentation? White Labs says 68 F as the low end of the range, and I'm tossing it in at 60 F. Will this be a big deal? Should I maybe raise that pitch temp a few degrees?
 
Read the first post in this (50 page) thread: http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?t=40751

It's an excellent discussion of an extended, multi-brewer investigation of Bavarian weizen, all summarized in an edited version of the first post. I used it to make a weizen that emphasized clove and virtually eliminated banana flavors.

Do not let the published fermentation temperature range misslead you!
 
I've had much better results at 62/63F, but usually use Wye 3068.  I would be shocked if White hefe yeast could not handle 62F.
 
Apparently it's handling it quite nicely! I pitched at 58 F around 3 PM yesterday and set the temperature controller to 60 F, and by 4 in the morning I had about 3 inches of thick white krausen and the airlock was going bonkers!
 
Back
Top