excited about my hefewizen

[heavybevy]

so alllll my my estimates keep changing on the abv I know it will be somewhere between 5.5-9.2% abv...the sample I drank last night during bottling hit me harder than I was expecting A. because my estimates were telling me it should be about 6.5% and the FG as read with a refractometer was high (but very close to BF predicted FG and a buddy of mine stopped by so I decided to just put him to work and help me bottle) I bottled a few days early and anyone who read my first post probably understands that I do not need bottle bomb warnings, I'm aware that they happen but I'm stubborn AF and I'm pretty sure these aren't gonna stay on the shelf long (though they are sweet I think the sweetness reeeeeaaaallly lent itself to the heavy clove flavor and the bubblegum finish (very very very surprised at the flavor profile, it reminded me of a sweeter Summit Scandia if you've ever tried that one which is ironic because I was thinking yesterday before bottling I want to do a witbeer which this hefe has seemingly turned into) But what really chapped my ass is my siphon didn't work well and everything I tried to do to get it to function like it should just failed ,so most of the beer got oxygenated in the bottle and it just wouldn't suck up the last half gallon and as one of the best beers I've ever brewed this made me sad but then I drank it and it was awesome even without carbonation. Anyway looks like I'll be replacing my siphon to prevent the shenanigans of last night from happening to me again and in a week I will try a beer and in 2weeks I will update.

 

[Minbari]

Did you compensate for the alc? A refractometer will not work in the presence of alc.

 

[heavybevy]

I didn't, though with the previous brew it came out far dryer than I was expecting from my readings with the RF. I'm going to assume it reads high, and I figured even at the FG readings it would be worth the risk to bottle it and that if the reading is high I hit the estimate from BF and since I love to roll the dice I decided to bottle, and then toss the beers in a cardboard box which I put inside a plastic tote with a top. so I'm pretty much safe unless like half of em explode at once leaving a room full of foam. But since I know most if not all the bottles got oxygenated I didn't intend to let them sit around aging gonna toss em in the fridge in two weeks and try to save 5 for long term storage and conditioning

 

[Minbari]

I didn't, though with the previous brew it came out far dryer than I was expecting from my readings with the RF. I'm going to assume it reads high, and I figured even at the FG readings it would be worth the risk to bottle it and that if the reading is high I hit the estimate from BF and since I love to roll the dice I decided to bottle, and then toss the beers in a cardboard box which I put inside a plastic tote with a top. so I'm pretty much safe unless like half of em explode at once leaving a room full of foam. But since I know most if not all the bottles got oxygenated I didn't intend to let them sit around aging gonna toss em in the fridge in two weeks and try to save 5 for long term storage and conditioning

I think they do, but the more alc there is the more they are off. So not very reliable unless you compensate for it. There is a calc for it on this site.

What you can use them for, even with alc, is for trending. Once the readings are the same for 3 days you know fermentation is done. You just can't treat the readings as accurate

 

[Zambi]

It's the year of bottling dangerously

But more seriously, the refractometer table in brewersfriend is pretty easy to use.

 

[heavybevy]

I take every reading as a guidepost not an exact measurement from a sterile environment lol. The abv could be 5.5-9% so I don't know how to compensate for that also I had no idea what the room temp was lol. In either case the beer tasted good enough I dare say as of now the best batch I've brewed and if it turns out that I made a Witbier instead of a HW I wont cry any I prefer WB , my wife who I tried to make the HW for might be more upset about it lol.

 

[heavybevy]

It's the year of bottling dangerously

But more seriously, the refractometer table in brewersfriend is pretty easy to use.

I did try to use the calculator but am unsure about wort corrections in either case I'm not worried about it. I know it fermented, it's close to the estimate FG from the recipe calculator, and I like the way it tastes. And ,I have towels, a shop vac, and a steam cleaner for the worst case scenario, plus the time and patience to use em. Plus it hit like a truck, to put it in perspective I had roughly 3 oz of whiskey before bottling at 8:16pm(so between like 5:30 and bottling) and then after bottling around 10:45 ish Tried 12 oz of the beer (we had a bottle we simply couldn't cap) and about 6 ounces in a bottle that we half filled before the siphon refused to cooperate) my buddy had the 6 oz bottle and I the 12...I drank the bottle over about 25 minutes and had a buzz...I'm about 280 pounds or roughly 19 stone and should have processed out ALL of the scotch by then (probably much sooner) so...yeah...I almost prefer to be in the dark about all of the measurements as I am not consistent enough yet to really care beyond whether or not my brew is good. Maybe if the economy recovers I'll be able to start temperature control and get more accurate with my measurements...

 

[Zambi]

Don't worry (although I don't think you do).
I quite often forget to take gravity readings. Except for my OG as I brew "condensed", then dilute before going into the fermenter.
FG...
I don't care too much and often forget.
But I keg (even though low budget)...

 

[heavybevy]

Don't worry (although I don't think you do).
I quite often forget to take gravity readings. Except for my OG as I brew "condensed", then dilute before going into the fermenter.
FG...
I don't care too much and often forget.
But I keg (even though low budget)...

kegging is on my radar, Clawhammer definitely makes using kegs as fermenters an attractive prospect but even just using kegs instead of bottles right now it out of my budget, I'm still waiting to hear if I have a job to go back to or not and might not know until mid September... But anyway, I also like being able to look at my beer as it's fermenting it fascinates the hell out of me.

 

[Bootsy Jankus]

Just to be sure because it seems to have gotten lost in translation, you don't have to compensate or do anything fancy with the wort for the refractometer calculator. You just enter the measurement you took before yeast pitch and what the refractometer reads post-fermentation and the calculator spits out a corrected number.

The calculator just tells you what the "real" final gravity is because the alcohol makes it look quite a bit less dry than it actually is (your refractometer probably said it finished around 1.020 I'd imagine), but that's not the real number. It's most likely drier than that. They are accurate prior to fermentation and actually pretty damn accurate post-fermentation, but for the latter to be true you need the calculator to correct the reading.

I will say, with as much as you seem to be enjoying these beers you're making, I can't even imagine how good they'd taste to you if you were patient enough to give them time to fully develop! Haha

 

[heavybevy]

Just to be sure because it seems to have gotten lost in translation, you don't have to compensate or do anything fancy with the wort for the refractometer calculator. You just enter the measurement you took before yeast pitch and what the refractometer reads post-fermentation and the calculator spits out a corrected number.

The calculator just tells you what the "real" final gravity is because the alcohol makes it look quite a bit less dry than it actually is (your refractometer probably said it finished around 1.020 I'd imagine), but that's not the real number. It's most likely drier than that. They are accurate prior to fermentation and actually pretty damn accurate post-fermentation, but for the latter to be true you need the calculator to correct the reading.

I will say, with as much as you seem to be enjoying these beers you're making, I can't even imagine how good they'd taste to you if you were patient enough to give them time to fully develop! Haha

I can't help it that I like to drink. I did five gallons of a Belgian quad a few years ago, it took a year for all the off flavors to age out, and honestly dry but close to a St.Bernadus 12. Only issue was I and those in my circle of friends drank all but that one bottle before the 8 month mark. People wanted to drink it off flavors and all. I'm not against a 2 week fermentation, I had my quad in the fermenter for almost a month,but sometimes, I get bored and want to see what happens when I toss logic and wisdom out the window...that's how I learn. And yes I did 3 readings they were all right around 1.020 and the BF estimate of FG was 1.018 all visible activity (airlock, yeast flocculation,bubbles in the wort etc) had ceased for 4 days before I bottled, I had planned to do it SAT night but my buddy forgot he had purchased tickets to see Green Day and I would have had to wait until this weekend to bottle...our houseguest leaves Friday evening and I'd like her to be able to sample this even if it's not at it's peak state. She used to tell me that there's no way I can make anything as good as German beer. She was wrong lol. I will go and try the tool and see what it says.

 

[heavybevy]

so...the calculator is telling me that if all estimates are correct (even conservative OG estimates)
I ended up somewhere between 9-10 percent which is the maximum abv the yeast is advertised to handle. but it also corrects the FG to be below 1...for how sweet the fermented wort was that seems way way way off...but again this is why I take every reading as...well an estimate. for all I know my OG could have been much higher than the calculator told me but either way even when I mess around with all the numbers I end up with no information that makes my beer more enjoyable to drink. Besides ancient people brewed beer before all these measurements were available, before handwashing was a thing, before sanitation, and if they could do it so can I. But I'm also tend to enjoy the Happy accidents more than the mathematical consistency, I'm weird like that. I mean I literally ended up brewing a beer that I wanted to brew while trying to brew a beer that my wife wanted and I didn't even try to. I love that. The Dude abides.

 

[heavybevy]

an update: The beer is awesome. It's somewhere near and between a Bavarian Hefe and a Belgian Wit as I said before, but the strange thing is where I get mostly Wit flavors (slight wheat forward and clove through most of it with a slight bubblegum finish)my wife immediately said it tasted like banana bread and said it's basically Paulaner... I definitely don't taste Paulaner but man either way,they hit like a truck and go down EASY. They are currently well carbonated (even though it's been less than a week) and I would proudly serve one to any of you with my name on it. Cheers!

 

[Minbari]

an update: The beer is awesome. It's somewhere near and between a Bavarian Hefe and a Belgian Wit as I said before, but the strange thing is where I get mostly Wit flavors (slight wheat forward and clove through most of it with a slight bubblegum finish)my wife immediately said it tasted like banana bread and said it's basically Paulaner... I definitely don't taste Paulaner but man either way,they hit like a truck and go down EASY. They are currently well carbonated (even though it's been less than a week) and I would proudly serve one to any of you with my name on it. Cheers!

goof to hear! always ossum when it runs out better than you thought.

 

[heavybevy]

For sure. Makes me want to take another run at a high abv Belgian Quad.

 

[Donoroto]

an update: The beer is awesome. It's somewhere near and between a Bavarian Hefe and a Belgian Wit as I said before, but the strange thing is where I get mostly Wit flavors (slight wheat forward and clove through most of it with a slight bubblegum finish)my wife immediately said it tasted like banana bread and said it's basically Paulaner... I definitely don't taste Paulaner but man either way,they hit like a truck and go down EASY. They are currently well carbonated (even though it's been less than a week) and I would proudly serve one to any of you with my name on it. Cheers!

In a hefe, the banana and bubblegum flavors are very close to each other, so one tastes banana and the other tastes the gum. It gets very subjective.

Paulaner has less of that and more 'yeast' or bready. I guess the point is, you're both right.

 

[heavybevy]

In a hefe, the banana and bubblegum flavors are very close to each other, so one tastes banana and the other tastes the gum. It gets very subjective.

Paulaner has less of that and more 'yeast' or bready. I guess the point is, you're both right.

oh for sure, I'm just not used to such a range but I guess wheat beer is wheat beer. On a different note, the beer seems to have more a narcotic (for lack of a better term) effect than euphoric. It makes me tired more than it makes me drunk. My buddy and I each had 4 last night and in his words "this is liquid sleep".
This is new to me ,and I'm wondering why it would have such a potent "narcotic" effect.

 

[Donoroto]

oh for sure, I'm just not used to such a range but I guess wheat beer is wheat beer. On a different note, the beer seems to have more a narcotic (for lack of a better term) effect than euphoric. It makes me tired more than it makes me drunk. My buddy and I each had 4 last night and in his words "this is liquid sleep".
This is new to me ,and I'm wondering why it would have such a potent "narcotic" effect.

Could be the sugar. It is probably sweeter than a typical ale.

 

[heavybevy]

well at this point after carbonation they were fairly dry...

 

[Donoroto]

Then I'm stumped.