Franconian Beer Message Board
Wheat beers |
| Posted by Fred W on 2018-03-08 07:03:37 |
| Dredged from the vast amounts of trivia residing in my brain... Many of the larger German Wheat Beer breweries will filter out the fermentation yeast and bottle with a lager yeast -- for stability reasons we were told (Schneider is an exception). However, lager yeast by law can only be grown in wort that is 100% barley malt. If the wheat beer was an even 50/50 wheat/barley adding the lager yeast will tip this over to over 50% barley which is a no-no, so they will brew the original beer with 55% (or more) wheat so this doesn't happen. Malted wheat does have enzymes and a 100% wheat mash in theory could work (though it would take longer for conversion). The problem is malted wheat has no husk and it is the barley husk that provides the main filter medium in a traditional lauter tun (some breweries use a plate filter mechanism instead but I don't know if any do in Germany). Wheat malt also makes for a gummier mash and too much wheat can make the mash "stick." Homebrewers got around the husk issue by using oat hulls but I don't think that would work on a commercial scale. And BTW, Weihenstephan does brew some decent lagers (decent in the universe of German beers available in the US, not decent in the universe of Franconia beers) |
| Followups: |
 Wheat beers by Jason on 2018-03-08 08:13:10 |
| Wheat beers by TomM on 2018-03-09 02:18:02 |
| Wheat beers by Jason on 2018-03-09 04:47:50 |
| Wheat beers by TomM on 2018-03-09 05:25:42 |
| Wheat beers by Jason on 2018-03-10 04:52:56 |
| Wheat beers by Carl on 2018-03-10 08:37:03 |