Kristallweizen Homebrew Recipe and Review – All Grain / No Chill

A Krystalweizen is a brilliantly clear version of a 10A Weissbier category, and if you’re going to enter one into a competition, make sure you declare it’s the krystal version in the extra info section of your entry form.

(The recipe for this beer can be found at the bottom of this page)

It wasn’t that long ago that we had an episode on Kristallweizen, and this version is basically the same recipe as Mike did last time, but in this case, he didn’t underpitch, and fermented it at 68 degrees, in a closed fermenter. Both of those were to reduce the banana flavor and hopefully bring out some more clove. It ended up with a good balance.

As you may have seen in previous episodes, Mike believes that underpitching the yeast, fermenting in the low 70’s, and using an open fermentation really help to max out the banana aroma and flavors due to increased ester production. One warning though, if you get too high on the temperature, you can actually off gas most of the banana esters and not have much left in the finished beer, so be careful with the temperature.

The BJCP 2015 guidelines call for “moderate to strong phenols (usually clove) and fruity esters (typically banana)” and also states that “the best examples are reasonably balanced and fairly prominent”. Mike’s versions are always very banana forward, but in this case, as it was going to be entered into the Peterson Homebrew Competition, he wanted to get a better balance.

The wort and recipe are exactly the same as his hefeweizen recipe, the only difference is he used the WLP380 Hefeweizen IV yeast in the hopes it was going to be more floculant. There wasn’t a side by side comparison, but he thinks it did in fact help.

The other steps used to make it clear was the use of a floating dip tube in the fermenter and then racking it to a keg with a floating dip tube. After the keg was chilled, he used some gelatin and cold crashed to make it clear. Since the beer clears from top to bottom, the floating dip tube pulling off of the top of the keg produced clear beer much quicker than drawing from the bottom of the keg would have.

Krystallweizen, and of course Hefeweizen, are styles that really should be enjoyed as fresh as possible. To aid in the quick turn around, Mike also used a carbonation lid on the keg to get it carbed quickly.

The last video can be found here:
https://cobrewtalk.com/kristallweizen-clear-hefeweizen-homebrew-recipe-and-review/

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It wasn’t that long ago that we had an episode on Kristallweizen, this is basically the same recipe as Mike did last time, but in this case, he didn’t underpitch, and fermented it at 68 degrees, in a closed fermenter. Both of those were to reduce the banana flavor and hopefully bring out some more clove. It ended up with a good balance.

A floating dip tube in the fermenter and racking it to a keg with a floating dip tube, in addition to gelatin, made the beer brilliantly clear.
The reason for all the changes? Mike was entering the Peterson Homebrew Competition with this beer, and the style guidelines call for low to moderately strong banana and clove flavor, often well balanced. Most of the time, Mike goes for max banana.

The last Krystallweizen video can be found here:
https://cobrewtalk.com/kristallweizen-clear-hefeweizen-homebrew-recipe-and-review/

Paradox Krystallweizen All Grain / No Chill Homebrew Recipe