Wheat Style Beers

[MikeDelta1]

Hello all,

My friends and I have started a small brew club and we have 6 batches under our belts, our normal technique is brew, ferment in bucket for one week rack to carboy for one week, rack again to another carboy for a week, then bottle. My question is this:

We are brewing a Belgian White and a Bavarian Dunkelweizen this week and they are supposed to be a little cloudy. Should we follow our procedures of double secondary or will this clear the beer too much? Our other beers have turned out real clear with this procedure and don't want lose the natural characteristics of the wheat beer.

Thanks ahead of time

[richanne]

The reason wheat beer is cloudy is that the proteins from the wheat malt stay suspended and never drop to the bottom. Yes, using a double secondary, you will lose some of that cloudiness. The same thing would happen if you just let it sit too long as well. We recommend one week in primary and one week in secondary and then bottle (or keg) and drink a week or two later. Most wheat beer is designed to be enjoyed young. (Your Belgian Whit beer may be one exception to that.)

We typically use a double secondary only if we're brewing a heavy lager that is going to sit in cold conditioning for awhile, to get the wort off the yeast.