clear wheat beer?

[smdjoachim]

Having had a few cloudy wheat beers ,i thought i would make a clear (or clear as possible) wheat beer.
Nothing special just a 50/50 barley wheat combo with some cascade hops and Californian yeast.
The question is should i use copper finnings to clear the beer before fermentation or wait until after fermentation and use auxiliary finnings.
Will using finnings strip any flavours out of the finished beer.
Has anyone done this method before and what were the results.

[awalker]

If you have not done it yet up the % of wheat.
I now do 80% wheat beers they drop clear in a few weeks.
There is so much haze/cloudynesss (?) from the higher % of wheat it clears itself.

I would say that that finnings would strip some of the flavour, but I have not used finning for a long time
Now I just let time do its work

Edit: Just noticed you are going to use California Ale yeast, so it will probably clear quite well
Flavour might be quite different to a wheat beer though

[dave-o]

I use finings in dunkelweizens and it doesn't seem to affect the flavour; protofloc in the boil and gelatin in secondary.

[booldawg]

I've brewed 2 wheat beers using 50/50 Lager Malt and Wheat Malt and both have cleared. Not what I intended! I put in a tablespoon of flour on the last batch and even that seems to be clearing a little.

I think the way forward is around 80% wheat next time I attempt it.

[aeddon]

My adventures into all grain wheat beer have been far from easy, but i shall strive for success, but the extract i did dropped clear in a few weeks in secondary.

I dont have enough experience to say if it effected the flavour but it tasted like a wheatbeer, a dam good one at that.

[awalker]

I think the way forward is around 80% wheat next time I attempt it.

Go for it.
I always make sure I raise the temperature at mash out i.e. batch sparging & then first run off
It always seems to run out fine, I dont rely on rice hulls/oat husks for mashing anymore

[smdjoachim]

I am reading a book called "Brewing with wheat",by Stan Hieronymus.A very good read.
It says beers with a higher proportion of wheat clear better because they create larger protein molecules that drop out of suspension quicker.
This is called "stokes' law".In America they add something called "Tanal A" ,extracted from Chinese gallnuts to prevent this from happening , as the Americans prefer cloudy wheatbeer

[coatesg]

It says beers with a higher proportion of wheat clear better because they create larger protein molecules that drop out of suspension quicker. This is called "stokes' law".

Stokes' law technically gives you the drag force on spherical particles in a viscous fluid at low Reynolds numbers... You can derive the (theoretical) sedimentation rate from Stokes' Law, assuming the molecules you are using obey it (not being circular, they don't have to!)... .

[smdjoachim]

Can you translate into English please

[coatesg]

It's fluid dynamics - it doesn't translate well...!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokes%27_law

[crookedeyeboy]

Use both the copper finings AND auxiliary and no they dont 'strip' the flavour out of the beer.
Should be all fine with using finings. (no pun intended!)

[clogwog]

Wheat beers should be clear, just like any other beer.

The cloudiness in Hefeweizens should come from the yeast, not anything else.

If you want a clear wheat beer, try to buy some Kristalweizen, it's totally clear, but is still a fantastic drink.

[Rookie]

Wheat beers should be clear, just like any other beer.

The cloudiness in Hefeweizens should come from the yeast, not anything else.

If you want a clear wheat beer, try to buy some Kristalweizen, it's totally clear, but is still a fantastic drink.

I agree. Use a more flocculent yeast and you'll get a clear beer. WLP051 or Wyeast1272 would be good choices.
A period of cold conditioning would also help.
Kristalweizen is usually filtered, but you can get close enough to not tell much difference with the right yeast and a bit of time.

[jat147]

Clear wheat beer? .... u want a healthy kebab to go with that?? something of an oxymoron - sorry

No offence to the last 2 posters, but the finest wheat beers I've drank have come from western europe, namely
Bayern through to Benelux - and they're all cloudy by design. Hoegaarden even has instructions on the bottle on
how to pour it and dump all the yeast in the glass. I love a trip to Europe, so much choice for the wheat beer fan,
and almost exclusively cloudy.

Let it clear naturally whilst conditioning, leave the yeast behind if you want to pour a clear one.

[clogwog]

Didn't we say the same thing?

The beer itself should be clear, it's the yeast which supplies the cloudiness.

I know a fresh hefeweizen for example, will be cloudy, but that's because the yeast hasn't settled yet.

What Hoegaarden recommend, is to suspend the yeast to make it cloudy. It implies the beer is clear tot start with?