Hefeweizen Ale Yeast (WLP300)

Description

White Labs Hefeweizen Ale Yeast (WLP300) is perfectly suited to brewing German Hefeweizen style wheat beers. This yeast has low flocculation and produces cloudy beers with suspended yeast. This strain is valued for its flavorful fermentation byproducts. It produces ample amounts of banana-flavored esters and clove-flavored phenols. These flavors balance in favor of banana. White Labs' Hefeweizen IV Ale Yeast (WLP380) is a similar strain that produces comparatively more clove.

This is rumored to be essentially the same strain as Wyeast's Weihenstephan Weizen (WY3068), with both derived from the same yeast at the Weihenstephan Brewery.

Many people prefer to underpitch this strain slightly, using lower than normal cell counts. This results in slightly stressed yeast with an increased number of cell divisions and increases the desirable banana and clove character. Fermenting this yeast on the cool side still allows for noticeable banana and clove flavors. While warmer fermentation seems to introduce mild bubble gum flavors. The ideal balance of these flavors is of course a matter of personal taste.

Beer Styles

This strain is well suited for German-style wheat beers: weizen/weissbier, hefeweizen, kristalweizen, and dunkelweizen. It could also be used for other German wheat and rye beers such as weizenbock and roggenbier. Possibly could work for experimental versions of Belgian styles.

Yeast Characteristics

Yeast Form	Liquid
Attenuation (%)	72 - 76
Flocculation	Low
Optimum Temp. (°F)	68 - 72
Alcohol Tolerance	Medium

References

1. White Labs. http://www.whitelabs.com. Retrieved 2013-08-23.