White Labs Yeast – 380 Hefeweizen IV Ale White Labs

Very nice flavor from this. 380 produces a very balanced German wheat flavor with nice spice, fruit, and banana. I have tried other strains, including those purported to be based on Weihenstephan 68, and it has not worked well for me. It’s not just banana and bubble gum. Aroma from WLP380 is lightly spicy (nutmeg, allspice), clovey, slightly stone fruit, banana is present in noticeable amounts too. Less than some other strains, but still clearly there. If you’ve been unhappy with other strains and want more spice in a weizen, this might work.

I fermented a 1.052 dunkenweizen and a 1.080 weizenbock. The flavor compliments the darker weizen beers quite well. I fermented at 60F in an open fermenter. Seems like about a 24 hour lag and beers were finished in 10-14 days. The weizenbock was a repitch from the dunkel that I top cropped. It was about 80% attenuated by day four so the repitch was pretty brisk at fermenting.

The attenuation listed is not what I experienced. Plan for about a 73% attenuation. But don’t be surprised to see a 70-74% attenuation rather than the 80%. I got a little bit of sulfur towards the end but very minimal. Oxygenate and use some nutrient as well. To eek out a bit more attenuation, I raised the temp to 68F for about a week.

Compared to other weizen yeasts the flocculation was the same: slow and poor. Overall a pretty solid yeast.