I am going to be making my first wheat beer and was thinking to try and step culture yeast from a bottle of really good hefeweizen.  However, just in case I don’t culture up enough I am also going to use an American hefeweizen yeast strain.  I know that mixing yeast is OK to do, but what will happen exactly?  Will the yeast just share the sugars or will they blend to form a different strain of yeast all together?
Tor Mckee
Hanford, California

I know that my conservative brewing advice probably irritates many readers and I am likely going to irritate you with my answer, so please take no offense.
   
So let me re-state your question. You have never brewed a wheat beer before, have nothing about your subsequent wheat beer to tweak and the first thing that jumps to mind is using the dregs from a really good bottle of hefeweizen to make a yeast starter. That’s an interesting idea . . . I suppose. But you need to keep in mind that many German hefeweizen brewers use lager yeast for bottle conditioning and many pasteurize their weizen before adding priming yeast and sugar or speise (wort). So it is possible to unknowingly culture lager yeast from the bottom of the bottle.
   
But you have a back-up plan; if all starts to go south you are prepared to add an American hefeweizen strain. I assume you mean a neutral ale strain used by American craft brewers to brew cloudy wheat beers without the phenolic, fruity notes associated with German weizen beers. If this were me, my back-up plan would be adding weizen yeast if the goal is to produce weizen. Many beers are fermented with mixed cultures and the result really depends on the cultures in the mixture. Since it is difficult to maintain a consistent mixed culture, most breweries prefer single strain yeast cultures for fermentation. Unless there is a really good reason for using a mixed culture, for example in beers that use a different strain for secondary fermentation, I agree with the modern and easy trend of single strain fermentation.
   
When I was a student at UC-Davis I decided to do something very similar to your plan for my first attempt at brewing Belgian-style ale. I bought a 750 mL bottle of Chimay, brought it back to the brewing lab and proceeded to streak the sediment from the bottle onto a Petri dish. I logically wanted to isolate the magic Chimay yeast strain from the source. After step one was complete, I propagated yeast from a single colony and anxiously prepared for the big brewing day. What followed was intense disappointment; the beer was so phenolic that the only thing it was good for was to use it as a standard for medicinal in tastings.
   
Here is my advice to you. Begin your wheat beer brewing career using a known yeast strain. Select it based on some sort of expectation. We brew a pretty tasty hefeweizen at Springfield Brewing Company using White Labs WLP380 Hefe Weizen IV. I like this yeast because it has more clove aromas in the nose than banana. We also brew a pretty tasty American wheat beer that has been our best seller since we opened in 1997. This beer is brewed using White Labs WLP001. Both of these beers are very clean and have short, healthy primary fermentations that are over in about three days. The only way to consistently have these types of fermentation cycles is to use good yeast.
   
Cut your teeth with a recipe for success and then venture outside of the box once you know what you are seeking from the bottom of that bottle of weizen from across the pond. Otherwise, you really have no idea where your journey may lead!


Soon I’ll brew a personal style of Westvleteren and I’m a little bit confused about the use of Belgian candy syrup. for a final batch of 23 liters (6 gal.) I’ll use 1.53 kg (3.37 lbs.) of syrup. I read to add the syrup in three steps: 1/3 at the beginning of boil, 1/3 the last five to ten minutes and 1/3 in the secondary. What are the differences between the two different additions to the boil? Because the boiling time will be 90 minutes, can I have caramelization problems? The temperature of the secondary will be 10 °C (50 °F) for eight to ten weeks. Will the yeast be able to use the candy syrup?
Filippo Franzonilseo
Brescia, Italy

Candy syrup or candy sugar (usually named “candi” sugar) is a fancy name for beet sugar that has been caramelized into syrup with a dark color and rich flavor. The flavor of candi sugar is definitely rich and I can understand why brewers use it as a source of fermentables and flavors. I personally have used dark candi sugar in Belgian-style dubbels and the beer turned out great. However, I honestly don’t know if the candi sugar added color or flavor since I used special malts for the most obvious contributors of flavor.The instructions you describe above have a few details that I question. The first detail is the suggestion of adding the sugar at two different times during the boil. The candi sugar has been caramelized during the manufacture and I do not believe there is a need to boil it for a long time. Also, since browning reactions between sugars and amino acids are favored by higher pH levels, there is really not much browning or caramelization that is likely to occur during boiling.
   
I would add the sugar towards the end of the boil to make sure that it goes into solution and that it has been exposed to heat to kill anything that may be on the surface.The other detail I question is adding the third portion to the fermenter. While it is true that yeast do metabolize sugars differently and that having too much of these easier-to-metabolize sugars can lead to stuck fermentations, my experience leads me to believe that this is not something that should be a major concern. I would be more concerned about expecting ale yeast to ferment sugar added to beer that is aging at 10 °C (50 °F). I suggest simplicity unless something more complex is warranted. The type of beer you want to brew is one of my favorites when properly brewed and I think you will be happy adding all of your sugar in one addition towards the end of the boil.