Bottling weizenbock

I have a weizenbock that I intend to put into corked Belgian bottles for Christmas. It’s been in primary for about 3 weeks now, and I’m thinking it’s getting to be about time to move it.

Should this beer go into an extended secondary (in a carboy), and bottle closer to Christmas, or would the same conditioning take place if I were to bottle it now and let it condition for an extended period of time in the bottle?

If you are naturally carbonating this in the bottles, I would say bottle as soon as possible in your case.

The reason being (and Denny disagrees with me here) is that the fermentation that occurs of the priming sugar, I find to have many of the same characteristics of the fermentation of a beer, and it can’t be rushed. In other words, as the remaining yeast are working on the table/corn sugar, they are producing some of the same nasty intermediate compounds (acetaldehyde (green apple), diacetyl (butter), etc.) as a beer fermentation. IMO this is actually one of the main causes of the ‘green’ beer flavor.

If you bottle it tonight, it will have been in the bottles about 7 weeks at Christmas. Likely not long enough to really AGE the weizenbock, but it will certainly be properly carbonated and past any point of being ‘green’.

I’d also bottle, not because I think the conditioning does anythign other than carbonation but simply because it takes time for the yeast to settle. Plus I don’t think there is a lot of difference between bottle conditioning and bulk conditioning.

Yeast won’t matter in a weizenbock, you want it in there. But I’d certainly bottle it to give it some conditioning time if you’re planning to drink it in 6 or so weeks. Just make sure it’s finished before bottling it.

I bottled this beer this past weekend and will let it age for a while. I figure a few bottles will be opened for the holidays, but I will store some for a while longer to see how they age.

Does anyone know how long would be too long to have left the beer in primary? I only ask because I understand that wheat beer yeast breaks down faster than other strains. This was in for about 3-4 weeks.

You’ll be fine.

I’ve heard of people leaving on primary for 2 months with no problems.

[quote=“gprix”]I bottled this beer this past weekend and will let it age for a while. I figure a few bottles will be opened for the holidays, but I will store some for a while longer to see how they age.

Does anyone know how long would be too long to have left the beer in primary? I only ask because I understand that wheat beer yeast breaks down faster than other strains. This was in for about 3-4 weeks.[/quote]

Can you provide links to this information?

I don’t have a link, I was going off of what I heard in a Brew Strong podcast about re-using yeast. From what I remember, hefeweizen yeast doesn’t last nearly as long as other strains. I just naturally applied this idea to the primary fermenter.