I'm making the move from brewing all-grain kits to a "full fledged" recipe Weizen. However, I'm having trouble with some of the details: namely quantities and sparging. Some background: I've been doing small batches (4L) with fermentation on a demijohn. Only done 2 weiss so far. For those 4L, the instructions I had ask for 3L of mash water and 4L for sparging (which I do by slowly pouring the water over the sieved grain). I've found the following 5 …

I've just primed 4.5L of weissbier with 38g of demerara sugar (the only I had around) and bottled it. According to beersmith's calculator that's what I should add to achieve 3.8 volumes of Co2. After some googling, I gather the values seem to vary a bit, so I'm slightly concerned. Could I be pushing it too much and risking bottle bombs? (I should add that Beersmith was initially giving a 2.3-2.9 for that type of beer but after some googling …

I've noticed what I describe as a "plastic bag burp" property in some beers. In short, beer burps after drinking the beer have a slight plastic-y aftertaste. I notice this most often in home brew and in some less-than-stellar craft beers, but I also notice it in some (but not all) of the classic bavarian hefes (e.g. Weihenstephan, Paulaner). Given that weissbier connection I'm wondering if it's a sign of a specific ester or phenolic byproduct, specifically sought for in …

My latest brew is a Belgian White beer - a Hoegaarden stile beer. I don't have the equipment to rack this beer so I intend to bottle it after about 3 weeks in the brew barrel. This style of beer is usually a little cloudy in the glass, but my dilemma is whether I should be using finings with this brew. Anyone with experience with this style of beer? Should I use finings or would this ruin it? Cheers.