[oly]

Thanks for the recipe help, just what I needed. 
I'll probably do a single infusion, not up to the step/decoctions yet.

[Malticulous]

I finally got around to packaging my weiss biers today. There is not much banana in the Hefeweizen but the dunkel is loaded with banana. The grain bills are quite a bit different but I know it's all form the pitch rates. The mash schedule and fermenting temperature were the same.

Playing with Wyeast's calculator it seems I pitched the hefe at 9 million cells per milliliter and the dunkel at only 3 million. I believe that just one pack of yeast (or a very small starter just to prove the yeast) is the best way to get banana. Chris white said in his new book that 5 million per milliliter is best for hefes and some British ales.

I didn't notice any clove phenols. Maybe it will come out when it's conditioned.

[thcipriani]

I use the White Labs nutrient for all my batches. Good thought though. Also, the first batch I brewed I fermented around 64. The second I did at 58. The 58 degree one actually had less of the sulphur character. I am totally stumped what the problem was. Definitely open to any suggestions.

What was your pitching rate and O2 rate? I recently pitched a hefe with 3068 at 12E6/mL, O2 to 13 mg/L – really sulfury.

I recently read an abstract on the MBAA site about how beers with pitching rates of 3, 6, 9 and 12E6/mL finished with an even cell count. Higher pitching rates lead to older cell populations. My theory is that a low vitality (resulting from an older cell population) yeast is either more likely to produce sulfur OR is less able to clean sulfur out after creating it.

Tried to brew the same hefe recently with identical process, but pitched at 6E9/mL (and 8.5mg/L O2) and it tastes great.

Grasping at straws, more data points would be helpful.