Wyeast 3944 – Belgian Witbier Yeast Strain

I have to admit, I tend to be a White Labs guy. For the Belgian Witbier that I brewed up, I ordered the Wyeast 3944 yeast strain because I didn’t think the yeast was going to survive the trip from Minnesota to my house via ground transport.

Wyeast’s pouch allows me to see how viable the yeast is before I pitch it.  I was making a starter anyway, but I also wanted the piece of mind that I had healthy yeast to start with.

I smacked the pack and it wasn’t that inflated after three hours.  I didn’t panic but I was beginning to put together a back up plan.

I made a 2 liter starter and pitched the pouch into it.  After 24 hours, there wasn’t a lot of visible activity.  I began to carve out some time to visit my Local Home Brew Shop.

After 36 hours, I saw krausen forming and by the time it was ready to pitch into my wort, it was really active.

A few things about this strain that I experience and read things online that backed up what I witnessed:

• Slow starting.  I was glad I made a starter 3 days before I brewed.
• A real top cropper.  Once fermentation started, it really started to foam up the top of my carboy.  My airlock was filled with yeasty sludge.
• I thought it had a mellow phenolic scent while it was working.  Some people thought it really stunk bad.  I’ve had lager yeast smell a whole lot worse.  This strain smelled pleasant as compared to the sulfur bad egg smell I have encountered before