AG #65 Witbier

[BrewerBen]

One of this years goals is to brew a really good wit so thought i'd have a go early. The recipe originally came from the forum somewhere and i brewed it for my 3rd ever all grain all those years ago. I remember it turned out really nice so thought i would start there. I've substituted some acid malt in place of pilsner to reduce the alkalinity and then used 25ml of CRS to reduce it further.

Belgian Witbier
Target Gravity: 1.047
Batch size: 27L
Bitterness: 15 IBU

Grains
2500g Wheat Malt 45.05 %
2250g Pilsner 40.54 %
600g Wheat, Torrified 10.81 %
200g Acid Malt 3.60 %

Mash Schedule
Mash in 30L @ 38C
Step 1 30 mins @62C
Step 2 40 mins @72C
Step 2 10 mins @78C
Sparge 9L @78C

Hop Schedule
48g Saaz [3.10 %] (90 min) Hops 15.0 IBU
30g Coriander Seed (Boil 10.0 min)
30g Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 10.0 min)

Yeast
White Labs WLP400
Fement @ 20C

Yeast is shaken and not stirred. Starter was made on Friday night to pitch Saturday afternoon. This was using a purepitch packet of WLP400, i had a slight issue where as i cut the top of the packet i squeezed some of the contents out onto the floor, this may have caused me a issue later.


Braumeister getting going:


I should have used bitter orange peel but i didn't have any and didn't want to order in especially so substituted regular orange peel.


Runoff into fermenter is looking about the right colout for a hoegarden. This is where the problems began as the yeast starter was not yet going, i was hoping it would get there by the end of the day but it was not. I suspect it was a combination of the yeast being towards the end of its use by date and me spilling it over the floor so i sealed up the fermenter put some insulation round and had to wait until this morning.


This morning the yeast starter was looking much more healthy.


Second problem was with the starter occupying the temp controlled fridge the wort in the fermenter had dropped to 13C. I needed to bring this up to 20 to pitch the yeast so i brought the starter in the house and left in a warm spot while the fermenter went in the temp controlled fridge on a heater pad. A 25W pad would take ages to get the temp up so i also wrapped it in a 50W heater cable.


Close up of the starter just before pitching :


Yeast pitched and wort aerated. I removed the cable as i find the 25W pad works fine for just maintaining temperature. Hopefully i've got away with the 24hour wait before pitching. Seeing how much foam was on the starter is a slight worry with the lack of head space i have in the fermenter. Once it gets going i may remove the airlock or even the lid.


Finally with the starter pitched i took a gravity reading and with 28L @ 1.049 i overshot both volume and gravity for a efficiency of over 80%,


I think i need a beer after all that.

[sbond10]

Looks good I'm planning a wheat beer soon j7st gotta get my fridge sorted so I can ferment at 24 c

[BrewerBen]

Intersting yeast this one. Fermentation had slowed so took a reading yesterday and was at a nowhere near finished 1.025 so twisted the fermenter round a bit to get the yeast back into suspension and upped the temp to 22 with the expectation of it just chugging away but the next day the yeast head was back and out the airlock.

pic of the yeast a few days ago:

[Monkeybrew]

Hi Ben

I see that you've been using Acid Malt in your last few brews.

Does it reduce the alkalinity by much, and have you worked out any formula where you've noticed that say 100g reduces alkalinity by X amount?

Cheers

MB

[BrewerBen]

Hi Monkeybrew,

I use the calculator found here http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemi ... alculator/ to do the sums for me.
To be honest i lack understanding of water treatment apart from the most basic and ended up using acid malt through trial and error. When i started water treatment i found when i added enough CRS to reduce the alkalinity to the recommended levels the beers had a tang to it so i reduced the amount of crs i used and substituted acid malt.
I think i could use lactic acid but i prefer the idea of using a malt rather than another bottle of acid. My beers are now better than ever so i'm going to stick with it. I've been trying to get through the Water book but its quite hard going, especially if I've had a home brew or two.
On the subject of this beer it turned out really good, very close to the Hoegaarden in flavour but a little darker and not as aromatic. I think the aroma could be down to the orange peel used and i may be tempted to add some late or dry hops next time. The bitterness was spot on.