Wheat beers

[booldawg]

I've recently made a wheat beer and bought a Hoegaarden to see what the real thing tastes like. I noticed the Hooegaarden definitely had various spices/flavours in it that couldnt be derived from hops/grains/yeast. What are these spices and what quantities would you use in a standard 25L brew length?

[mysterio]

You'd be surprised how much of it comes from the yeast, fermented at the correct temperature. Even if you used no spices using it would get you very close to Hoegaarden. WLP400 from white labs or wyeast do a belgian white yeast.

Curacao orange peel and coriander (seed) are the two main spices, some say chamomile too. for a 5 gallon batch, 15g of crushed coriander and about 30g of peel is a good start.

[booldawg]

Thanks Mys, may use some in my next attempt. I used WB06 for my current batch, tasty but nowhere near spicy as Hoegaarden.

[mysterio]

Trust me on the yeast, it seems to generate spice! I split the liquid yeast into 5 earlier in the year and i'm still using it.

[adm]

I did one recently that came out very similar indeed to Hoegaarden.

The recipe and brew thread is here.

I used less spice than Mysti's recommendation, but it could certainly handle a bit more and I would be inclined to go with his amounts.

Yeast was Wyeast 3944 and it came out tasting just right. Spicy and a bit tart.

Things I would do differently is to not bother with a protafloc tablet, and make sure to crush the coriander seeds! ( I ended up crushing some more and dropping them into the FV)

This was a lovely beer and I will definitely make it again in the spring. One thing to watch out for is that the cloudiness will drop out of the beer if you leave it long enough and cold enough. The last few pints of mine were crystal clear and looked like commercial lager! A shake of the keg would fix that though if you were worried about it.

[oblivious]

Safale T-58 is another very good yeast options for Wits