Witbier

[Uncle Joshua]

My son just visited and asked me to brew him a witbier. has anyone got a good recipe? He tends to drink a little fast so I'd like to keep it to around 5%.

[seymour]

They're all pretty similar in make-up, to be honest. Around 50% pale barley malt, 50% wheat, with noble hops, sometimes coriander and orange peel in the late boil, and a low-flocculating Belgian Wit yeast. Use a long multi-step mash in order to make it as fermentable as possible. Believe it or not, the Mauri Weiss yeast is excellent for this style, despite being dried, and despite being marketed as a German Weiss strain. I really liked it: crisp dry finish with lots of black pepper and clove notes.


Hoegaarden White/Witte
Brouwerij Hoegaarden - Hoegaarden, Belgium
OG: 1048
ABV: 4.9%
IBU: 16.5
Colour: hazy golden
Grainbill: 50% Pilsener, 45% Unmalted Wheat, 5% Oats
Hops: Nugget (75 min), Styrian Goldings and Saaz (15 min), Coriander, Curacao Orange Peel (5 min)
Yeast: the original Belgian Wit yeast, available as Wyeast 3944, White Labs WLP400


Belgian Wit
from 1992 book: Brewing the World's Great Beers by Dave Miller
OG: 1043
ABV: 4.5%
IBU: 14
Colour: hazy golden
Grainbill: 69% Pale, 31% Wheat (malt or unmalted)
Hops: Hallertau, Fuggles or Goldings, 2/3 of total for 60 min, 1/3 of total for 15 min
Yeast: Belgian Wit strain


Witte Raaf/White Raven
Hertog Jan Brouwerij - Arcen, Netherlands
ABV: 5.0%
IBU: ≈15
Colour: hazy golden
Grainbill: Pilsener Malt, Wheat Malt (probably 50/50)
Hops: Perle (90 min), Hersbrucker (15 min)
Yeast: Belgian Wit strain


Blue Moon Belgian White
MolsonCoors/Blue Moon - Golden, Colorado, USA
OG: 1053
ABV: 5.4%
IBU: 18
Colour: hazy golden
Grainbill: Pale, White Wheat, Oats
Hops: High-alpha extact or Cascade (45 min & 15 min), Valencia orange peel, Coriander (at flame-out)
Yeast: Belgian Wit strain

[Barley Water]

I think that making a really good Wit Bier is extremely difficult and I have tasted very few homebrewed examples that I thought were all that good. Generally, the major problem with most of them is that the mouthfeel is not right; the beer can come off a very thin and watery if not done correctly. When Piere Celis was making wit down in Austin I was lucky enough to try a fresh sample in a bar here in Dallas and it was heaven in a glass. I have read that using oats helps as well as at least some unmalted wheat. Additionally, it has been suggested by some that doing a decoction (or cereal mash on the unmalted grains) will really help with the mouthfeel. I know that a decoction will help when making a German Heffe; maybe there is just something about decoctions and wheat that works well together, I really don't know. If you try and make a wit with just a simple infusion mash I am afraid however that you will be disappointed with the results.

This is going to be the summer of wheat beers for me. Besides doing my yearly heffe, I am going to try and develop a really good hop bursted American wheat. I just got my hands on a six pack of Gumball Head from 3 Floyds to do a little research (you can't get it here in Dallas). I'm not going to try and make a clone, I just want to see what they are doing as it may give me some ideas. I would love to find time to screw around with wit bier just to see what I can do. The problem with wheat beers in general (and heffes in particular) is that they don't store well which means I need to brew all my wheats just before the contest deadline and that causes capacity issues.

[Cazamodo]

I recently brewed this,

T1mjv wrote:I got the idea from this blog.
http://www.fermentarium.com/homebrewing ... -wit-beer/
But I altered things a little following is the recipe I did last and it was one of the best Ive made so far served ice cold it was fantastic .

lengh 40 lts

Wheat malt 4660 gms
Lager malt 1990gms
Vienna malt 880 gms (no reason for this other than it needed using up)
Golden naked oats 500 gms. Boiled on the stove then added to the mash .(any oats will do I had these in stock)

90 minute mash at 68*c I like a bit of body in my beers.

Do a mash out and keep the temp up as with all the wheat/oats it is a sticky mash. You may like to add rice hulls !
You probably know all this about wheatbeers !!

Cascade 51gms for 90 min boil
then for the last 15 mins of the boil:
1 teaspoon of crushed corriander seeds and
1 tablespoon of wheat flour to keep a haze in the beer and
zest of three limes

Aurura and Santiam a handful each, steep after temp down to 80*c (bobek is also good adds citrus)

Fermented with the afore-mentioned BrewLab witbeer yeast.

Suggested to me by Seymour, and it came out great. Its still not exactly what I'm looking for, but I bottled it and 2 weeks after bottling I'm going through them rather quickly. I like it, and everyone who has tried it said its my best attempt at a Wit yet. Still needs improving though.

However! It is my first Wit which I got close to the mouth feel I'm after. Infact its more than lose, its a smooth silky feel that coats the mouth. So I would definitely try adding oats to re-produce this.


Let us know what you brew and how it turns out, I'm hoping to try a few Wit/hefes until I nail one and can make it regularly!

[zgoda]

The best one I ever made was quite simple, 50% pilsner, 45% unmalted wheat, 5% unmalted oats (raw grain, not flakes). 1 tsp fresh ground coriander, peel of 4 oranges and 4 grapefruits, Styrian hops for bittering only up to 20 IBU. With such amount of adjuncts cereal mash is required, then proceed as normal but mash low to get highly fermentable wort, for single infusion it'd be 63-64c I think. This beer was very similar to Blanche de Bruxelles.

[Uncle Joshua]

Belgian Wit
from 1992 book: Brewing the World's Great Beers by Dave Miller
OG: 1043
ABV: 4.5%
IBU: 14
Colour: hazy golden
Grainbill: 69% Pale, 31% Wheat (malt or unmalted)
Hops: Hallertau, Fuggles or Goldings, 2/3 of total for 60 min, 1/3 of total for 15 min
Yeast: Belgian Wit strain

So, now I have..100G of Hersbrucher, 100g Fuggles, 68g Goldings. and 1.5kg Wheat malt.

I was thinking, maybe I could get two brews out of them..put one onto the crud?

[seymour]

Sure, why not?

[Uncle Joshua]

How would you hop it Seymour?

[seymour]

How would you hop it Seymour?

In that case, for a 5 gallon batch, I'd probably do something like this:

.5 oz/14 g, Herbrucker, 60 min
.5 oz/14 g, Fuggles, 60 min
.25 oz/7 g, Hersbrucker, 15 min
.25 oz/7 g, Goldings, 15 min

This should produce a nice refined mix of German noble and classic English hop characteristics; two-thirds for bittering, and one-third for aroma. Don't bother with Irish Moss or any other clarifiers this time, since Belgian Wit is meant to be cloudy.

[Uncle Joshua]

Would I be better getting another hop to go with the Herbrucker?

[seymour]

As always, it all depends on what you're going for, but I would say no. What you've got there should be excellent. Fuggles and Goldings are often considered English "noble" types. With a traditional Belgian Witbier, you just want soft, classic, aromatic hops in the background, so these certainly fit the bill.

[T5FAU]

The best one I ever made was quite simple, 50% pilsner, 45% unmalted wheat, 5% unmalted oats (raw grain, not flakes). 1 tsp fresh ground coriander, peel of 4 oranges and 4 grapefruits, Styrian hops for bittering only up to 20 IBU. With such amount of adjuncts cereal mash is required, then proceed as normal but mash low to get highly fermentable wort, for single infusion it'd be 63-64c I think. This beer was very similar to Blanche de Bruxelles.

Did you do any 15min hops with this or later ?
Also, for the oats, are these oat husks ? or just simply oats ? Where did you get these from ?

Cheers

[zgoda]

Only single fwh or 60 mins hop addition, no aroma/late hopping at all. Oats was just that, plain grains, bought it at my local farmer's market. If you aren't too picky just use rolled oats or flakes/porridge, they taste smoother.

[Fido97]

I recently brewed this,

T1mjv wrote:I got the idea from this blog.
http://www.fermentarium.com/homebrewing ... -wit-beer/
But I altered things a little following is the recipe I did last and it was one of the best Ive made so far served ice cold it was fantastic .

lengh 40 lts

Wheat malt 4660 gms
Lager malt 1990gms
Vienna malt 880 gms (no reason for this other than it needed using up)
Golden naked oats 500 gms. Boiled on the stove then added to the mash .(any oats will do I had these in stock)

90 minute mash at 68*c I like a bit of body in my beers.

Do a mash out and keep the temp up as with all the wheat/oats it is a sticky mash. You may like to add rice hulls !
You probably know all this about wheatbeers !!

Cascade 51gms for 90 min boil
then for the last 15 mins of the boil:
1 teaspoon of crushed corriander seeds and
1 tablespoon of wheat flour to keep a haze in the beer and
zest of three limes

Aurura and Santiam a handful each, steep after temp down to 80*c (bobek is also good adds citrus)

Fermented with the afore-mentioned BrewLab witbeer yeast.

Suggested to me by Seymour, and it came out great. Its still not exactly what I'm looking for, but I bottled it and 2 weeks after bottling I'm going through them rather quickly. I like it, and everyone who has tried it said its my best attempt at a Wit yet. Still needs improving though.

However! It is my first Wit which I got close to the mouth feel I'm after. Infact its more than lose, its a smooth silky feel that coats the mouth. So I would definitely try adding oats to re-produce this.


Let us know what you brew and how it turns out, I'm hoping to try a few Wit/hefes until I nail one and can make it regularly!

Hi Cazamodo, just checking the grain quantities - seems rather alot of wheat? Cheers

[ArmChair]

This was a 40ltr batch, not a 23ltr batch