Rye Wit

[Lugsy]

I decided I'd try a Wit for a change but I'm a bit short on some of the ingredients for dave-o's recipe - I've only got 500g of pils malt and 1500g of unmalted wheat (is this ok as a substitute for flaked wheat?). I figured I could probably make up the lack of pils malt with Maris Otter without straying too far away from an acceptable interpretation of a Wit but I wanted to increase my unmalted wheat levels a bit so I called in at the wholefood shop in town. They didn't have any suitable looking wheat but they did have some flaked rye, it looked interesting so I got a kilo and then I started thinking about using it in the Wit. So how does this look?

Maris Otter 1000g
Wheat Malt 1000g
Unmalted Wheat 1500g
Pils Malt 500g
Pale Oat Malt 500g
Flaked Rye 500g

Saaz for bittering, some coriander seeds and orange near the end of the boil, possibly a late citrussy hop addition, ferment with WB-06. BIAB as usual so no need to worry about stuck mashes.

Any idea if this is a reasonable grain bill? Are there enough malted grains to convert the rest of it? Looking forward to your advice as always

[subfaction]

Funny, I was out today trying to find flaked wheat in my health food shops, noticed the rye, and thought, 'I wonder if that would do', I bottled it and just did an order with the Malt Miller when I got back, but let us know how it goes Good luck!

[WishboneBrewery]

I'd be tempted to redress the balance so your 'Maris Otter & Pils Malt' make up 50% of your total malt bill, if you don't have enough malts you could reduce your Batch size a little.... and give it a 2 hour Mash so it has lots of time to convert the large portion of adjuncts.

[Lugsy]

So more like 2kg of pale malt then? I've been thinking about a decoction to help with the conversion given the high proportion of adjuncts, would this work?

[WishboneBrewery]

That would be better, though I've never done a decoction yet.

[Lugsy]

I've done a double decoction once - it takes a bit of time but it's not difficult and it makes the kitchen smell great

[leedsbrew]

Wit beers traditionally got a cereal mash to deal with the high proportion of un-malted grains.

[Lugsy]

Ah, just had a look at that and it makes sense - wish I'd read that a couple of hours ago, I've just done the first decoction! I might have to change this ones name to "F**k-Wit". Oh well, fingers crossed!

[WishboneBrewery]

Like it!
My next wit will be a 'Nit-Wit' after my last 'Half-Wit'

[Lugsy]

This didn't go quite according to plan! I'd just put the second decoction back in to get to mash out and then life got in the way so the brewing had to be abandoned for the rest of the day. I got up this morning and got started again, the temperature of the mash had only dropped to 50C in about 16 hours so not as bad as I'd expected, the smell was quite sour in a lacto way but I think this might be nice in a wit.

BIAB as usual so no need to worry about stuck mashes.

or so I thought! I lifted the bag and somehow I managed to get a "stuck" BIAB Very odd, the run off was kind of thick/gelatinous (starches?) but I finally collected about 9 litres and got it on the boil whilst doing the first sparge, this gave me another 8 litres of something that looked more like wort at least. I checked the gravities of these two runnings and got 1.104 for the first one (much higher than my normal first runnings) and 1.052 for the second. The second sparge has given me 8 litres at 1.020 so I'm stopping at that. I've tasted the wort and it's odd - a bit like very sweet porridge.

I've just done the maths and my efficiency looks like 96%, that will give me 23 litres at 1.066 - I'm strongly suspecting that not all of my gravity points are coming from fermentables.

Not holding out much hope for this one but I've come this far so I might as well carry on, even though I'm half expecting it to set in the fermenter.

Definitely "F**k Wit"

[Lugsy]

Quick update on this one - I'm not really sure what was happening with my gravity readings but I ended up with 23 litres at 1.056, it was a thick wort and took the hydrometer noticeably longer to sink in the sample tube. I pitched the yeast (not really expecting to end up with anything drinkable) and left it to it for 12 days, it tasted fine so I bottled it at 1.010 with 120g white sugar. It's been in the bottle a week now and it's pretty good! It's still kind of thick (even for this style) but with good carbonation and chilled to fridge temperature it's quite nice, possibly a bit too much orange for my liking but then I did use oranges the size of grapefruits. Definitely not a keeper though, there were a couple of very suspicious looking furry white growths on the surface on bottling day and I dread to think what they'll mature into given time - not had a bottle bomb yet and I don't want to start now!

All in all, a good result for a f**k wit

[WishboneBrewery]

Nice, did the furry things have eyes and swim about?!

[Lugsy]

Not yet but god knows what they'll evolve into in the cellar

[lancsSteve]

Sticking a BIAB is NOT good. Used rye before making a roggenbier and it took about 2hrs to run off the marmite-esque run off. Awesome beer though!

Not cereal mashing all that raw wheat and rye will like a thick tasting beer but that sounds like it's working nicely!

[Lugsy]

I'm just drinking one now and yes it definitely is on the thick side, quite nice though (but infected I think, there's a bit of nail polish going on in the after-taste).

The "stuck" BIAB was a new one on me but yesterday I made a rye/wheat thing (not sure what to call it to be honest) with 20% rye malt and 20% wheat malt and exactly the same thing happened to me, took about 20 minutes to drain enough of this gelatinous liquid out of the bag for me to move it to the sparge pan (it normally takes 3 or 4 minutes). I was quite surprised as all the grains I used were malted but after a bit of reading it looks like I should probably have done a protein rest to break down the "gums" that John Palmer talks about in "How To Brew". A good experience anyway, we'd never learn anything if it all went smoothly would we?