AG Hoegaarden

[Dan Pratt]

I


My only gripe with the style is - not a good kegger. I'm at about 1/3 - 1/2 a keg left and it's clearing up (yeast slowly settled and drawn out with first half. And the suspended yeast is a big part of the flavour/mouthfeel. I'll be looking at bottling :angry: Wit in the future

Hey Dan2,

Your right its not a good keeging style but it is possible.......

My last batch I kegged and carbonated, it really needed a few more days in the FV but i was a bit impatient , it was pretty much a white glass of beer/yeast.

My LHBS gave me a tip and it cleared the beer no worries.

I removed the chilled keg from the fridge, purged the keg and left it at room temp for 2 days. During the 2 days when ever I was near the keg I would pull the purge valve and release the pressure. After 2 days I added the smallest amount of CO2 pressure at about 5-10kpa, just enough to get a reading on the dial, turned on the tap and removed all the yeast slurry. Threw it back in the fridge, when it cooled to 4c carbed it at 120kpa for a day or so and boom - nice golden hazey beer.

The recent batch I kegged on monday night I left over night in the fridge to chill to 4c, kinda like a cold crash, again added some CO2 and removed all the fallen yeast, should be right to drink this friday night. Give that a try with the keg you have, it wont spoil if you dont take the lid off and let air or anything else in.

 

[Dan2]

nice golden hazey beer.

But the point is - it's supposed to be cloudy/yeasty.
What I was getting at is that the first week or so pulled the yeast out as I drank it and it settled more. And it was really good.
But now that the yeast is gone and it is clear, I'm not liking it as much.

 

[Dan Pratt]

But the point is - it's supposed to be cloudy/yeasty.
What I was getting at is that the first week or so pulled the yeast out as I drank it and it settled more. And it was really good.
But now that the yeast is gone and it is clear, I'm not liking it as much.

ahh I see. I had that with the 2 batches at the start of the year, both went like a golden ale, not that hazey golden yeasty look after a while in the keg.

I researched why and some suggested a 60min boil instead of 90mins. Cant quite recall the actual reason they stated to reduce the boil time (anyone?) but it worked so I now do a 60min boil with this style.

 

[RelaxedBrewer]

ahh I see. I had that with the 2 batches at the start of the year, both went like a golden ale, not that hazey golden yeasty look after a while in the keg.

I researched why and some suggested a 60min boil instead of 90mins. Cant quite recall the actual reason they stated to reduce the boil time (anyone?) but it worked so I now do a 60min boil with this style.

I thought a witbeir was supposed to be cloudy from suspended proteins from the un-malted wheat, not the yeast.

A hefeweisen is cloudy from the yeast.

If you are doing a protein rest around 50C you are breaking down these proteins that make the beer cloudy. If you are doing this rest you might want to make it shorter or change the temp of this rest.

 

[Dan Pratt]

Hmmm. Interesting. I will review the 50c rest.

I thought the haze was from the yeast and no whirfloc clearing tablet used. Proteins...righto...thanks RB.

 

[Brewz]

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/54122-recipedb-bullshead-witbier/

 

[RelaxedBrewer]

I do a acid rest then slowly ramp up to saccharification temps over about 40 mins.

The acid rest (42C) stops the wheat from making glue (I have started using flour as my raw wheat)

The slow ramp helps to gelatinise the raw wheat (52-64C).

I don't think we actually want a protein rest for the purposes that they are used in other beers. There are 2 temperature ranges that people do a protein rest at in other beers. One of them breaks down the proteins that cause chill haze and help clear the beer (this is the rest I was talking about in Pratty1s post). The other breaks down proteins that help with head retention and the body of the beer (Have a read of Palmers how to brew

With a Wit we just want the mash to gelatinise the wheat before we get to the saccharification rest. We want to keep the haze and head retention/body. I decided top do the ramp so I did not keep the mash in either of the protein rest temps for to long while still gelatinising the wheat.

It is a little complex but from my experience and research I am pretty sure this info is correct.

RB

 

[Papa Lazarou]

My only gripe with the style is - not a good kegger. I'm at about 1/3 - 1/2 a keg left and it's clearing up (yeast slowly settled and drawn out with first half. And the suspended yeast is a big part of the flavour/mouthfeel. I'll be looking at bottling :angry: Wit in the future

I did an kit and extract wheat beer last year and about 1/2 the keg came out clear like a kristallweizen, I quite liked it as it seemed more tart and had a crisp finish, like 2 beers in 1 keg. You could leave your keg upsidedown until it goes on tap if you want it yeasty longer.
I also used yeast recultured from Hoegaarden, from memory it was quite a slow working yeast and stayed in suspension for a long time.

 

[technobabble66]

I have a WLP 351 (Weizen) sitting in the fridge.
Would that work for this clone?
If not, what would the result be if i brewed this grain bill + peel/coriander using this yeast?

(yes, i'm new to wheat-based beers!)


Edit: before someone replies "a weizen!", i'm looking a bit more for a comparison in tastes, etc...

 

[Truman42]

gents,

Im brewing this tomorrow using 40% pilsner 50% torrified wheat (Couldnt get raw) and 10% oats. Just wondering what mash schedule I should use on this as most posts here relating to mash schedules are about using raw wheat.

I currently use
55C/5
62C/35
72C/20
77C/5

Also i brought some orange peel candy from the spice shop which just has orange peel, sugar, honey and fruit acid. Any tried this in place of fresh orange peel?

Thanks,

 

[tazman1967]

RelaxedBrewer, post 67 I think is on the money.. Drop your 55C rest to 42C for 10min. Then ramp up to your Sacc. Temp.

 

[Truman42]

RelaxedBrewer, post 67 I think is on the money.. Drop your 55C rest to 42C for 10min. Then ramp up to your Sacc. Temp.

But I thought that was only if your using raw wheat. Im using torrified wheat

 

[tazman1967]

Yes.. but torrifed wheat is still not malted wheat, or a highly modified grain. It still needs to treated like unmalted wheat IMHO.
Its a good sub for unmalted wheat.

 

[Truman42]

So something like

42C/20 mins
then raise to 64c over 40 mins
64C/30 mins
77C/10 mins

Would that work?

 

[tazman1967]

Yeap..you only need 15m at 42C then ramp it..

 

[Truman42]

Cheers Tazman, now just to work out the steps for the PID and I'm in business.

 

[mje1980]

My one and only dumper was a wit attempt, I can't recall the exact recipe, other than it was a K&K brew. I think the killer though, was putting about 20g of navel orange peel and 20 g of crushed coriander into the fermenter for the duration of the ferment. :icon_vomit:

It was a ******* howler. Seriously, it felt like my teeth were being dissolved as I drank it.

I've recently tried again, this time A.G and there has been some improvement, except for a sort of faint "ham" aroma. :huh:

The "ham" aroma is most likely from the type of coriander seed. Hunt down some Indian coriander seeds. Last one I made I found a few threads on the intermanet thingy about different types of seeds to use. Indian was recommended and I used those. No ham aroma and was very nice.

 

[Truman42]

Brewed this yesterday using 50% toriffied wheat, 40% pilsener and 10% flaked oats, but had a few dramas.

Ez water calc said my Ph was up around 5.8. Even though I did an acid rest I decied to also add 2 grams of citric Acid. My mash ph ended up being very low as a result. I did an iodine test and had complete conversion though.

The other problem was out of 38 litres of hot liquor I ended up with 36 litres in the kettle instead of 30 litres. My grain absorption figures are usually spot on so Im guessing its because the wheat didn't absorb any water. My gravity at SOB was 1.037 so I boiled it back to 30 litres before starting my 60 min hop addition and going from there. Ended up at 1.048 EOB (2 points down from recipe) but my wort was certainly a lot darker than a straw couloured wheat beer. More like an orange. Oh well hopefully it will taste okay.

 

[seamad]

Just finished a double of wit on my new 3V rims system and pretty stoked. Took on board some pointers from members ( thanks relaxed brewer and others )
Hit 78% eff into fermenter.
Grist was:
weyermann pale pils 50%
raw wheat 37%
lowan rolled oats 5%
golden naked oats 5%
acid malt 3%

Ran the grain through the mill @ 1.35mm twice ( bigger gap than usual ) ..mil rpm @ 300 with dc bike motor.

Doughed in with 1/2 water at 41 C and left for 20 minutes, slowly got the flow going through the rims tube over the next 10 minutes then the PID ramped up to 62 over an hour, ten minutes at 62 then another ten at 72 then 76. Drained into kettle and underlet the remaing water (78 C) for quick recirc then into kettle.
Had excellent flow throughout and not a hint of a stuck sparge. I might mill all my grain like this from now on and see how it turns out.
Bittered with calypso 12 ibu at 45min
Ran 25L into cube for a raspberry saison with 3711
The remaining 22l i ran through the hop rocket with 3 orange skins (zest only) and some fresh toasted homegrown coriander seeds and 20g motueka flowers, pitched some 3944 onto it.
Smelt and tasted good, will see how it turns out.

 

[Truman42]

Sounds good Seamad. I'm drinking mine out of the keg now and it's very enjoyable.

Only thing I don't like is the orange flavour dominates just a bit too much. I used 60 grams of fresh orange zest. I think next time I will halve this amount.