BIAB Witbier / Blanche / Belgian wheat beer

[Droopy Brew]

Orange always comes across as dominant in the early stages of ferment but fades rapidly. Once bottled, I'm willing to bet you will barely be able to detect it.

 

[Hez]

Good luck with it. Might be perfect for your tastes - otherwise tweak it next time.

I'm afraid it was a mistake to use so much orange peel. You told me exactly what to do and in the very last moment I changed my mind and decided (ironic mode: on) with all my great experience and knowledge (ironic mode: off) not listening to you. Sorry. I will from now on.
Anyway, let's see how it goes... I used "seville oranges" which are quite bitter. In fact, if you go to Sevilla, which is a very very beautiful place by the way, you'll see millions of trees with beautiful round and perfect oranges all around and you'll be tempted to grab one and bite it... don't. They are bitter as hell. Exactly the same happens with women from Sevilla. They are also beautiful and perfect (not round) but don't try to grab one and bite her, you'll be very disappointed and probably eunuch.
https://www.google.com.au/search?sa.....1.1.64.psy-ab..3.4.963...0i67k1.7C0WY_FD14g

Thank you very much for your help and encouragement.

Orange always comes across as dominant in the early stages of ferment but fades rapidly. Once bottled, I'm willing to bet you will barely be able to detect it.

Really? jejeje thanks mate, you're a boost of confidence!

2 days ago the airlock was bubbling every 3" aprox, yesterday 5" and this morning was taking about 8" but I've read this yeast is slow and my OG was 1052, so it might take longer than usual...

 

[goatchop41]

For me overdoing the spice is pretty common, well regarded commercial clones of Hoegaarden use less than 15g of Coriander and Curacao / HL(100L) , a lot of home brewers use more in 20L.
Mark

Does 1g/L sounds like over or under doing? I don't know!

I think I'll go with:
- 10g of coriander seeds
- 6.6g of fresh sweet orange peel
- 3.3g of fresh grapefruit peel

What MHB tried to say to you here is that for your 10-11L batch, you should be considering using less than 1.5g of the coriander and orange peel......

 

[MHB]

Bear in mind that breweries use almost exclusively Dried Curacao Peel, which is way bitterer than Seville will ever be. It's fairly available these days and not only accounts for a fair fraction of the perceived bitterness but also supplies the orange flavour/aroma.
Fresh peel is probably about 1/2 water so allowance must be made if using fresh over dried.
Likewise get good Indian Coriander seed, both are crushed and generally put in a muslin bag and hung in the kettle for the whole boil.
It makes a difference, especially if you are trying to "clone" something like a Hoegaarden.
Mark

 

[Hez]

Bear in mind that breweries use almost exclusively Dried Curacao Peel, which is way bitterer than Seville will ever be. It's fairly available these days and not only accounts for a fair fraction of the perceived bitterness but also supplies the orange flavour/aroma.
Fresh peel is probably about 1/2 water so allowance must be made if using fresh over dried.
Likewise get good Indian Coriander seed, both are crushed and generally put in a muslin bag and hung in the kettle for the whole boil.
It makes a difference, especially if you are trying to "clone" something like a Hoegaarden.
Mark

Yes, that's what I thought.. but I already had the chinese coriander around... And I boiled it just for 5min. Tomorrow I will bottle it.last hydrometer test 8t didn't have much orange flavour to be honest...
Well i wasn't trying to clone anything but making a generic Belgian wheat beer style one.
We'll see how it turns out it two weeks!
Thanks so much for your help, next time I'll try the hoergaarden clone!

 

[goatchop41]

...both are crushed and generally put in a muslin bag and hung in the kettle for the whole boil.

Aha! Here is the likely difference between most homebrewers and the pros when it comes to how much of the spices they are adding - pretty much every homebrew clone for a witbier that I have seen has said to only add the coriander and dried orange peel for 5-10 mins of the boil, as opposed to the full 60-90 min boil

 

[MHB]

For some reason most home brewers appear to think that if a little is good more must be better, rarely in the beers we admire is the spice more than a grace note or a highlight - home brewers try to make it dominant. To my mind usually to the detriment of the beer.
Nothing wrong with subtlety.
Mark

 

[goatchop41]

Reminds me of this: https://beerandbrewing.com/belgian-beer-youre-probably-doing-it-wrong/

 

[Hez]

I bottled it yesterday. I could have done it before but I was too busy...

In a previous post I put the OG was 1052.5 but it was not, there are 5 spaces between lines in between 50 and 60 in the hydrometer scale, so each line is 2 points. I counted 2.5 lines from 50, so it was 55, not 52.5, I don't know what was I thinking about jeje

The FG is 1014 So...
https://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/
Alcohol By Volume: 5.38%
Apparent Attenuation: 74%
Calories: 181.9 per 12oz bottle -> 170.8kcal/33cl bottle
Original Gravity: 13.57 °P, 1.055
Final Gravity: 3.57 °P, 1.014

I've improved my efficiency, apparently, so now I have a slightly high alcoholic witbier... I have to take this into account for my next beer! I calculated the amount of grain with a 65% efficiency for obtaining 1050 and I got 1055. Also I realized I doubled the amount of oats! instead of 140g (5% of the grain bill) I used 280g = 9.9%, this has also increased the OG, of course. So with everything (taking into account the extra oats), my efficiency wasn't 65%, it was 69% !!!! (calculated using https://www.brewersfriend.com/allgrain-ogfg/ in reverse)

I tested the beer from the hydrometer and I didn't get much coriander/orange flavour... I would say it's very very subtle to say the most... in the end, it seems my proportions weren't so bad! Thanks to the poor quality of the chinese coriander and using fresh orange peel instead of the dried one.

I was feeling brave so I increased the carbonation to 3.2vol and this time I primed with table sugar instead of dextrose.
In two weeks we will see if the bottles explode or I can make a decent belgian style wheat beer.

Next I wanted to make another german style wheat beer (weissbier/hefeweizen) but someone told me to look into the saison and now I don't know what to do... I'll probably stick to my plan and make the wheat one and then the saison.

The two people-who-brew I know here have tasted my beers and they said they are ok for having so little experience but I can tell they weren't very impressed
Anyway both of them are IPA fans and none of them had brewed a wheat beer (not a belgian neither a german style) and neither of them liked dark beers (I've made one pale ale, one weird pale ale, one stout, one weissbier and this one). I don't know why but for many people it's IPA or nothing.
I like IPA's, but I also like all other kind of beers. This saturday I went to this place http://www.tommysbeercafe.com.au/ and they have really good Czech beers. First time I've had a good pilsner/lager in Australia.

In my opinion, there are many IPA's that make me think someone had too many different hop leftovers. I think that's going to be my last beer before leaving Australia, I'll make an IPA with all the hops I have accumulated in my fridge so these two will love it..
- This is my new beer, I call it "pisto IPA"*
- OH! beautiful IPA! it's so hoppy... how many IBUs does it have?
- 2821 IBU
- Amazing! I love the hops! Your best beer ever!

(*"Pisto" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisto is what you do when you have several old vegetables in the fridge: capsicum, onions, tomatoes, zuccini, aubergines, carrots, tomato sauce... whatever, it's basically a "leftovers vegetable stew")

 

[homebrewnewb]

weird, god bless you, you excitable, beer-loving Spaniard.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I'm afraid it was a mistake to use so much orange peel. You told me exactly what to do and in the very last moment I changed my mind and decided (ironic mode: on) with all my great experience and knowledge (ironic mode: off) not listening to you. Sorry. I will from now on.
Anyway, let's see how it goes... I used "seville oranges" which are quite bitter. In fact, if you go to Sevilla, which is a very very beautiful place by the way, you'll see millions of trees with beautiful round and perfect oranges all around and you'll be tempted to grab one and bite it... don't. They are bitter as hell. Exactly the same happens with women from Sevilla. They are also beautiful and perfect (not round) but don't try to grab one and bite her, you'll be very disappointed and probably eunuch.
https://www.google.com.au/search?sa.....1.1.64.psy-ab..3.4.963...0i67k1.7C0WY_FD14g

Thank you very much for your help and encouragement.


Really? jejeje thanks mate, you're a boost of confidence!

2 days ago the airlock was bubbling every 3" aprox, yesterday 5" and this morning was taking about 8" but I've read this yeast is slow and my OG was 1052, so it might take longer than usual...

I didn't get any Spanish women when I hit the link. Might be an issue with my interpretation but I only saw some Sevilla buildings. Still beautiful, but not what I was expecting.

 

[Hez]

I didn't get any Spanish women when I hit the link. Might be an issue with my interpretation but I only saw some Sevilla buildings. Still beautiful, but not what I was expecting.

LOL

that was the point:
- oranges from the trees in sevilla look amazing but are bitter
- women from sevilla are beautiful but very difficult
- you thought you will see hot girls, you saw pictures of sevilla

The link was because I said: "if you go to Sevilla, which is a very very beautiful place by the way"

 

[nosco]

I just took a sample from my Wit and its smelling great. I brewed it to use some oranges from our tree. As fresh as you can get. I brewed the recipe from Brewing classic styles which I think is the same as the BYO recipe. I had to put the Coriander seeds in the fermenter. I made about 500ml of seed tea. It smelled pretty citrus'y. I hope it tastes better than the commercial versions I've had. They have all been pretty ordinary. Fresh beer will make a huge difference I think.

Edit: the sample is tasting fantastic!

 

[manticle]

I didn't get any Spanish women when I hit the link. Might be an issue with my interpretation but I only saw some Sevilla buildings. Still beautiful, but not what I was expecting.

My google skills are pretty good, evidently.

Got the upside of what Hez was intimating, would need to go there as a younger man to experience the downside.

 

[manticle]

weird, god bless you, you excitable, beer-loving Spaniard.

I recognise the exact planet he's currently on.

 

[Dan Pratt]

was planning this for the weekend. its been a few years since i had a witbier on tap.

What are you brewing in 2017 ?

 

[shacked]

I've been using tinctures to add flavor to beers post ferment, rather than adding ingredients during the boil. For example, I recently added orange and pistachio flavors to a brett beer by soaking pistachios in Cointreau and then adding the liquid just prior to packaging. (The beer also had almonds & walnuts in the mash and apricot, raisins and sultanas in secondary).

Perhaps soaking the spices and orange peel in a neutral spirit might be another way of getting those flavors into a witbier with more control. You could add to taste just before you bottle/keg.

 

[Hez]

I recognise the exact planet he's currently on.

 

[homebrewnewb]

^ this guy....

I recognise the exact planet he's currently on.

hey, i've been doing AG for the last four years and can STILL totally relate to this level of enthusiasm, brewing is a cross-cultural, international art form. and before anyone launches a nuke, i think we should all agree on a standard IPA (there goes 20-30 years of discussion)then enjoy a few before anyone thinks about touching a button.

 

[Hez]

^ this guy....



hey, i've been doing AG for the last four years and can STILL totally relate to this level of enthusiasm, brewing is a cross-cultural, international art form. and before anyone launches a nuke, i think we should all agree on a standard IPA (there goes 20-30 years of discussion)then enjoy a few before anyone thinks about touching a button.

I love beer, making stuff and I miss my other hobbie (woodworking)... yes I'm very enthusiastic! jeje

Interesting facts about the IPA:
http://zythophile.co.uk/false-ale-q...vented-ipa-to-survive-the-long-trip-to-india/
IPA = October-brewed “stock” bitter ale
average temp from october in london ~= july in Sydney
I'm leaving in christmas (98% probabilities), so I already missed my opportunity of making an IPA here... But I will be able to do it at home (Hoyo de Manzanares) in April!
They filmed Sergio Leone's spagetti westerns there. I know a couple of locals with a weird resemblance to Clint Eastwood.

Bah, I don't care, I'll try to make one here anyway... "BIAB generic IPA" post coming...

Two weeks until the witbier is ready to drink!