Flaked Wheat & Hogarden Culturing

[dabre4]

Ok, nice and simple question hopefully. I'm going to make a Belgian wit soon and one of the ingredients is Flaked Wheat. Where can I get this from? My main supplier gain and grape don't seem to stock it. Is it sold in heath food shops or the supermarket?

While I'm asking questions. This is one that lots of people ask, but no one ever seems to know the answer to. Is the yeast in a Hogarden bottle the original brew yeast strain, or is it only a bottle conditioning yeast strain? I want to try and save some money on the brew is all, and thought I might try and culture a white beer strain.

Cheers.

 

[samhighley]

Ok, nice and simple question hopefully. I'm going to make a Belgian wit soon and one of the ingredients is Flaked Wheat. Where can I get this from? My main supplier gain and grape don't seem to stock it. Is it sold in heath food shops or the supermarket?

You can get flaked wheat from CraftBrewer here.

While I'm asking questions. This is one that lots of people ask, but no one ever seems to know the answer to. Is the yeast in a Hogarden bottle the original brew yeast strain, or is it only a bottle conditioning yeast strain? I want to try and save some money on the brew is all, and thought I might try and culture a white beer strain.

Just save yourself some time and get a pack of Wyeast 3944, also available at CraftBrewer.

 

[samhighley]

Even if the Hoegaarden White bottle does contain the primary strain, it'll take a couple of bottles to get a decent sample from, so the total saving over just buying a pack of Wyeast will be less than $10.

Is $10 worth all the hassle of yeast harvesting and culturing, with all the inherent risks of failure? Not for me.

Sam

 

[Blackfish]

Or you could try WeetBix!!

A recent thread on this HERE

I've done it with some success & WLP 300, though I'd be keen to give the Wyeast 3944 a try.

+1 to not bothering to culture Hoegaarden. Its not the primary strain & so many step ups make it more vulnerable to infection.

 

[Mr.Moonshine]

Disagree with what's being said here, I cultured up the yeast from a hoegaarden to put in my witbier and it turned out great -although it took a while because one culture got infected, and I had to make up another-. Not sure if it's the exact same as the primary strain, just saying that if you do the culture right it ends up a pretty good drop.
Also, if you can do a partial, then you can just use cracked wheat from the supermarket. It's just a case of making sure you including a rest to "cook" the cracked wheat to allow the 2 row malt to convert the starch to sugar (I think it's at about 52 degrees off the top of my head). People also talk alot about torrified wheat on here, which you can apparently buy from healthfood stores and simply steep in water to get the wheat-y flavour.
If you're going the hoegaarden wit way, also consider adding some oats to the grainbill, as they add a nice grainy texture to the beer which is nice

Cheers,

Mr.Moonshine

 

[Swinging Beef]

Before you make the decision to use a Hoey yeast, culture up some anyway.
To my mind a lot of the orange and corrianger flavours are in that yeast.
When I cultured some up in some regular DME I was blown away with the taste and aroma!

 

[niggles]

Agree with Sammy that you may not save much by doing a bottle culture, and that there are inherent infection risks... it's certainly easier to go with a bought one.

On the other hand, if you want to give it a crack then you could try a local brew such as the Wicked Elf Witbier (available at Dan Murphy's). I've cultured this successfully for a mate a few months back, and the resulting brew was excellent - nice phenolic spiciness. At the moment I've got another wit going strong in the fermenter, again using the Elf yeast.

On both occasions I've used dregs from a couple stubbies in 250mL, stepped up to a litre, then two. Obviously, exercise extreme care throughout the process - I use erlenmeyer flasks & a stir plate which help. Taste the starter to make sure it's good to go & it'll be fine.

Cheers,
Niggles

 

[samhighley]

Typically if i'm culturing up bottle yeast, then i'll do so as a standalone activity, rather than as a definite plan for a definite brew.

This way if things go south, I don't have to run around in a panic looking for yeast.