Hoegaarden Clone Using All Dry Malt

[McCraggen]

G'day once more, both my fermenters are currently spawning life and now im going to get some ideas up my sleeve, lest they be empty for too long.

My question is as follows, If i was to make a hoegaarden (or something even like a franziskaner) clone, what portion of wheat malt to barley malt do i need for that nice pale light look and flavour? Also in regards to hops for a wheat beer, what sort of boil time/variety would i be looking at.

I allways thought for hoegaarden something like:

2kg wheat malt dry ext
1kg Light malt dry ext
30g curacano orange peels dried?
15g crushed corriander seeds
23L final volume?

The franziskaner would be similar id imagine minus the peel and seeds.

Any advice would be muchly appreciated.

 

[Swinging Beef]

Mate.. lovely wit beer and heffes are why I turned to AG.
I reckon you can make really good dark and amber beers with extract, but the extract Wit or Weizen always fall short.

However... if this is your aim!
Ditch the LDME and use entirely wheat malt.
Unless specified otherwise, you will discover that wheat malt is often a large percentage of Barley Malt.
So.. just use wheat malt.
If you are up to it.. steep some weet bix (yep.. really) and throw in a table spoon of white flour (pre dissolved into a paste) into your fermebnter.
YOu will get a wheat charaCTER in your beer.

You will need to boil the corriander and orange peel, too.

DOnt use much hops.. you dont need them for this beer.

Use a good liqud wheat yeast or culture yourself a Shof or Hoey yeast.
Go nuts!

 

[lczaban]

+1 for Swinging Beef's advice. I only have experience with K&B wheat beers similar to the one that you are proposing to do an extract version of. The orange peel and coriander seed quantities are similar to what I used, and I would also go for SB's tip on using all wheat malt for your brew.

Perhaps consider using a small boil some rolled oats in place of the flour. I posted a thread for my K&B version and was advised to go either or, so I went with the oats option (which gave a better mouth-feel). I found my beer suffered from poor head retention. Perhaps someone could enlighten us as to what is needed in this respect. Good luck with your Wit mission!

 

[McCraggen]

Wow this sounds fiddly, okay how about:



3kg wheat malt ext dry,

25g of german noble hops (not sure which variety should be used)

Wyeast (belgian or hefe-weizen) or saf wheat ale yeast.



Is 23l appropriate for that much malt to give a lighter body similar to most witbiers/hefe-weizen?

Should i only boil the malt for maybe 15 minutes with the hops?



If i was to make a franziskaner clone or something similar id imagine i would just leave out the orange and corriander?

 

[Bizier]

Usually these beers use one hops addition of 60 mins for about 15 IBU so it depends on the AA% rating of the particular hop in question.

 

[McCraggen]

I was thinking of halleratau 25g for 60 min for my hefe-weizen, aslo Wyeast 3638 - Bavarian Wheat, is going to be the yeast of choice, might try some flour and some weetbix.

Cheers for all the ideas fellas.

 

[unterberg]

If you got slants or any form of getting the Wyeast economically go for it otherwise I had good experience with the WB06.

 

[Swinging Beef]

Wit bier, Fiddly? Mate.. you have no idea!

Have you considered the brewcraft (or brewmaster.. cant remember which) kit for a Hoegaarden clone?
It is quite good and will introduce you to some of the concepts of steeping spices, hop additions, and the like.

For what it is worth...
3kg of wheat malt will make quite a dark beer, at around 6% and if you only boil your hops for 15min the hops will not provide you enough bitterness, as this requires a longer boil

I recommend...
1.75kg dry wheat extract
.75kg dextrose
25g halertau hops
100 g weet bix.
table spoon white flour

This will rip you out a beer around the 4.5%
Its still gonna be too dark but will be closer than 3kg of wheat malt

Steep the weet bix in a stocking at around 65deg for 20 minutes
Boil 500g dry wheat with 25g hops for one hour in as much water as you can boil. 5 litres will do, but 20 litres would be better.
in the last five or ten minutes throw in the corriander and orange peel and solution of white flour

 

[j1gsaw]

Hey Swingin Beef, I like the sounds of that Hoe recipe, but here is a question for you...
(Im still a dopey K&K brewer keep in mind).. do i still need to add a can of goo along with the other ingredients? cheers

 

[Mr.Moonshine]

+1 what swinging beef is saying, it's probably the closest you'll get using only K&B. IMO, the best taste in wheat beer comes from unmalted wheat and rolled oats, which you need to partial mash in order to properly convert and use in the beer. Also, the amount of coriander and orange peel you use would depend heavily on the freshness of said ingredients. If you crack the coriander seed and it's pungent with coriander goodness, then it's probably OK for you to add that amount, however if your seeds are a little stale or have a weak aroma when you crack them, then you'll need to use more. Just don't go overboard with the coriander, as it can make the beer a touch too spicy if you use too much. Also, consider using a combination of sweet orange and bitter orange peels to spice the beer. When I made mine, I used a 50-50 combination of sweet orange peel (valencia or navel), and bitter orange peel (Seville).

Cheers,



Mr.Moonshine

 

[Bizier]

I have a lemongrass wit in at the moment.

I did a cereal mash of 1kg raw wheat and 500g rolled oats boiled for a while, then mashed with 1kg of BB Galaxy.

This was a serious pain and messy as hell. If you are thinking of a cereal mash, try to make it smaller than I did, and try not to do it at 3am, it was pure torture.

I added no corriander or other spices than 1 small lemongrass stalk and 1 x 60(ish) min addition of homegrown hersbruker, fermenting with WLP400.

ED: Sorry, I should add that I used a tin of unhopped coopers wheat goo and some reg DME on top of these ingredients.

 

[Swinging Beef]

.. do i still need to add a can of goo along with the other ingredients? cheers

No...
DME + Hops boiled for one hour = Can of goo

If beginner is where you are, yo could do alot worse than the Hoegasaarden kit I talked about earlier. I used this twice with good results.
Bearing in mind, wit and weizen kits are the reason I moved on to AG.

 

[Interloper]

Wit bier, Fiddly? Mate.. you have no idea!

Have you considered the brewcraft (or brewmaster.. cant remember which) kit for a Hoegaarden clone?
It is quite good and will introduce you to some of the concepts of steeping spices, hop additions, and the like.

For what it is worth...
3kg of wheat malt will make quite a dark beer, at around 6% and if you only boil your hops for 15min the hops will not provide you enough bitterness, as this requires a longer boil

I recommend...
1.75kg dry wheat extract
.75kg dextrose
25g halertau hops
100 g weet bix.
table spoon white flour

This will rip you out a beer around the 4.5%
Its still gonna be too dark but will be closer than 3kg of wheat malt

Steep the weet bix in a stocking at around 65deg for 20 minutes
Boil 500g dry wheat with 25g hops for one hour in as much water as you can boil. 5 litres will do, but 20 litres would be better.
in the last five or ten minutes throw in the corriander and orange peel and solution of white flour

Wow that's an interesting recipe....Weetbix? What's that add to the flavour profile? Do you just use the liquor from that steeping as part of the 60min boil?

Also when/where are you adding the missing 1.25kg of dry wheat extract if you're only boiling 500gms of it? You list 1.75kg but you're only boiling 500gms of it? What about this and the dex? When do they go into your mix?

I've seen other posts about adding flour - what's the thinking behind the flour? Mouthfeel/texture?

 

[Swinging Beef]

weetbix is pre-gelatanised wheat. Its a nifty shortcut for added wheat character. Go for low salt stuff tho and avoid ones fortified with extra vitamins and minerals. Who knows what they might do to your beer!

Throw the 'missing' dried wheat and dex extract in after the boil. The idea being boiling a smaller amount of dried malt means less colouring of the wort will occur because you are only cooking a smaller portion. But you still have given the hops some malt to 'hang on to'.

Flour for mouthfeel.. texture.. colour .. and haze.

 

[McCraggen]

Ah, that was going to be my next question, so boiling malt changes the colour, hmm. So could i steep the weetbix for say 15 min then add them to the boil for the last 5 or something?

 

[Swinging Beef]

Ah, that was going to be my next question, so boiling malt changes the colour, hmm. So how many weetbix would be nice?

I used 125g on 20 litres. That was a 'row' of the bix, as I recall.

 

[Interloper]

I used 125g on 20 litres. That was a 'row' of the bix, as I recall.

I love this site....where else would you get this?

Thanks, this little "kits & bits" extract brew is on my must do list now.

 

[McCraggen]

perhaps a wave of the wand and some pixie dust to taste as well?

 

[bowie in space]

I love this site....where else would you get this?

Thanks, this little "kits & bits" extract brew is on my must do list now.

i agree, love this site, definately bookmarking this recipe for future reference.

 

[Swinging Beef]

perhaps a wave of the wand and some pixie dust to taste as well?

Wave anything you want over it, it's your beer, mate