I am a fairly new AG brewer who loves Belgium Wits. I today put my first AG Wit on using 49% Pils, 44% raw wheat, 5% rolled oats & 2% acidulated malt. In this wit I also soaked the raw wheat & oats in 63 degree water for 5 minutes before I added the Pils & acid malt with the rest of the water (possibly pregelatinising). I mashed for 90 minutes at 67 degrees after this step.
I used a total of 3.8kg of grain (this is just about my limit due to pot sizes) and ended up with 26Lt of wort in the boil (possibly a little too much). I stopped sparging when I was getting 1.006 on my hydro (using John Palmer's book for temp correction).
The SG of the 26Lt to begin was 1.037. I ended up boiling for 90 min & after cooling & de-trubbing the wort I ended up with 15Lt & OG 1.040. I was a little unhappy with this low OG reading with so little wort. My last 2 AG beers I made with this much grain (using 100% pils grain though) I ended up with 18Lt of OG 1048. This suggests you get a whole lot less in terms of fermentable sugars from raw wheat.
My problem is I have no idea what the specifications for the raw wheat is in terms of mashing so Brewsmith has no real idea of what I should expect to get (OG) because the specifications are more than likely incorrect.
The only place I have found raw wheat is from a local health food shop. I used organic un-crushed raw wheat in this instance and plan to use crushed kibble wheat (which I'm told is just raw crushed wheat) in my next attempt. I really want to stick to raw wheat because this is what should be used for the style of beer.
Has anyone out there got any idea of specs for raw wheat (Yield Potential, Dry Yield Fine Grain, Diastatic Power if any,colour & anything else). Because the wheat is purchased from a health food shop, these specs are not mentioned on the packaging & I really have looked everywhere to find them without any success. Other than a protein rest possibly for 20mins at 50 degrees or using torrified wheat which is darker than raw wheat, can anyone else who has mastered the Belgium Wit offer me any suggestions in terms of getting better than 52% efficiencies using raw wheat?
Cheers!
I used a total of 3.8kg of grain (this is just about my limit due to pot sizes) and ended up with 26Lt of wort in the boil (possibly a little too much). I stopped sparging when I was getting 1.006 on my hydro (using John Palmer's book for temp correction).
The SG of the 26Lt to begin was 1.037. I ended up boiling for 90 min & after cooling & de-trubbing the wort I ended up with 15Lt & OG 1.040. I was a little unhappy with this low OG reading with so little wort. My last 2 AG beers I made with this much grain (using 100% pils grain though) I ended up with 18Lt of OG 1048. This suggests you get a whole lot less in terms of fermentable sugars from raw wheat.
My problem is I have no idea what the specifications for the raw wheat is in terms of mashing so Brewsmith has no real idea of what I should expect to get (OG) because the specifications are more than likely incorrect.
The only place I have found raw wheat is from a local health food shop. I used organic un-crushed raw wheat in this instance and plan to use crushed kibble wheat (which I'm told is just raw crushed wheat) in my next attempt. I really want to stick to raw wheat because this is what should be used for the style of beer.
Has anyone out there got any idea of specs for raw wheat (Yield Potential, Dry Yield Fine Grain, Diastatic Power if any,colour & anything else). Because the wheat is purchased from a health food shop, these specs are not mentioned on the packaging & I really have looked everywhere to find them without any success. Other than a protein rest possibly for 20mins at 50 degrees or using torrified wheat which is darker than raw wheat, can anyone else who has mastered the Belgium Wit offer me any suggestions in terms of getting better than 52% efficiencies using raw wheat?
Cheers!