Witbier convert to extract from AG recipie

[malliemcg]

Greetings,

I am looking at converting a Witbier recipe that I got from the Seven Barrel Brewery book into an extract based recipe and thought that I would post it here for QA before attempting to make it. First, the AG recipe.

• 2kg pilsner malt
• 1.1kg wheat malt
• 0.23kg flaked malt
• 0.11kg table sugar
• 0.11kg brewers corn sugar // or // .25kg of light candi sugar

Stir into kettle the sugar.
90m boil

• * 1.5 HBU Styrian Goldings as soon as boil starts
• * 2 HBU Perle after 45 minutes
• * 1.25 HBU of Fuggles after 60 minutes
• * 14g corriander seeds @ knockout (after 90m)
• * 7g dried orange peel @ knockout (after 90m)

Chill and then

• * 1/4 teaspoon citric acid after chilling

My proposed conversion to extract brew

• 1.5 kg Briess pilsen light LME
• 1.5 kg Briess wheat LME

90m boil (w/ 750gm each of the above in 7L water)

• 11gm (4.8AA) Styrian Goldings as soon as boil starts
• 9gm (7.1AA) Perle after 45 minutes
• 9.5gm (5.5AA) HBU of Fuggles after 60 minutes
• 14g coriander seeds @ knockout (after 90m)
• 7g dried orange peel @ knockout (after 90m)

Post boil

• 1/4 teaspoon citric acid after chilling

Once the boil was done mix in 100gm white sugar, 100gm candi sugar with the remaining LME and cold water to 20L and ferment with WB-06 yeast @ 18C in the fermentation fridge.


I am a bit unsure about the boil phase, and if I am using enough hops given the reduced water volume, and the increased malt to hops ratio, and if I might need to up my hop volume a little bit. Unfortunately I don't have a pot bigger than 8.5L.

M

 

[MHB]

Most of the commercially available Wheat Malt Extract on the market is somewhere between 50/50 Wheat/Barley and 40/60 Wheat Barley, the recipe has 45/55 Wheat Barley, so I suspect that if you used 3Kg of wheat malt extract you would be closer to the money.

What the 0.23Kg of Flaked Malt is supposed to be I cant be sure but suspect its meant to be Flaked Wheat, that needs to be mashed so I suspect you are better off ignoring it. Or if you had any, or some rolled oats you could boil it in a couple of litres of water and then dissolve your extract in it, that will add some haze to the beer but might get you a bit closer to the original beer.

The orange peel will probably be Curacao Orange, also called bitter orange, that is reasonably available from home brew retailers and is well worth the investment, as would a better yeast, like 3944 Belgian whit.

Mark

 

[manticle]

Use a proper witbier yeast.
Unsure about late fuggles (or fuggles at all). I'd use something noble with a touch of later styrian goldings.
Citric acid addition at that point is intetesting, not sure if necessary unless you expect wort pH to be way out.

 

[malliemcg]

Good call on the yeast. Brain was a bit of a fuzz when I visited the local HBS and did not articulate the style clearly.

The Fuggles and the citric were used in the brew that a mate had made in his AG setup, and the Mrs specifically asked me to make something close to that beer (I liked it too) and as it makes her more amenable to expenditures for the brewery, I'm more than happy to oblige.

The flaked malt was flaked wheat, I typed it out wrong when writing out the list. The mate who made the above skipped it.

The biggest concern is the small boil volume and if I should up the hop weight. I'd hassle my mate who made the AG version but he's got not so much experience with extract brewing so thought some QA here would be in order.

 

[Weizguy]

Quite an ambitious recipe for an all-extract brew.
I hope you're aware that you're unlikely to get the right colour or flavours without the flaked wheat and the right yeast.
IIRC, WB-06 is also recommended for Witbiers, but I like the Wit-specific yeasts better.

Absolutely agree with Mark regarding your extract, as most American wheat malt is often less than 50% wheat. Just be sure that your LME is fresh or any staleness will ruin all the delicate flavours you're trying to recreate.
If possible, I recommend you learn to perform a mini-mash to include the flaked wheat (and some rolled oats, too) and then add it back to the extract. I recommend a mini-BIAB approach with at least 500g pils malt, 400g raw/flaked wheat and 100g rolled oats; preferable double each amount.

Boil with the mashed wort/extract in 7 litres and up to 30% of the LME, adding the remaining extract at about 5-10 minutes from the end of the boil. I can't see much point to the white sugar at the end.

In any case, good luck and let us know how it goes.

Les

 

[malliemcg]

It's been three weeks since bottling this brew, I grabbed a bottle of Hoegaarden to compare against. Got the wife to pour into identical glasses and compared side by side. Given the expected colour difference, I kept my eyes closed and used only my sense of smell and taste.

The nose on mine was somewhat more expressive and available than the Hoegaarden and I preferred the nose that my efforts had.
The taste of both was similar, the Hoegaarden was more subtle and had more nuances than mine. I think I've made something between a Bluemoon and the Hoegaarden - which I'm not disappointed about - the profile is ballpark for the style, the colour being extract based is a bit too dark (additional driver to go AG - looking at the grainfather), but when making a brew, I'd rather have "my" stamp on it than a faithful reproduction of someone elses.

I declared that I preferred the Hoegaarden based on the taste, although there was not much in it. I was kind of disappointed that it was not my own, but the flavours were "close enough". The yeast I used was one that my mate who made the inspiration cultured up on his stirplate and i ended up making a 500mL starter from. The batch got going and fermented out quicker than I'd expected. All in all a success.

 

[meatabolism]

Hi Mallie

Did you make the brew to your recipe? I am very interested in this I am a fan of Hoegaarden and wheat beers, could you tell us more about the yeast?

Cheers

 

[malliemcg]

I spoke to the gent who got me my yeast that I used for the starter (it's from his "Library") and he reckons it was https://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=69 (#3944).