I'm tellin ya...maybe I have a flexible palate, but this Belgian Wit Recipe turned out as close to a Blue Moon as...well...Blue Moon.
I just kegged and force carb'd it this afternoon and it's still about 5-6 degrees from being cold enough...but it is perfect. Even my daughter who's a server at a college town pub says it's "spot on".
I'm definitely repeating this one. Great summer brew.
Back before Miller screwed over Pierre Celis and he had his brewery in Austin, Tx I tried the Celis Wit and I enjoyed it very much. When I went on the brewery tour before it was closed I was amazed at how much coriander and orange peel was added per batch but that was before I began homebrewing. I've never brewed a wit so I'm going to follow your recipe but just scale it up to a 10 gallon batch size. I do have a question though. A friend of mine harvested oranges from his parents trees so I know they don't have any pesticides or weed herbicides sprayed on them and I thought of using those oranges and simply zesting them with a microplane kitchen gadget. These hybrid trees aren't curacao orange but the rind certainly are bitter. I can't really come up with a good way of determining how much of these oranges to use to get the same bitterness and flavour essense as the curacao other than weight. When you were devloping your recipe did you read of others who brewed this style while not using the curacao orange rind?
Thanks,
Jeffrey
Back before Miller screwed over Pierre Celis and he had his brewery in Austin, Tx I tried the Celis Wit and I enjoyed it very much. When I went on the brewery tour before it was closed I was amazed at how much coriander and orange peel was added per batch but that was before I began homebrewing. I've never brewed a wit so I'm going to follow your recipe but just scale it up to a 10 gallon batch size. I do have a question though. A friend of mine harvested oranges from his parents trees so I know they don't have any pesticides or weed herbicides sprayed on them and I thought of using those oranges and simply zesting them with a microplane kitchen gadget. These hybrid trees aren't curacao orange but the rind certainly are bitter. I can't really come up with a good way of determining how much of these oranges to use to get the same bitterness and flavour essense as the curacao other than weight. When you were devloping your recipe did you read of others who brewed this style while not using the curacao orange rind?
Thanks,
Jeffrey
The orange bitter I used was dried so weight would need to be adjusted to convert to fresh. On the other hand, I'd imagine that fresh grated orange peel would have more concentrated oils and essence.
My guess would be if I used 3/4 Oz dried peel, then double that for fresh.
Maybe start out with 1 1/4 Oz (per 5 gallon batch) then taste test when racking to the secondary. If it is still light, boil some more orange rind in a cup or two of water, cool and add to the secondary.
That's my shoot-from-the-hip guess, but I tend to be pretty good around a kitchen.
Thanks for the tips, I'll give it a try this coming weekend and see where I end up when I rack to the secondary. I do have a food dehydrator so I guess I could zest and then dehydrate but as you said some of the oils may be volatile at the dehydration temperatures. This will be fun.
Jeffrey
I've made 4 wits, and found that getting the orange and coriander amounts just right is the trickiest part. A little goes a LONG way. I wouldn't mind making another one sometime soon.
The 3944 is perfect. I used a Whitelabs Belgian #400 which is the counterpart to the Wyeast version. I actually ordered the Wyeast 3944, but they were out so sub'd the Whitelabs instead.
You'll love the beer. Make sure to crush those coriander seeds.
This Belgian Wit is spot on for a Blue Moon
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