Anyone have any thoughts/ideas/recipes on this style of beer for a beginner doing extract (not all-grain)? Not necessarily looking for a clone, just a nice belgian wit-meets-IPA concept.
I'll throw something out there
Are you capable of doing a partial mash (see death brewer's sticky in the beginning brewers section of the forum)?
Start with your objectives, light color, decent body, wheat, heavier on the hops and aroma, citrus, orange and coriander... Playing around with the idea and style, I ended up with the following idea(s) (these numbers for a 5 gallon batch):
Fermentables:
4lbs Extra light dry extract (base, light color, add with 20min left in boil to keep from darkening)
4lbs White Wheat Malt (wheat addition, good for the style, light)
.25 - .50lbs Carafoam (increasing the body, geared towards the IPA side of the beer)
Low temp mash for your grains, 60+ minutes
60 minute boil - Use of both German "spicy" hops and a solid American hop that harbors citrus floral notes but also contributes to the "spice" of the beer, coriander and orange as well, something like the following:
(60) - 0.50oz centennial
(60) - 1.00oz hallertauer
(15) - 0.50oz tettnang
(10) - 0.50oz tettnang
(05) - 0.50oz centennial
(05) - 0.50oz crushed coriander seed
(05) - 1.00oz orange peel
(00) - 1.00oz centennial (Optional, I like hops)
One solid bitter addition that will set most of the bitterness, then everything else on the back end of the boil geared towards aroma,
As far as your yeast goes, I would probably go with WLP410 (Belgian Wit II) however like mentioned before in this topic you could always mix a wit and ale yeast to create a unique flavor, I wouldn't have much to say on this one though I've never mixed yeasts (that I know of
)
Brewing the above would put you at the following:
1.058-1.062 OG (Heavier than a standard Wit, mid - lower side of an IPA)
1.012-1.016 FG (Heavier than a standard Wit, lower side of an IPA)
4.0-4.4 SRM (Typical, slightly dark color for a Wit, very light for an IPA)
42-45 IBU (Over double your average Wit, light for an IPA)
Estimated 5.6-6.0% ABV
I've only brewed 1 beer that was geared towards the style of a Wit but after tweaking everything out we ended up with a darker wheat, it still rocked, we hopped it pretty heavily, added the coriander and orange as I noted above.
I have a vacation coming up over Labor day, maybe I'll brew this. From where I'm sitting it doesn't look too bad
I am quite thirsty though...