Give Me A Belgian Wit Recipe, Stat!

I told my dad I'd make him some beer for his birthday, which is coming Jan 20th. I know it won't be completely done by then, but it will be close. We decided to make a wit and I'm going to pick up the grain today since I'm already going to be stopping by the LHBS.

Anyone have a reliable recipe?

I'm going out to my car to get my Belgian Ale book right now...

Brewsmith said:

I told my dad I'd make him some beer for his birthday, which is coming Jan 20th. I know it won't be completely done by then, but it will be close. We decided to make a wit and I'm going to pick up the grain today since I'm already going to be stopping by the LHBS.

Anyone have a reliable recipe?

I'm going out to my car to get my Belgian Ale book right now...

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The Hoegaarden recipe in my sig tastes like hoegaarden, but it needs a few months to mellow.

Looks good Cheese. Thanks

After checking Cheesefood's recipe and looking at my book, here's the preliminary recipe:

Belgian Wit
5.5 gallons

4 lbs Belgain Pale
4 lbs Wheat malt
0.5 lb Flaked Wheat
0.5 lb Flaked Oats

0.75 oz Styrian Goldings 60 min
0.5 oz Czech Saaz 15 min

0.75 oz Coriander and 0.25 oz bitter orange peel at knockoff

White Labs 410 Belgian Wit II Yeast

looks good, but I'd use more orange peel

How 'bout 0.5 oz? I need to pick up a pack anyways. I don't have any in stock. I'll have the whole thing to deal with.

I think it usually comes in one ounce packages. I don't think I'd use less than a half, and if it were mine, I'd use the whole thing. The peel isn't all that potent and it tastes nice with the coriander and the flavor that you get with Belgian wit yeast (although I've never used the 410)

Well the grain is purchased. 4 lbs belgian pale, 4 lbs wheat malt, 0.5 lb flaked wheat, 0.5 lb flaked oats. And I bought a pack of bitter orange peel. Total package weight is 1 oz, so we'll see how much I end up using. Hops are still up for grabs. I have Styrian Golding pellets, whole Hallertau and a little whole Saaz that work for this style (I'm not going to go with all of the Amarillo I have in stock, even though the grapefruit aroma may be a good thing!).

A bit late maybe, but Mike Dixon's recipe is tried and trusted. I've tried it using WLP400 and it was great:

http://hbd.org/carboy/recipes/wit3.htm

Also, malted wheat is more at home in a German style Hefeweizen rather than a Wit which should use unmalted wheat.

http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/styles/2_4style.html

Unless you already had some, you can't get the White Labs Belgian Wit II right now. It's only available in July and August I believe. I know because I just tried to get some myself last week. I settled for the regular Belgian Wit, #WLP400. On a semi-related note, where did you get the bitter orange peel? LHBS?

Well the grain is what I posted earlier:

4 lbs Belgian Pale
4 lbs Wheat Malt
0.5 lb Flaked Wheat
0.5 lb Flaked Oats

For the hops I decided to do a fridge cleaner:

0.75 oz Styrian Goldings pellets 60 min
0.63 oz Hallertau whole 15 min
0.5 oz Saaz whole 5 min

For the spice additions I decieded:

1 oz Bitter Orange Peel 15 min
0.5 oz Whole Corriander Seed 5 min

I am using the White Labs 410 Belgian Wit II. I made a starter the other day. I picked it up about two months ago. The LHBS has discounts on yeast past the date on the label, and I saw it, so I got it just ffiguring I would use it sometime. That sometime is now.

I've already done the mash and I'm about half way through the boil. I started at about 7pm and I figure I'll have everything put away by midnight.

The Wit is finished and is now in th fermentation fridge right next to the Belgian Dubbel I did on Saturday.

Wit's in the bucket.

And during all of this I've been drinking my Hefeweizen that I filled into a growler for New Years Eve. I's about empty, so the carbonation is a little less than normal.

And somehow pics of the Belgian Dubbel got in there. The first one is from Sunday about 12 hours after pitching. The other one is from the same time as the Wit. Activity has slowed, but it's still constant.

Here's the hyrometer sample:

Gravity reads 1.049, so my efficiency was 80% :rockin:

Aroma is just a hint of orange with the herbal Saaz hops. Taste is only a litle bitter, some I think from the bitter orange peel. I can taste orange and the just a hint of coriander up front before the sweetness takes over, followed by the bitter orange and hop bitterness. Very interesting. Can't wait to taste it when it's done.

looks yummy!!

I brought the Grand Cru I just finished to my step-father's 60th birthday and they drained in no time. I'm going to have to start another pretty quickly.

Brewsmith said:

Here's the hyrometer sample:

Gravity reads 1.049, so my efficiency was 80% :rockin:

Aroma is just a hint of orange with the herbal Saaz hops. Taste is only a litle bitter, some I think from the bitter orange peel. I can taste orange and the just a hint of coriander up front before the sweetness takes over, followed by the bitter orange and hop bitterness. Very interesting. Can't wait to taste it when it's done.

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Wow, sounds really similar to mine! My OG was 1.048, and the flavor was very similar to yours. I used the Belgian Wit, not the Wit II though. Here's to two delicious beers in a couple months!

Before I left for work, it was chugging away nicely. I love the fermentation fridge!

I've only done two wit batches with that yeast but both took around 5-6 weeks to finish up. 1st one the krausen didn't fall until 4.5 weeks later. Hope you can make the target date but I wouldn't rush it. I racked to a secondary sooner than krausen falling on the second batch and it just popped up again.

I have no real hurry on it. There's almost no way that even if everything went to a normal schedule, that it would be bottled and ready to drink by my Dad's birthday. So he'll get it in February! He's still getting free beer. Who's going to complain about that?

Had to attach the blow off hose! It's going nuts! The one bad thing about the fermentation fridge is that you can't keep an eye on the fermenter. Good thing I caught it when I did. The lid was bulging good. That would be have not been pretty in the morning.