Witbier Hoemaade Hoegaarden

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Unibrow

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2011
Messages
446
Reaction score
10
Location
Cleveland
Recipe Type
Partial Mash
Yeast
WLP 400
Yeast Starter
No
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter
No
Batch Size (Gallons)
5
Original Gravity
1.054
Final Gravity
1.012
Boiling Time (Minutes)
60
IBU
16
Color
4
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
15 days - 1st week in high 60s; 2nd week at low 70s
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
nope
Additional Fermentation
nope
Tasting Notes
Pretty dang close to Hoegaarden
Hoegaarden is one of my all time favorites, and I was amazed at how close this came to the Belgian Wit classic. Biggest difference is that Hoegaarden is listed as 4.9% ABV and mine came out to about 5.3% which is okay with me. This was my first partial mash attempt, and my 8th overall home brew - so I'm still relatively new to the brewing game. In other words, if I can pull this off, so can you! :mug:

There's a hundred possible variations on all of these steps, but here's what I did and had great results.

Grain Ingredients
4 LB Pale Malt US 2 Row
4 oz Biscuit Malt
4 oz White Wheat Malt
6 oz Rolled Oats

Partial Mashing Check DeathBrewer's PM instructions for a great method if you're new to it
+Start heating 2 gallons of water to 160 degrees
+Let oven sit on "warm" for 5 minutes, then turn off oven
+Add grains to 2 gallons of water in strainer bag @ 160 degrees
+Cover pot and place in warmed (but NOT hot) oven for 60 mins to sustain temp
+At about 20 mins left, start heating an additional 1.75 gallons of water to 175 degrees but don't let it get higher than that
+When your 60 mins is up, remove pot from oven - my mash temp was 154 after checking but don't worry if your temp goes lower
+Pull out your grain bag and let it drip back into the pot. Let it drain as much as you can, but the bag will be heavy so watch out.
+Place the drained bag into your 1.75 gallons of 175 degree sparge water and dunk it in and out as much as you can - I did this for about 10 minutes - then let the bag drain out in a colander with a bowl under it. Also, I squeezed the bag in the colander to get all the best sugars out. I know some people advise against squeezing, but as long as you don't go insane with it, you won't extract tannins. Also, watch out cause the bag will be HOT
+Add all your sparge water to the initial 2 gallons and start heating to a boil
+Give the wort a quick taste, and it should be sweet. If the wort is minimally sweet or if it's starchy, your mash temps may have been too low

Begin Boiling - your original boil size should be around 3 gallons after grain absorption
+Add 3 LB of light wheat DME as it's heating up
+Should be at a rolling boil in about 25-30 mins
+Plan for a 60 minute boil

Now we're boiling
+Add 1.5 oz Saaz hops (3.3% AA) for 60 mins
+Add 0.5 oz Saaz hops (3.3% AA) for 45 mins
with 15 mins left in boil
+Add .5 LB of light wheat DME (if you want slightly lower OG + an ABV closer to commercial Hoegaarden, you can skip this DME addition)
+Add zest of 4 fresh valencia oranges (try not to get the white pith in there when zesting)
+Add 1/4 tsp of powdered coriander (many people suggest crushed coriander seeds, and usually around 1 oz of those if you want)

After 60 mins boil is over
+Make sure EVERYTHING is sanitized now!
+Cool wort in an ice bath (mine cooled to under 100 degrees in about 15 minutes after 2 ice baths)
+Place your strainer bag (from the mash) around the fermenter bucket to strain out the orange peel, hops, etc...
+Pour the cooled wort into the fermenter
+Lift the strainer bag out of the fermenter and let it drip back into the bucket but don't squeeze the bag cause your hands are filthy :D
+Top off the fermenter to 5 gallons with cold spring water - I like to top off with refrigerated spring water. A 2.5 gallon container will usually be enough to get you there
+Stir the 5 gallons well so the cold water mixes in good
+Grab a cup of wort for the OG sample (should be close to 1.054)

Pitch yeast
+When your wort gets to under 80 degrees it's safe to add the yeast
+Make sure the vial of WLP 400 is at room temp, or close to the wort's temp. You should dunk the vial in sanitizer, or spray it with sanitizer.
+Open the vial over your fermenter, and use caution because it will probably spray out a bit like a soda bottle.
+Stir vigorously for a few minutes to mix the yeast well and get oxygen whipped into the wort
+Add your fermenter's lid and use an airlock with sanitizer - CAUTION - many people recommend a blow off tube because WLP 400 can be a monster. I was okay with just an airlock, but you should have a blow off tube ready to go just in case

Primary for 15 days
+1st week temp around 66-70
+2nd week temp around 70-74 to ensure the yeast finishes up with a bang
+My airlock smelled amazingly good for the first few days, then it smelled pretty awful for the remaining time. Don't worry if it smells bad, all you airlock sniffers out there (me included)
+I took a hydrometer sample at 8 days and was at 1.014 - so everything went quickly for me, but some people report WLP 400 working very slow so give it a check after 1 week and see where you're at. If you're above 1.025 after 1 week you may have stuck fermentation.
+Also watch out for krausen that's thick, creamy, and VERY persistent. Don't be afraid to gently swirl or rock your fermenter to knock the krausen down and rouse the yeast back up.

Bottling
+Mix 5 oz priming sugar with 2.5 cups water - boil that for 5 minutes
+Add sugar water to bottling bucket
+Rack beer over that and add to sanitizes bottles, cap with sanitized caps

Tried a bottle after only 4 days
+About 80% carbed
+Nice 1 inch head
+Added orange slice
+Did I just make a frickin' Hoegaarden? :rockin:


hoegaarden.jpg
 
Great write-up! I too am partial to Hoegaarden. I think we'll brew your recipe here soon. And again, great attention to detail - even a beginner would be comfortable with your instructions, which is awesome. Much better than many kit instruction sheets...
 
Thank you Southern. I was going for attention to detail and simplicity. I feel if I saw instructions like this when I started, I would have avoided many obvious pitfalls.

If you try this, let me know how it turns out. I had an amazing beer 19 days after brew day.
 
Yeah, I'm guilty of not cleaning my glasses sometimes...

Bubbles on the side of glass is bad? Never heard that one before - what's that about? The beer still tasted amazing
 
Thanks Beach - I don't have the equipment for AG (yet) but according to the equation that 1# of grain = .6# DME I'm guessing it would be something like

10# of Pale 2 Row (an additional 6# base malt here, to make up for the 3.5# of DME)
1.5# of white wheat malt
1.5# of biscuit
1# of rolled oats

Again, I've never done AG so you should run this through some beer software or see what the experts have to say on these forums. But good luck!
 
Made this yesterday, pitched the yeast about 12 hours ago, and while there's a lot of activity inside, there's only a very thin krausen on top, but maybe it's too early yet.

Anyway, I have no idea how you managed to get that color, maybe it will clear up a bit but mine is as brown as all my wheat beers up to this point. This is my fifth brew (second mini-mash). I made a few changes, so my target OG was 1.049, and amazingly, and for the first time, I actually hit it exactly. I didn't use the same mashing method detailed here, instead I opted for the "American Adjunct Mash Procedure" as detailed in Randy Mosher's "Radical Brewing". Here's what I had:

1. 500 grams Pale Ale Malt, 150 grams Wheat Malt and 170 grams Quaker quick-cooking oats in 2.5 liters of water in a small pot.
2. 1000 grams Pale Ale Malt, 120 grams Amber Malt (Biscuit unavailable) in 4-5 liters of water in a bag in brew pot.

The smaller pot went through a series of temperature rises, starting at 50c, then around 65c, then a 15 minute boil, before adding to main pot, which was at 50c, raising it to 68c. Later on raised to 70, and then 75 before taking the bag out.

I then sparged in around 3-4 liters water at around 75c for 10 minutes, then dumped the grain. Boiled with LME and hops according to recipe above, but decided against boiling the spices, instead opting for Randy Mosher's suggestion of soaking the spices in vodka for a few weeks and adding to beer at bottling. I also added chamomile flowers which are common in witbiers.

Yeast pitched were rehydrated Safbrew WB-06, as liquid yeasts are not available in Israel.

My previous mini-mash was a high gravity wheat, I used a cooler for that one and had terrible efficiency (target 1.085, actual 1.075). I want to get into AG and thinking of BIAB, so this is definitely a +1 for BIAB.
 
I think the color came from the extra light wheat DME, as the grain bill certainly didn't any any dark color. Thanks for trying the recipe, hope it turns out good for ya. Let me know!

Tel Aviv is a real cool city, I went there a couple years ago.
 
That could be it, I don't think we have extra light wheat here. Anyway, I will post with the results, I have good hopes for this batch.

Yeah, Tel Aviv is a pretty cool city, quite expensive though. Were you here on vacation?
 
Yes, did a birthright vacation of israel with my friend. It was the best free international 10 day vacation I ever took in my life.
 
I joined an American Birthright group for five days in 2007 when I was serving in the IDF, indeed it was a great vacation even for me, though I mostly remember we were drunk about 80% of the time.
 
I decided to use this recipe for my first attempt at partial mash.

So far I've had a successful batch of extract/brewer's best kit Brown Ale, and another kit - Robust Porter with some minor modifications almost ready to bottle. I think I'm ready to graduate to partial.


Couple questions:

Has anyone tried this with Lemons or a combination of lemon and orange? Some other recipes call for putting the fruit in a bag in the fermenter as well. Is this going to be too fruity? I was hoping for something slightly more acidic/bitter than Hoegaarden. Maybe additional bittering hops?

Is there a need to move over to a secondary fermenter? I understand that its a matter of preference but what are the pros and cons with this style?

Thanks for the recipe and the great instructions! Brew day is tentatively set for next Saturday.
 
Definitely don't move to secondary. This style of beer is better with a little haze. Also, the WLP 400 contributes a lot of flavor, so you don't want it to move off the yeast cake while fermenting.

I originally used orange zest in the boil, and that was great. I wouldn't add any other fruit, but additional hops (bittering or flavor) is worth trying for sure.
 
Bottled this batch last week, going to give it a taste probably on Friday!
 
Had a taste yesterday. This beer is good! I'm not getting the oriander, orange or lemon flavors very much though I thought I used quite a lot.

For one reason or another my OG leaned higher than expected 1.064 and I finished at approx 1.017, so the abv is high for the style
But, it has great color and head retention. The lace is beautiful. Nice Belgian yeast and bready flavors. Very refreshing with a dry finish. Has a bit of a warming quality (almost like a Tripel) likely due to the higher alcohol content but not in a bad way at all. Mine was not as sweet as a hoegaarden but that's sort of what I was planning for.
I will definitely make this again with maybe a couple tweaks.
 
Here is the variation on this recipe that I used, partial mash:

4lbs Pale row US 2 Row (44.4%)
12oz White Wheat Malt (8.3%)
4oz Biscuit Malt (2.8%)
4oz Flaked Oats (lightly toasted in oven 15 minutes at 350*) (2.8%)
4oz Flaked Wheat (2.8%)
3lbs White Wheat Dry Extract

.5oz Hallertauer (4.3 AA) 60 min
.5oz Hallertauer (4.3) 30 min
.5oz Saaz (4.0) 30 min

-At 15 minutes before end of boil
Add additional 8oz White Wheat DME
Add zest of 2 lemons and 2 oranges (soaked in 1/2 cup vodka)
Add 1/2 tsp coriander
Add 5 crushed cloves

Belgian Witbier Wyeast 3944 - made 3/4l starter
Fermented on the inner fruit (peel removed) from the lemons and oranges
Fermented 68* for 2 weeks, bottled for 2 weeks with 4.5oz priming sugar.
 
Had a taste yesterday. This beer is good! I'm not getting the oriander, orange or lemon flavors very much though I thought I used quite a lot.

Glad it came out good! The coriander and citrus are supposed to be subtle anyway, so I think that's a good thing. I'm actually planning to make this again soon with orange zest and 2# orange blossom honey (honey added after the wort is cooled to pitch temps to preserve delicate flavor) and see if that brings out more orange. Although it will be less like a true Hoegaarden.

Also, I'm going to use freshly ground coriander (rather than pre-ground) next time because I want it to be a tad more spicy.
 
Hi I was brewing this but with some NZ variation on the ingredients
Everything was great, I tasted the hydro samples and it was very hoegaarden'y I was quite excited.
We have had a bit of a cold snap and I thought the yeast had stalled since it got stuck on 1016. still looking and tasting great though, although it seemed to have a really large amount of 'stuff' still floating around.

I gave it a little shake, moved it into a much warmer area and let it sit for a few days.
when I took the next hydro I was surprised that most of the floating stuff had dissapeared and so did the taste. All the hoegaarden flavour dissapeared with the floating stuff.

I learned from my local brew shop that the wheat beer type yeasts are meant to suspend the 'stuff' so it was in fact fine, if just a little high on the hydro.

Any idea's what went wrong? Why would moving it into a warmer place destroy it? I want to try this recipe again.
My ingredients
temperature data, before it was moved is available if anyone considers it relevant.
 
Any idea's what went wrong? Why would moving it into a warmer place destroy it? I want to try this recipe again.
My ingredients
temperature data, before it was moved is available if anyone considers it relevant.

I doubt anything is wrong. You were probably just seeing yeast rafts, and it's good that they eventually dropped...the flavor will be in tact when you rack for bottling. The FG might be slightly too high, but if it's stabilized, you're ready to bottle this sucker up. Let us know how it is
 
This looks great, and I'm getting ready to make this, but I'm gonna do a BIAB, and I want to try to do a full boil. I know I'll get more hops utilization with a full boil, but my main concern is making too thin of a mash. If I try to add all of the strike water (~7.1 gallons) but only mash with 4.875lbs of grain, will I get off-flavors or tannin extraction? Should I set my target boil volume for the mash to be the 3 gal, and then after the mash just add the rest of the water, up to ~6.5 gal to account for boil off? I'm still playing with the BIAB process, but it's working pretty well for me so far. Thanks for any help!

-Wolf
 
I can only vouch for my method here. While there is probably nothing wrong with your plan, I think you'e making more work for yourself. The beauty of the partial mash is NOT having to do the full boil, hence saving some time and effort with cooling. You can do BIAB with partial, or just Multiply the grain bill by 2 and do a full boil BIAB, essentially upgrading to all grain

Either way will work fine I'm sure, but I wouldnt do a full boil with less than 5 lb of grains
 
I brewed this up about 6 weeks ago. Just got done having my first bottle out of the batch. Very nice!! The flavors are balanced out very nicely. I'll definitely brew this one again. On the next batch I might switch up the hops and replace the saaz with maybe hallertauer. What's your thought on that?
 
I doubt anything is wrong. You were probably just seeing yeast rafts, and it's good that they eventually dropped...the flavor will be in tact when you rack for bottling. The FG might be slightly too high, but if it's stabilized, you're ready to bottle this sucker up. Let us know how it is

I'm afraid to say this is possibly the worst beer I have ever made. I believe that I stirred up something nasty when I shook the fermenter.
I expect I will try this again but unfortuantly this batch is not pleasant at all. It is quite a stark comparison to the samples I tried before while the 'stuff'/yeast rafts was suspended. I still think this was just the wheat DME which was giving the flavour.
 
Why would you shake a fermenter? You may have oxidize the batch would no doubt would contribute to off flavors.
 
I'm afraid to say this is possibly the worst beer I have ever made. I believe that I stirred up something nasty when I shook the fermenter.
I expect I will try this again but unfortuantly this batch is not pleasant at all. It is quite a stark comparison to the samples I tried before while the 'stuff'/yeast rafts was suspended. I still think this was just the wheat DME which was giving the flavour.

Bummer about the results but, yeah, shaking the fermenter can be really bad news. If I ever have to rouse the yeast (very very infrequently) I will gently swirl the bucket.

Also, without a picture we can't confirm what was floating about. It may have been harmless yeast rafts or a bacterial infection.
 
I enjoy the Hoegaarden and will be giving your recipe a go this weekend. It will be my first partial so I'm looking forward to it. It's still a bit mind boggling for a noobie at times reading through the forums but your instructions make it a lot less confusing. Will let you know the results.
 
Made one of these a couple months ago and it turned out great. It was a huge hit so I think I'm going to repeat again today with some different hops. I bought some Simcoe and Cascade to throw in for a dry hop to try making a white ipa.
 
Kanetoad23 said:
I enjoy the Hoegaarden and will be giving your recipe a go this weekend. It will be my first partial so I'm looking forward to it. It's still a bit mind boggling for a noobie at times reading through the forums but your instructions make it a lot less confusing. Will let you know the results.

I agree. Instructions for this one are so easy it's hard to screw it up. Good luck.
 
I have been running for five days, took a read and I'm showing 1.020. Is all progressing well or is the fermentation struck?
 
I have been running for five days, took a read and I'm showing 1.020. Is all progressing well or is the fermentation struck or am I worried for nothing.
 
I have been running for five days, took a read and I'm showing 1.020. Is all progressing well or is the fermentation struck or am I worried for nothing.

You shouldn't be worried after 5 days. If you see that fermentation has begun, just leave it alone for at least 10 days, although I usually wait 2 weeks at a minimum before checking any brew. If you really think you have a stuck fermentation (which is possible, although way too early at this point) you can gently twist and turn the bucket to rouse the yeast up.

One great thing about this brew (and WLP 400 in general) is that it's ready way quicker than most recipes - so you should be ready to bottle in 2-3 weeks. In other words, a little patience goes a long way here.
 
Unibrow,I'm getting ready to make this per your recipe but I have a question.The "3 LB of light wheat DME" in your begin broiling section is of any particular brand? Also this was not listed on the grain ingredients or is the light wheat DME totally separate? Thanks for the recipe and any help,can't wait to get this started.
 
Back
Top