Witbier Blue Balls Belgian Wit (Blue Moon Clone)

Bottling this tonight after 15 days in FV. Hydro read 1.010 last night (started 1.040) and sample was great. Citrus and coriander coming thru nicely. Light, refreshing, I think the wife will love this.

I just got back from the LHBS, and picked up 5lbs of "White Wheat" instead of flaked wheat.

Will it still make the same beer?

What is the difference?

^ I think BM addressed this in the thread somewhere. I can't really say because I've always used flaked. Not sure where you are in Chitown but Bevart at 101st and Western in Beverly has it. That's where I get mine.
Sipping one right now as a mater of fact and it sure is tasty. I added .25 oz. of sweet orange peel as well as the bitter which gives it a hint of sweetness. Not like throwing a slice of orange in it but you can tell it's there.

letmeholleratya said:

Hi all, quick question for kegging...

I bottled this when I brewed it a couple of months ago. It turned out great, so I plan on making it again. I noticed that after the brews would clear in the bottle, to get the best flavor I needed to gently rouse the yeast up. Do you guys do anything when it's kegged, or do you just pour clear?

Great recipe by the way, BM.

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So far I've just been pouring clear from the keg and it still tastes pretty good. Last time I bottled as well. Just gave it a little rock on the last glass and it is better. I'll need to remember this for next time though as I just found out it's almost dead.

Brewing this one tomorrow. My first all grain can't wait.

Brewing now & missed mash temp. by about 11-14 degrees on the low side. Will it matter much? It came down to about 143 dg.

Brewed this again last weekend. I made the ag version, with some changes. I added 1# of german dark wheat, and used ~1.25 oz of orange zest. Last time i couldn't taste any orange.

Brewed the AG version 18 days ago. Kegged it & have it carbing now hope to have pics by sunday. It tasted very good. This was my first AG

Just picked up the ingredients for this today after the wifey requested a blue moon clone. I added a slight twist to the grain bill by adding 8oz of Acidulated malt. I am hoping this will give it a hint of that crisp sour refreshing aspect. We shall see. Oh and I am also using Dogfish Head's DNA yeast strain. Should make for an interesting beer.

BierMuncher said:

This should be a good base:
3.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Wheat Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)
2.00 lb Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM)

1.49 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00%] (60 min)

0.75 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
0.75 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 10.0 min) Misc

1 Pkgs Belgian Witbier (Wyeast #3944 or White Labs WLP400) Definitely want a Belgian Wit yeast though.

Mash your flaked wheat at 155 degrees for 60-75 minutes (the longer will up the efficiency and ABV%)

Strain the wheat grains out and bring wort to boil, add extracts and you know the rest...

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Hey BM...If your around, I took a stab at the PM recipe you posted and ran into some difficulty...First screw up...I used the 1.25qt of water rule for steeping the flaked oats....within 10 minutes I knew I had screwed up because it turned into a large pile of oatmeal! I added another gallon or so of water - brought back up to temp and steeped for 30 mins....

Next issue, I steeped in a extra fine mesh nylon bag....when I went to pull it out, the liquid was trapped in the bag because of the thickness of the flaked oats...it created quite the mess. I did some squeezing to get as much of the liquid out.....Not sure if this was a bonehead move or not. I then added another gallon of water and the rest of the fermentables and started the boil and completed the recipe.

Now...Fermentation went well and was very vigerous! 2 and a half weeks later, I start to transfer into the keg and I notice after transferring about 3 gallons, there was nothing but sludge in the bucket ...I ended up only able to get about 3.5 gallons total from this batch as the remaining Yeast cake, sludge, etc took up the rest of the volume of the fermenter. I have NO idea where all this extra sludge came from....it wasn't present in the kettle when I transferred to the fermenter.

On a positive note, the sample I tasted was nice, light and refreshing so I think it will be a really good beer. Just bumed that I didnt get a full 5 gallons. (And yes, the fermenter had 5.25 gallons when I added the yeast)

Might just be me - but I had some struggles with the partial. I am close to going all grain once I make a couple more purchases and will definitely try that version.

Any thoughts on my struggles for future Partial Mashers to be aware of?

Gracias!!!

Butcherbrew

pascott6 said:

Brewed the AG version 18 days ago. Kegged it & have it carbing now hope to have pics by sunday. It tasted very good. This was my first AG

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I brewed this up as my first AG about 3 months ago as well, great beer to go AG on for sure. Not a huge grain bill, and it sure is TASTY! This is now permanently in the rotation at my house!

I'm curious, did your mash temps effect the ABV at all? I have that you get more alcohol from mashing at lower temps, and a more full mouth feel mashing in the mid to upper 150s.. Just curious of an effect it had for you.

Yeast starter is going. Should be brewing this Friday night if all goes as planned.

Muncher what you think about this?

6lb american 2 row
4lb flaked wheat
.5 lb white wheat
1 oz golding 60 min
1.5 oz of coriander at 20 min
1 oz of bitter orange 20 min

grouperdude said:

Muncher what you think about this?

6lb american 2 row
4lb flaked wheat
.5 lb white wheat
1 oz golding 60 min
1.5 oz of coriander at 20 min
1 oz of bitter orange 20 min

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Do the coriander and orange additions as close to flameout as possible. There won't be much left of them if you boil for 20 mins.

quick question, in the description of the beer in one part it says 5.5 gallon batch,and in another it says 5.20, which should it be?

Brewing this now. Apparently 1/2lb of rice hulls wasn't enough. I have had to stir quite often to get the mash tun to drain.

Well, in the end everything went pretty well for this being my first ag wheat beer. I took my pre-boil gravity and it was 1.050 @ 6.25 gal. I did a bit of head scratching and double checked my ingredients and everything checked out normal. I did use an extra 1/2lb of wheat just because my LHBS had it in 1lb bags. Yeah, I got 88% efficiency apparently lol. I have always been around 72 previously. My only guess is that it was from all the stopping and stirring I had to do because it kept getting stuck. I also did a mash out for the first time. FG was 1.060 so I topped the fermenter up with some water to bring it down a little. Its chugging away this morning, I'll report back with results in a few weeks. I figure 10 day primary then straight to the keg.

Brewed this yesterday as two 1 gallon batches using kent goldings in one and centennial in the other just to see if I could taste a difference and if the centennial would make a difference both are within the style at under 30 idu. The OG was a little high at 1.052 but I figured what the heck go for it. The one in the orange home depot bucket (yes I have read about the risks) is a 60 min IPA style using mixture of chinook, centennial, and simcoe. The white bucket is the centennial blue balls and the jug is the goldings one. Super excited to try this one.

Bottled this yesterday and had to stop myself from drinking from the bottling spigot. Flat and young and it was still tasty. Going to be a tough two weeks waiting.

I zested two oranges and used that in place of the ounce of dried bitter orange. The bouquet is phenomenal.

I brewed this about 10 days ago. After 12 hours there was some airlock activity. It continued pretty steady for about 2 days. It slowed down after that but never stopped. Today @ day 10 I went downstairs and krausen was bubbleing up through the airlock. I use the wyeast belgian wit yeast. I know yeast kind of do there own thing but is this a trait of this particular yeast? Any thoughts.

swerner said:

I brewed this about 10 days ago. After 12 hours there was some airlock activity. It continued pretty steady for about 2 days. It slowed down after that but never stopped. Today @ day 10 I went downstairs and krausen was bubbleing up through the airlock. I use the wyeast belgian wit yeast. I know yeast kind of do there own thing but is this a trait of this particular yeast? Any thoughts.

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I used the Wyeast Belgian Wit yeast:

First, I had to stop my stir plate with the starter as it continued to come through the top of the 2 liter Erlenmeyer flask.

Second, despite the fact I added Fermcap to the primary, it was coming through the airlock on Day 2. I put a blowoff tube in place and that stayed there for the next 5 days.

I don't think you have a problem on your hands...just some very active yeast!

XPLSV said:

I used the Wyeast Belgian Wit yeast:

First, I had to stop my stir plate with the starter as it continued to come through the top of the 2 liter Erlenmeyer flask.

Second, despite the fact I added Fermcap to the primary, it was coming through the airlock on Day 2. I put a blowoff tube in place and that stayed there for the next 5 days.

I don't think you have a problem on your hands...just some very active yeast!

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Thanks for the reply, kind of what I thought but I've never had a blow off start so late in the process.

BierMuncher
I was wondering. I thought I smelled cascade in the aroma of the beer. What do you think about adding .50oz cascade hops at the last 15 min of the boil?

Thanks

I finally transferred to secondary and my final gravity came in a 1.005. Definitely lower than biermunchers 1.007. The test sample tasted very good. This beer is not going to last very long.

Just made this in my quest to complete all of Biermunchers recipes. Taste great but it looks horrible. The corriander/orange really comes through but it is way to dark.

Welp, I just finished off the last of my batch over last weekend and decided to share my variations/results. I decided to experiment a little with this. I used Wyeast Am Ale II 1275 and added 1 lb of clove honey @ 7min. My orange peal and coriander went in @ 15. My OG was 1.042 and my FG was 1.006 giving me about 4.6% ABV. I let this sit in the primary for three weeks @ 70F then bottled.

The taste was something different than any beer I have ever tried; it starts out with citrus and honey then warms into a smooth, dry nutty finish with a slight note of hop bitterness and toasted caramel. Lots of bubbles on the tongue. The honey dried it out enough to make you keep wanting more. Great summer session beer. Everyone that tried one enjoyed it and asked that I brew this variation again soon!

Brewed this up again today. Pulled a 90 min mash and got around 90% efficiency. Anyways, will let you know what its like about a month from now!

I just received all of the ingredients to brew this bad boy. I was wondering though if the coriander seed should be crushed, it did not specify in the recipe. I have a mortar and pestle I can use to do this, but I also didn't want to use it and then this batch comes out super spicy. Thanks!

I always crush the coriander in a mortar.

Just made a batch! Can't wait to bottle and taste.

Just tapped this and its fantastic! SWMBO approved!! Definitely very close to blue moon. I used dogfish heads DNA yeast.

RugenBrau said:

Just made this in my quest to complete all of Biermunchers recipes. Taste great but it looks horrible. The corriander/orange really comes through but it is way to dark.

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Gotta change that ......It has cleared up and looks just like the pics. Orange flavor has given away to the corriander but everyone seems to go for seconds!

RugenBrau said:

Gotta change that ......It has cleared up and looks just like the pics. Orange flavor has given away to the corriander but everyone seems to go for seconds!

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You think the orange would stay more balanced with the coriander if only 0.50 oz of coriander was used instead of 0.75 oz? I was leaning towards using that amount instead.

Thats what I'm thinking but I want to hold off and let this mature a bit to see what it ends up like. If this was one that I knew I was going to emptying the keg real quick I would back off on the coriander

Ok great. Yeah this is going to be on tap for some BMC drinkers who i'd like to show a preview of the craft beer side to. I have a feeling it is going to go very quickly! Thanks

Biermuncher,

Trying your recipe tomorrow. 1st time I ever made an Wit and looking forward to try it.

I'm going to have to brew this again soon. It is disappearing very fast!

Brewed this for the 1st time today. I was targeting a gravity of 1.041 but ended up with 1.036. My question is does the wheat malt yield less sugars than the barley? I used 16 lbs of each and got 24 gals in the primary. I'm guessing my O.G. would've been right on if all barley.

I brewed it with t58 dry yeast and it took off in like three hrs and after twenty for hours its not doin nothing hope its ok

I just tapped this one (brewed on April 29) and boy does it taste nice. Still a little flat (I'll take it off line for about a week at this point) but nice. Really cloudy though. I know it's a wheat beer, and it is supposed to have haze, but wow is it ever cloudy.

WestCoastHopper said:

I just tapped this one (brewed on April 29) and boy does it taste nice. Still a little flat (I'll take it off line for about a week at this point) but nice. Really cloudy though. I know it's a wheat beer, and it is supposed to have haze, but wow is it ever cloudy.

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It actually tasted the best that way too. I've noticed that as it settles out in the keg or bottle, you lose a slight amount of the flavor from yeast.