Help a brother out...

Got the blues tonight. Opened my first bottle of Mini-mash Wit after aging about 30 days - I thought it was horrible. It was WAY too bitter even though I only have 1 oz. Pearl (8.3% AA) per the recipe. I increase the orange peel from .5 oz to .75 oz, and kept the corriander at .5 oz freshly crushed. I cannot taste the corriander at all, and BARELY the orange peel after a few drinks and my tongue calms down from the bitter first drink. No aroma to speak of and about the only thing going for it is the crystal clear color and good carbonation.

This is a three wheat wit and I figured it wouldn't age well. It wasn't a big beer (4.56 ABV) and I figure it MAY be a tad green, but I am not expecting too much of an improvement in aging. I almost hesitate about tapping the keg. And what a bummer - I brewed this especially to have a good Summer brew, it is hitting 102 here in Texas and a good clean Wit would be great right now.

Sorry - just drowning my sorrows with a few pints of my AG Red and thought I would vent. Just lie to me and tell me everything will be all right...

Orange peel doesn't really give you much orange flavor. It gives you bitterness. That could be part of your problem.

One the plus side, bitterness tends to reduce with conditioning and aging.

I second what Chshre said, the bitter orange peel is for bitterness, not really orange flavor, if you want a bigger orange taste go for the sweet orange peel. Also, if its a 1.045ish beer, you might have been better off with a half ounce of those Perles. For wheats and the beers I brew for swmbo, I shoot for 10-15 IBUs.

most wit beer are supposed to be enjoyed a bit green. what kind of yeast did you use? what was the recipe? did you have any flaked wheat or just wheat malt? red or white wheat? If I remember right red wheat adds a little bitterness that you may be tasteing. also pearle may have been a bit much for hopping. I have had good results with a 1 oz cascade or 1/2 oz amarillo

Let it age. It will be OK. The hops will die down and, in the end, you will say "Wow this is one of the best beers I ever made... whoda thunk"

I made an IPA years ago that was almost green with hops. Really. I almost forgot about it and went back to it much later. It turned out to be a very nice sierra nevada clone. Surprise.

Yea, the IBU's are a bit high. With the orange's you just want to zest the outside and use that, did you throw the whole peel in? The coriander and orange seem a bit low, check out BierMunchers's Wit. He uses 3 oz. zest and 1 oz. coriander along with a couple other things. It is excellent. Just Another Brew Day

Thanks guys. For those that asked questions:

I used sweet orange peel, not bitter. Beersmith says the IBUs came out to 31 - I should have noticed this before brewing, even the style shows 15-20 IBUs... my mistake there. The recipe used 3 lbs. of wheat DME, 3 lbs of white wheat, and .5 lbs of flaked wheat - and .25 lbs of carapils. I used Danstar Munich dry yeast.

So lesson learned here - any bold items that pops up in Beersmith for the style I am trying to make - pay attention to.

I sure hope the bitterness ages out. How much longer do you think it will take to bring the IBUs down closer to 15?

DD2000GT said:

Thanks guys. For those that asked questions:

I used sweet orange peel, not bitter. Beersmith says the IBUs came out to 31 - I should have noticed this before brewing, even the style shows 15-20 IBUs... my mistake there. The recipe used 3 lbs. of wheat DME, 3 lbs of white wheat, and .5 lbs of flaked wheat - and .25 lbs of carapils. I used Danstar Munich dry yeast.

So lesson learned here - any bold items that pops up in Beersmith for the style I am trying to make - pay attention to.

I sure hope the bitterness ages out. How much longer do you think it will take to bring the IBUs down closer to 15?

Click to expand...

The IBUs will never go down to 15. Some of the harshness will fade, but the bittering units don't go away. What will happen is that over a bit of time, the flavors will meld better and give you a much smoother beer. That's also what happens in wines, and why we age them a bit.

Yikes, 30 IBUs for a Wit... Mine is 12 IBUs. I use about an ounce of 4%-ish Saaz.

Also, I hope you didn't boil the orange peel and coriander, add it at flameout and steep a few minutes before chilling and you will be golden.

I made about 3 super bitter batches before I realized what I was doing wrong. When I went to drink them on the green side I was knocked on my a$$ by the bitterness. After letting them age for about 6 weeks they became plenty drinkable, but still very bitter. Since then I have always tried to play it safe and stick to the low side of the IBU guidelines.

Is there anything else about the beer that makes you dislike it so much? Other than the bitterness does it taste pretty much like what it should be? Do you suspect fusel alcohols, or contamination?

Sounds like too much hops to me. When combined with the orange peel anyway. I used fresh orange zest and get a nice orange background flavor in the aftertaste.

Hopefully you can get the bitter to fade a bit before the wheat beer goes stale.

I used a recipe I got out of an insert for BEER magazine. It was a Briese recipe and I followed the ingredients list to a "T", except I used sweet orage peel instead of bitter orange peel. Beer Smith tried it's hardest to let me know the IBUs were too high, even bolded it out But other than the bitterness I am not detecting any other "off" flavors. Aroma is dead, carbonation seems fine but there is no head at all. After a few drinks and the bitterness shock wears down a bit on my senses, I can taste a WEE bit of orange waaaaay back in the background and have to look hard for it. These are my 6 "tester" bottles I do to see when the keg is ready to put in the beer fridge - so the keg will be a tad different I suspect, but not enough to really matter.

I read up about Wits here before I brewed, and heard orange peel and corriander were very easy to over do, so I only increase the sweet orange peel from .5 oz to .75 oz. I crushed the whole corriander in my pestal and stuck with .5 oz as the recipe called for. I did add these at flame out.

I'll let it sit a few more weeks, but my experience with wheat beers is it is best consumed fairly quickly after aging 30 days or so. My hope is I will not have to force myself to drink 5 gallons of overly bitter beer - especially in the heat of Summer.

Live and learn I guess.

True. I personally don't mind a bit of extra orange and coriander in my Wit, but to some, the taste is not good in larger amounts. Don't get discouraged. Try again right away and this time drop the hops a bit and increase the orange peel...

Wait. When you grated the fresh orange peel, did you remember to only get the ORANGE part, not the white stuff underneath? The white stuff is very bitter and doesn't contain any orange aroma/flavor.

This might explain how you got extra bitter and less aroma/flavor??

Homercidal said:

...
Wait. When you grated the fresh orange peel, did you remember to only get the ORANGE part, not the white stuff underneath? The white stuff is very bitter and doesn't contain any orange aroma/flavor.

This might explain how you got extra bitter and less aroma/flavor??

Click to expand...

I used dried sweet orange peel - came in a package I got at my LHBS.

Does the recipe call for dried orange peel or just bitter orange peel. The weight difference between dried and increasing the amount may be cause the increased IBU's.

DD2000GT said:

I used dried sweet orange peel - came in a package I got at my LHBS.

Click to expand...

Ah, never mind. I've only zested my own fresh.

DD2000GT said:

I used dried sweet orange peel - came in a package I got at my LHBS.

Click to expand...

This stuff will add no bitterness at all. Just nice orange flavor. I believe that if you had less hop bitterness the orange would be much more prominent.