Why can't I brew a good wit beer?

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Teerum

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I have been brewing for over a year and can make some pretty good pale ales, pumpkin ale and chile pepper beers as well as a few other types, but have a tough time making a decent wit. Is it hard to do a good extract wit beer? Here is the last recipe I put togiether from a few different sources including this site:

1lb malted wheat
1/2lb flaked wheat
1/2lb quick oats
1/2lb carapills
4lbs light DME
1lb wheat DME
1/2lb corn sugar
1/2 oz coriander
3/4 oz sweet orange peel
1 1/4 oz hallertauer hops
American ale yeast

Steep specialty grains at 150 deg. for 45 min. Then bring to boil add DME, corn sugar, and all hops. boil 60 min. at flame out add spice addition and steep for 30 min. top off to 5 1/2 gallons, pitch yeast and ferment at 68 deg. for 2 weeks, then 3 weeks at 55 deg. secondazry.

Beer just has strange off taste, seems a little yeasty hard to put my finger on it. Same result with two batches.

Any thoughts?
 
Wits are one of the few styles that don't translate terribly well to extract, unfortunately. It's hard to process all the unmalted wheat and oats without a full mash.
 
I was wondering if it was something like that. Too bad too, because it's one of my favorite types of beer.
 
I have to agree with MalFet. That being said, you might try Jamil's Wit recipe in Brewing Classic Styles. I did it as an AG and it's wonderful (I added 1g of dried chamomile flowers) but his recipes also give the extract recipe and they are all suppose to be award winners.
 
For one I would use all wheat lme/dme since it's around 60%wheat and 40%barley and put the coriander and orange peel in at 15 minutes.. chill it as fast as you can after the 60 minutes.. I use safale US-05 for mine wich is a crowd pleaser since it's close to a blue moon of shock top profile..
 
The brew that I'm currently fermenting is an all extract wit, I got the recipe from the book Extreme Brewing by Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head. It's supposedly an Allagash White clone that he retrieved from Allagash's master brewer and it calls for 6.6 lbs of wheat LME (60% wheat / 40% barley). I boiled the coriander and orange peel for 5 mins and also threw a bit of ginger in there as well. I'll let you know how it turns out
 
Thanks for all the responces. Edmanster you bring up a good point, I hadn't considered the 30 min. steep at flameout and how it might effect things. I will do away with that as well as use all wheat extract next time. Also I know a lot of AG wit recipes use specificly white wheat, has anyone ever seen white wheat extract? Austin, I would like to hear how that turns out.
 
Teerum said:
Thanks for all the responces. Edmanster you bring up a good point, I hadn't considered the 30 min. steep at flameout and how it might effect things. I will do away with that as well as use all wheat extract next time. Also I know a lot of AG wit recipes use specificly white wheat, has anyone ever seen white wheat extract? Austin, I would like to hear how that turns out.
Click to expand...

White is the grain they use for wheat extract I believe..
 
I also saw that you've given your previous wit beers 3 weeks in secondary. Is that step crucial to making a good wit? This is my first attempt at this style of beer and I've never tried secondary fermenting before. I was just assuming to give it 2 weeks and then bottle...
 
I would try using as much pils as you can in the mash. Making sure that you do a 90 minute boil to drive off DMS. Also, yeasty off flavor might mean you are under pitching. You should also be using a wit yeast to get wit flavors - I made an excellent extract wit using WLP400 - the horgaarden/ Celis yeast.


My grain bill is 4# pils, 4.5# wheat extract, 4 oz aromatic. I hop burst with an oz of citra - half at 20, a quarter oz at 15 and 5 min. Your hop bill is good too.
 
I make a wit every year that turns out good. It's just 6lbs wheat extract, enough bittering hops to get it to 15-17 IBU's, a little finishing hops, and wyeast belgian wit yeast. Tastes like blue moon. It was one of my first successful beers.
 
Recipe looks alright, but I'd probably go straight to all wheat malt or cut the pale malt extract way back and make sure it's as light as you can get.

You are using an American yeast, so don't expect the Belgian flavors. You will get something closer to Blue Moon than Hoegaarden with that yeast. I use that yeast half the time when I want a clean American wit beer myself.

Ferment cool. Make sure you are using clean water with no chloramine.
 
Wits are hard beers to make taste authentic. The flavors are very yeast driven which requires you to be familiar with how to handle your chosen yeast. A true Belgian wit yeast is a must IMO. They also have a good amount of balance between the spices, light hops, and wheat malt. I would think it would be hard to accomplish using an extract recipe since you have less control of how fermentable the wort is.

Do you have much experience using Belgian yeasts? An American ale yeast wont get you anywhere close to the signature slightly tart profile of most wits
 
Pick up The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing, and try Charlie Papazian's Who's In The Garden Grand Cru. All extract recipe that turns out VERY close to Hoegaaden. It's a great recipe.
 
Maybe you're getting starch from steeping your grains. The malted wheat should convert what is there, but maybe increase the time for steeping so it's a real mash?
 
Teerum said:
I have been brewing for over a year and can make some pretty good pale ales, pumpkin ale and chile pepper beers as well as a few other types, but have a tough time making a decent wit. Is it hard to do a good extract wit beer? Here is the last recipe I put togiether from a few different sources including this site:

1lb malted wheat
1/2lb flaked wheat
1/2lb quick oats
1/2lb carapills
4lbs light DME
1lb wheat DME
1/2lb corn sugar
1/2 oz coriander
3/4 oz sweet orange peel
1 1/4 oz hallertauer hops
American ale yeast

Steep specialty grains at 150 deg. for 45 min. Then bring to boil add DME, corn sugar, and all hops. boil 60 min. at flame out add spice addition and steep for 30 min. top off to 5 1/2 gallons, pitch yeast and ferment at 68 deg. for 2 weeks, then 3 weeks at 55 deg. secondazry.

Beer just has strange off taste, seems a little yeasty hard to put my finger on it. Same result with two batches.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...


Go with 5lbs Wheat DME instead of 4lbs light/1lb wheat DME. The color will be darker (more orange than yellow), but the wheat flavor will come through nicely. I make a SWMBO-approved Blue Moon clone using the following:

1lb Flaked Oats (steeped at 155°F for 1h)
3lb light DME
4lb wheat DME
1oz Hallertauer 45 min
1oz Coriander 10 min
.33oz Sweet Orange Peel 5 min
.5oz Hallertauer 0 min

NOTE: Make sure you thoroughly crush your coriander! The first time I made this recipe my crush wasn't very good, and my beer tasted more like Oberon than Blue Moon.


Again, if you wanted something more wheaty, sub out the light DME with wheat DME.
 

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