Calling Witbier gurus

Im about to brew my first Wit - some recipes call for flaked wheat and others for wheat malt - can these be interchanged ?

My brewshop keeps carawheat and wheat malt - sounds the same to me - which is which ?

What has been your favourite Wit recipe ?
Any pointers for a first-time Wit brewer ?

Unmalted wheat is traditional.

Carewheat is a light caramel wheat malt, don't use that.

Flaked wheat is unmalted (raw) rolled wheat. The rolling process just makes it ready to mash Wheat malt is obviously malted wheat. A lot of recipes you will see contain both flaked and malted wheat, however they are not directly interchangeable. I'm pretty sure flaked wheat has little to no enzymatic power. Therefore you need some malt in the grist for conversion.

For a quick easy recipe, search "just another brew day" by Biermuncher. Its a quick easy Wit that will even please BMC drinkers.

My LBS doesn't keep flaked wheat - are there any related products / cereals I could use ?
Thanks for the recipe.

Bru said:

My LBS doesn't keep flaked wheat - are there any related products / cereals I could use ?
Thanks for the recipe.

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+ 1 for everything above. Flaked, unmalted wheat is the standard, but my most recent witbier used malted wheat without any flaked wheat and I really like the way it turned out. I can't post the link here because I'm browsing using my iPhone, but you can see the recipe here www.singingboysbrewing.com - click on "the beers" and you'll find the recipe.

Good luck!

Go to your local co-op or similar hippie grocery store, they probably have flaked wheat in bulk.

I'm a huge fan of "white wheat" in a wit.... Gives a little bit of spiciness.

DubbelDach said:

I'm a huge fan of "white wheat" in a wit.... Gives a little bit of spiciness.

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I agree, I brewed 3 wits in a row this summer trying to get exactly what I wanted and I didn't nail it until I did a cereal mash with raw white wheat. I also threw in a half pound of raw oats since I was already doing the cereal mash. They are a pain to mill and take a little more care to mash but I don't think flaked/torrified are an exact replacement for them.

Cereal mash, you say? I did not do that... White wheat is malted, so I was thinking that it doesn't need a cereal mash? My wit was fantastic... Can't imagine it was missing anything...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Malts_Chart

I won a contest at a local brewpub and my original recipe called for flaked wheat. Instead of using 200+lbs of flaked wheat at the brewery, we substituted wheat malt.

I would go with the wheat malt.

It came out great! You can find my recipe under my profile.

DubbelDach said:

Cereal mash, you say? I did not do that... White wheat is malted, so I was thinking that it doesn't need a cereal mash? My wit was fantastic... Can't imagine it was missing anything...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Malts_Chart

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White wheat is a soft winter wheat, it can be malted or unmalted and I was referring to the raw form. Personally I don't think malted wheat is the correct choice for a Witbier.

Like I said I did a bunch of Witbiers this summer with a variety of wheats and mashing methods. They all turned out to be drinkable beers so any of them will work, but it wasn't a truly authentic Wit until I used raw white winter wheat. That one won first place at the Crown Pro Am a couple months ago and has kept it's haze and "wheatiness" for months in the keg.

You can use regular wheat and make a fine Witbier as well.

there is a destinct flavor difference between malted and unmalted hard red wheat berries.
If you want to do a true belgian wit you need to mill the unmalted wheat then boil the wheat like you would old fashion oatmeal, 20 minutes will do Then do a mini mash in a smaller vessel with 1/2 pound of pilsen malt per pound of unmalted wheat. do your dough in @122*F and a 20 min. protein rest. At this point you can add this mini mash to the main mash for saac rest. Unmalted wheat should be around 30% of your grist. then use 10% flaked wheat and a dab of flaked oats. Wyeast 3944 is my prefered wit yeast

Thanks all.
Will this work for flaked wheat ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weetabix

Its the only variant I can find besides malted wheat.
The one I found contains no added sugar, salt or anything else and its a bit lighter than the on in the link.

Bru said:

Thanks all.
Will this work for flaked wheat ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weetabix

Its the only variant I can find besides malted wheat.
The one I found contains no added sugar, salt or anything else and its a bit lighter than the on in the link.

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No. Try going down to your local hippie organic grocery, they will almost certainly have raw white wheat.

Ive tried the only one I know of and they didn't have.
Is the flaked wheat in the link too different ?

Bru said:

Ive tried the only one I know of and they didn't have.
Is the flaked wheat in the link too different ?

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It's a breakfast cereal, it has a heavily toasted wheat and half a dozen other ingredients. You can use it if you want, but it's not going to make an authentic Witbier.

I'll keep looking for flaked wheat otherwise malted wheat it will have to be.

DubbelDach said:

I'm a huge fan of "white wheat" in a wit.... Gives a little bit of spiciness.

Click to expand...

Yeah!!! Bru pmmend me for my recipe, but it is on my home computer, not my work one, but I use white wheat as well. And indeed it does lend nice spiciness.

I couldn't get flaked wheat so I used pale wheat malt.
Ive never seen a fermentation like this. Its blocked my blow-off tube three times and blown the lid off the bucket and theres no sign of it slowing down.
Is this typical of wheat or is it the WLP400 ?

It is the WLP400, it is an incredible top-cropper.

One thing you may notice is a tendency to stall before complete attenuation, rousing sorts this out.

I'll bear that in mind. I plan on leaving it in primary for three weeks - it should be finished by then. I shake it around a bit every day.

Can one of the Witbier gurus tell me what temperature I should've fermented this yeast (WLP400)at ?
I put it in my swamp cooler which maintains around 62F.
The brew has been in primary for 2 1/2 weeks - I tasted it and I was wondering if it was tasting too clean from being fermented too cool.
Its down to 1.007 (from 1.044).
What temp is ideal ?

I ferment mine in the low 70s, it helps develop those nice Belgian phenolics and increases attenuation.