A not so successful Wit. What went wrong?

[Bamos6928]

Today I bottled a witbier that I brewed 3 weeks ago and Im not sure exactly how I messed this beer up so badly. I used the BIAB method with my mill gap set at .018. I always get around 80% efficiency with this set up. My grain bill was:

5 lbs Belgian Pilsner
4.5 lbs Flaked wheat (did not run through mill)
.5 lb Flaked oats (did not run through mill)
3 oz german acidulated malt

I used 8 gallons of RO water and added 2 tsp. calcium chloride and 1 tsp. of gypsum. I mashed at 154 degrees for 1 hour and was at 152 degrees at the end of the mash. My pre-boil gravity was 1.033. I did a 1 hour boil and my hop additions where .75 oz of Hallertau Mittelfruh @ 60 minutes and .5 oz of Saaz @ 15 minutes. I added .75 ounces each of bitter orange peels and cracked coriander @5 mins. I ended up with 5.5 gallons of wort in the fermenter. I cooled the wort and pitched 1 packet of safebrew T-58 that had been re-hydrated at 64.9 degrees. My original gravity came in at 1.041. Fermentation kicked off in about 12 hours and was very vigorous. I started fermentation at 65 degrees and ramped up to 68 when signs of fermentation started to slow down. I normally bottle at 14 days but my day 12 gravity reading was 1.020 so I brought temp. up to 70 degrees and let sit another week. Final gravity ended up 1.018. Can someone please help me figure out what all I did wrong on this beer.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Was your OG lower than expected?
So lower than expected OG and higher than expected FG?

First check, are you using a refractometer, or hydrometer?

 

[Bamos6928]

My target OG was 1.052 and target final was 1.016 which would be around 4.71% ABV. I ended up at 3.01%. I use a refractometer for OG and pre-boil. After fermentation I use a hydrometer. I made sure both were calibrated prior to use.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

The low OG is easy to explain. Un-ground flaked grains may well take longer than an hour to mash. On my system (RIMS) grists high in wheat and/or oats (in any form) generally take closer to 90 minutes to finish, and do best with a higher temperature rest (around 160). Have you used a high portion of flaked grains before? If so, how was your efficiency?

The high FG suggests either the yeast gave up early (unlikely - did the wort taste sweet?) or there was some dissolved but un-converted starch. Did you sparge? If there was still starch left in the grains (extraction and conversion of starch not completed) when you sparge at normal sparge temperatures, you could well have extracted starch that contributes to the gravity reading but won't ferment.

 

[TGFV]

I'm wondering if the starches in the flaked grains never got a chance to be broken down by the enzymes. If I am using that much unmalted grain I run it through my Mill and give it an extra long mash (90-120 minutes to make sure the enzymes do their trick). There also may not have been enough enzymes with the malt to have concerted all the unmalted grain.

How is the taste, is it sweet?

 

[Gnomebrewer]

There also may not have been enough enzymes with the malt to have concerted all the unmalted grain.

Good point! I just checked the specs for Dingemans and castle - both have very low diastatic power around 70 Lintner. That's going to make it a struggle to get the job done. Combined that with slow starch extraction.....
It looks like blending the Belgian Pils with some continental pils malt might be the way to go (Best Pilsen is 320 Lintner per Beersmith).

 

[Alex413]

I made mine with 60% Weyermann and 40% wheat flakes and got attenuation about 65% percent. I think because of insufficient enzymes. If I'll make it again - I'll add some enzymes or diastatic malt.

 

[madscientist451]

T My grain bill was:

5 lbs Belgian Pilsner
4.5 lbs Flaked wheat (did not run through mill)
.5 lb Flaked oats (did not run through mill)
3 oz german acidulated malt

I mashed at 154 degrees for 1 hour and was at 152 degrees at the end of the mash. My pre-boil gravity was 1.033.
Can someone please help me figure out what all I did wrong on this beer.

Tweaking the recipe and process and then re-brewing the same beer will help you figure out how to improve it so, here's some suggestions:
I'm assuming you want the Belgian Pilsner for its flavor, so instead for the first re-brew I'd leave that alone.
Change 4.5 lbs Flaked Wheat to 3 lbs wheat malt and 1.5 lbs flaked wheat.
You could eliminate the flaked wheat and just use all wheat malt, but using some flaked wheat does contribute a slightly different flavor, it depends on what you are looking for.
Reduce the mash temperature to 149-150F.
Perhaps cut the batch in half and make 2.5 gallons in because you'll want to tweak it again anyway.
I've found that stirring the mash every 15-20 minutes and doing a dunk sparge in a separate pot helps me hit my BIAB gravity numbers, but everyone has their own methods, so do what works for you.

 

[TGFV]

Even 1-1.5lbs of wheat malt, which has a ridiculous diastic power, would greatly help.

My white ipa and witbier lately has been 40-80% wheat malt, and the rest flaked grains and I'm usually hitting 80%+ with biab

 

[Lefou]

I second the suggestions given and if you're doing BIAB, you can grind your malted wheat to flour. Literally.
I sometimes buy Dingemans Pilsner malt and will use a slightly lower mash temperature for an extended period of time. The red or white Briess wheat malt has significantly higher enzyme content (140-160L). Doing an extended mash at lower temps with more highly diastatic malts will boost your conversion rate and help your efficiency out.

 

[couchsending]

T-58 doesn’t ferment maltotriose. By mashing at 154 you created a decent amount of sugars it couldn’t consume. That’s the reason it stopped so high, you just used an under attenuating yeast.

I hate that yeast personally. If you really want to make a Wit beer with dry yeast I’d use something much different. Maybe 134 or 256.

You’d have to mash at like 147 for 90 minutes to get a lower attenuation than 1.020 with that yeast. Or blend in a small percentage of something else to help with attenuation.


https://fermentis.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/SafAle-T-58_Rev1.pdf

 

[couchsending]

Just read through all the Fermentis spec sheets actually and they recommend K-97 for Belgian what beers which is interesting. It’s generally a Kolsch yeast although I’ve heard of people using it for hoppy beers. It won’t produce any phenols so if you’re looking for that maybe blend some T-58 in and ferment around 68/70??

Or you could just use Wit beer liquid yeast. Big fan of The Yeast Bay Northeastern Abbey. Pretty sure it comes from one of the highly regarded American versions of the style.

 

[singybrue]

The poor efficiency may be a result of not properly rehydrating the grist. Stir more at dough-in, 3-5 minutes worth. I use a 24" whisk to stir and chop through the mash. I've made many Wits with the same grain bill and have never had a problem, using both BIAB and a Grainfather. The bigger the grain bill, or in this case, large amounts of flaked adjuncts, the longer you stir and mix.The longer you stir, you will get some temperature drop. Just add a couple degrees to your strike temp.
Thinking of it as "Rehydrating" the grist instead of "stirring" helps remind me to slow down and really make sure all the grain is wet.
I also give the mash another good stir/mix about 1/2 way through the mash just to loosen things up and make sure everything is wetted.

If you want to make a really good Wit, you're going to need liquid yeast.

 

[Jag75]

@singybrue , I like the whisk idea. That's a dough ball killer right there.

 

[hottpeper13]

M-21 dry yeast from Mangrove Jacks is my go to for Wit,but you need to mash low to finish low. I also use a whisk and about 30 seconds is all I need to hydrate the mash (6-11 gal batches) I do believe even the 1 bbl system I am privy to is good in less then 3 min. Git-er-done!

 

[Ninoid]

Try WB-06.
This is yeast for wheat beers.