First recipe critique - American wheat w/ Motueka

[cfosty]

Hello! This is my first post and first recipe, let me know what you think or if it just won't work at all. It sould be an American wheat that somewhat resembles an hefeweisen or witbier?
1gal batch size, maybe 60% eff.

(50%) 1.2bs Briess 2-row Brewers malt
(31%) 0.5lbs Briess white wheat
(10%)0.2lbs flaked wheat
(6%) 0.1lbs flaked oaks
(2%) 0.05lbs rice hulls

.05oz Motueka 30min
.125oz Motueka 15min
.125oz Motueka flameout

Estimates:
OG 1.051
FG 1.012
Abv 5.1%
IBU 17
Srm 4.2

BIAB, Mash flaked wheat and oats along with 20% of the 2-row @ 125deg for 15 min then add remaining grains and raise to 150deg for 60 min.
Batch sparge to get up to preboil volume (around 2.1gal)
Boil 60 min with hop schedule above.
Cool to 70deg and pitch 2.5g Safbrew T-58 dry yeast.
Ferment 10days at 65deg, raise to 70deg for the last 4.
Bottle condition for 2 weeks with 1.1oz/gal honey (going for 2.5volumes).

My goal is a light colored beer that isn't too wheaty but still a little crisp.I don't want it really hoppy so I wanted to use a single hop and motueka looked interesting and should give it a nice tropical hint and good aroma and let the spice and flavor from the T-58 yeast come out. I was considering adding a very small amount of coriander and orange peel but I might just want to see what the malt, hop, yeast flavor is like by itself.

What do you think?? Hopefully this turns out good and not too bland or just bad!

 

[morbster]

Doesn't look bad to me. I don't know anything about Motueka, so I don't have any thoughts on that. Since the hop presence is so small for your recipe, I'd guess that they wouldn't add (or subtract) much from the flavor.

Is there any reason you're adding rice hulls for the batch? Since you're doing BIAB, you shouldn't need to worry about them.

 

[McKnuckle]

Also, don't count the rice hull weight percentage in the grain bill. They are not contributing to the extract at all.

It's a very pale beer that will show any flaws in your brewing water (i.e. high alkalinity). Just something to watch for. If you ferment and transfer cleanly, avoid oxidation, and exercise actual patience, it should come out clean and clear and pretty tasty!

 

[CascadesBrewer]

How much actual volume are you targeting for your fermenter? 1 gal? Have you plugged this into a recipe calculator? For 60% efficiency, I get an OG of 1.044 for 1 gal into the fermenter. 70% will get you to 1.052.

I would skip the rice hulls for BIAB.

I would think a single infusion should be fine. It has been so long since I did a step mash, I would have to look up what the 125F rest is for. I have brewed plenty of beers with wheat malt and flaked wheat/rye/oats using a single infusion mash.

If your pot is big enough for a full volume mash, that is easier than a sparge...though you can probably boost your efficiency a bit with a sparge.

 

[McKnuckle]

125F is a protein rest. Perhaps not required, but not a bad idea either if the OP is able to hit and hold different temps.

 

[cfosty]

Thanks for the responses! I ended up not using rice hulls and doing a single infusion mash without a protein rest. There are bigger issues with my process I need to fix first and I didn't want to over complicate things. (I may add rice hulls next time just to loosen the mash and increase the BIAB drainage?)

I also ended up doing a batch sparge which seemed to work well. I did make 2 critical mistakes though... 1st I didn't recirculate the wort through the grain and I didn't let the wort sit long enough for the sediment to settle after cooling post-boil. So I ended up with a TON of trub in the fermenter. Hopefully this wont affect flavor, I'll just get less at beer at bottling.Would it be worth putting in a secondary after fermentation is complete and topping with water?


Everything else went well, the T-58 yeast is already going wild after a few hours.

 

[McKnuckle]

Don't worry about it. All of that muck is in suspension thanks to the yeast and CO2. After primary subsides, it will all settle and should compact to a surprisingly small layer.

Don't plan to make any transfers. Just have patience! Since you are bottling, the volume of finished beer is not that important - just bottle what you got rather than compromising the batch with dilution. That way you actually get to taste the recipe you designed. It will be fine! Congrats!

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Looks disgusting...just like a fermenting beer should look!!!

Those mistakes don't sound "critical" and maybe not even mistakes. I am not sure what you mean by "recirculate the wort through the grain", but for BIAB I let my mash set, stir it twice during the mash, and never do any recirculating.

For small batches I just dump the entire volume into my fermenter, but I have some small fermenters will more volume than your jug. The biggest advantage for you would likely be that you can fit a little more wort into your jug, but it should not have a significant impact on flavor.

Did you take a gravity reading? I generally don't like to add water to my beers and even less so after fermentation is underway. If your gravity is fine I would let it ride. Those one gallon jug systems only yield about 0.7 gal of finished beer.

 

[morbster]

I am not sure what you mean by "recirculate the wort through the grain", but for BIAB I let my mash set, stir it twice during the mash, and never do any recirculating.

Recirculating wort isn't necessary, but it can help prevent efficiency loss from poor water/grain contact. In the majority of cases, a few good stirs throughout the mash can be just as effective.

I agree with the posters above, nothing "critical" about those mistakes. In most of my brews, I just dump the entire contents to my fermenter. The only reason I've stopped is that it's easier to clean my kettle than a fermentation vessel.

 

[balrog]

The Motueka is interesting. I've been using it a couple times in a lemon lime hefeweizen (here) and I've switched to way more Motueka than Sorachi Ace as I prefer the lime and dislike the lemon of the SA. Just saying you might want to try that recipe, but I would be very interested to know how yours came out!

 

[Kickass]

Looks good to me. I know you already brewed but the flaked oats seem a little unnecessary with the flaked wheat. Maybe more preference than anything though.

If you’re trying to brew this to an American wheat style I’d use a clean American yeast, S05, wy1056, wlp001, something along those lines and leave out the orange and coriander. If you want a wit or Hefeweizen then I’d go T58, orange and coriander. If you don’t care about style guidelines then any combo of what you’re thinking will work. Just something to think about.

 

[cfosty]

So I just bottled it and it looks like it was at 1.040 pre-boil, 1.060 post boil, and 1.012 FG. I probably underestimated my efficiency so my OG was a little high but the T58 yeast attenuation seemed to be good. A few more weeks and we will see how it turns out!

 

[rburrelli]

Nice. You know...you don’t have to fill your test tube to the very top to check gravity. Just enough to get it floating in the beer.

 

[cfosty]

So the recipe turned out pretty good I think. The motueka hops had a good flavor but very subtle and almost no aroma, but that was probably due to the quantity. I got a pretty strong banana flavor and aroma from the T58 from fermenting on the upper 60, lower 70s. But biggest issue though is that after a few weeks in the bottle it now has an off color and very off flavor that has gotten worse with time. The beer or almost a grayish color (hard to see in the picture but it's definitely a gray color). Any ideas on what this could be??