Belgian Witbier All Grain Batch (Documentation)

Hey Guys,

I'm still new to brewing but I've been doing a fare amount of research and am attempting to brew my first all grain batch tomorrow. (2nd batch all time)

Going to try and document my progress for the all grain recipe that I will be brewing tomorrow.

I began tonight with getting my Yeast starter going.


Boiling the DME used to make the starter wort


Filling the Erlenmeyer


Chilling the starter wort


Belgian Witbier Yeast SmackPack


Wort and Yeast on the home made Stir Plate


I will do what I can to get some good pics and keep this thread going all the way from start to finish.

Just did my first all grain Belgian Wit today, all done and in the fermenter. It's my third AG batch and my first crushing the grains myself with my new Barley Crusher Mill. If you don't mind, what's your recipe? I've done several successful extract Wit's and typically used mostly bitter orange peel with a little sweet orange peel. This recipe I just did, I made up, and I'm trying only sweet orange peel for the heck of it, 1oz of it.


Rev.

i borrowed the recipe from 1mainebrew who posted it here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f71/witbier-260126/

it seems promising and im excited to give it a shot

Jmw5107 said:

i borrowed the recipe from 1mainebrew who posted it here:

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting that. I personally think it's a bit much though counting for all this:

ADDITIONS:

1 oz Orange peel (15 mins left in boil)
0.5 oz Coriander seed (15 mins left in boil)
0.5 oz Star Anise (15 mins left in boil)
0.5 oz Rose Hips (15 mins left in boil)
0.5 tsp Ginger root (15 mins left in boil)
1.5 tsp Cinnamon Powder (15 mins left in boil)
0.5 tsp Nutmeg (15 mins left in boil)
0.25 tsp Cloves (15 mins left in boil)
0.25 tsp Cumin (15 mins left in boil)

That's a lot of stuff I've never seen added to a Wit before, namely the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. It looks kinda like a blend between a pumpkin spice ale and Summer Ale, or something thereabouts. Quite interesting nonetheless


Rev.

Brew day is going well so far, just about finished my mash and will be boiling the wort shortly, pics will be up later

All that's left is the cleanup.... pics soon to follow

Recap from Brew Day:

-Everything went smoothly and was a good time.
-Mash Paddle is needed, when boiling 7 gallons of wort its easy to lose a standard sized cooking spoon in the bottom of the pot, making it difficult to get it back haha
-Dropped my thermometer and shattered it on the kitchen floor - womp womp womp
- Forgot to remove the magnetic stirbar from my starter before pitching the yeast =magnetic stir bar in the bottom of my primary. Not the end of the world, just need to pick up another before I do another starter.

Pics of the progression:





Getting the equipment out for my all grain stove mash


After 20 hours on the stir plate the yeast starter is looking very healthy


Checking my strike water


Getting my ingredients measured and ready


10 lbs of crushed grains


Cleaning and sanitizing before my new wort chillers first use


Dumped my grains into the brew kettle and checked my mash temp


2 oz. of Hallertaur hops (1oz at 60 minutes and 1oz at 3 minutes)


Measuring out 5 gallons in the new 6.5 gallon carboy and applying a fermometer


Cleaning and santizing the new carboy with Star-San.

Drained the grains over the first kettle and dunked it into my sparge water.


Checking the sparge temperature


10lbs of spent grain


About 7 gallons of pre-boil wort!


Brew kettle beginning the boil and adding the flavor hops


Shock cooling the wort to get it ready for racking into primary


Racking into the primary


Finished racking into primary. Just over 5 gallons of wort


Primary capped and airlocked and tucked into the closet for the remainder of the fermentation process


Trub left over in the brew kettle


I'm going to consider the starter an overall success. I had steady bubbles in the airlock and the beginning of a solid krausen layer within 3 hours of pitching.

I will keep this updated as time goes along, but for now, we play the waiting game

Wow, that's one heavily spiced wit, should be interesting. I also never sanitize my chiller- I just put it in the kettle for the last 15 minutes of the boil.

Cool! Every thing looks good and successful despite the small hiccups, broken thermometer.

Sounds like it will be a bottled spice rack though. But if that is what you like.....
It doesn't sound like a recipe I would consider.

harrydrez said:

Wow, that's one heavily spiced wit, should be interesting. I also never sanitize my chiller- I just put it in the kettle for the last 15 minutes of the boil.

Click to expand...

It was the first time the chiller had ever been used and it had heavy oxidization from sitting on the shelf. I just didnt want to seep all that shelf life oxidization into my wort.

kh54s10 said:

Cool! Every thing looks good and successful despite the small hiccups, broken thermometer.

Sounds like it will be a bottled spice rack though. But if that is what you like.....
It doesn't sound like a recipe I would consider.

Click to expand...

The sample I tasted was very very spice intensive, however I think it will settle out during fermentation.

The user who posted this recipe makes references to subtle spice notes but doesn't say that it is over powering by any means. Only time will tell.

You might want a blowoff tube with that yeast too, it's a serious top cropper!

How big did your krausen get? Was a blowoff needed?

Have you bottled this yet?

1Mainebrew said:

How big did your krausen get? Was a blowoff needed?

Click to expand...

i had some headroom in my primary so i originally didnt have a blowoff. my mistake because this rocketed right through my airlock in a matter of a day. i attached a blowoff and have left it on since day 2.

1Mainebrew said:

Have you bottled this yet?

Click to expand...

i have not had a chance to bottle this yet but am hoping to get to it some time this week, just got a bunch of empty 22oz bottles for christmas so its time to put them to use!

final gravity ended up at 1.012. Bottled with 5 ounces of corn sugar into 30 22oz bottles.


unfortunately i was a little tired this evening when i was sanitizing and bottling and i did not take any pictures. I will make sure i do next time.

Now we play the waiting game

Congrats! How's it taste out of the fermentor? That looks like a hyper-spiced wit!

My wit is fermenting as we speak. Going to add a half lb of macadamean nut honey soon

daksin said:

Congrats! How's it taste out of the fermentor? That looks like a hyper-spiced wit!

Click to expand...

i think i od'd on the cinnamon a little, but after a little carbonation it may tone it down.. i hope at least haha

im excited to see how this turns out

updates?

1Mainebrew said:

updates?

Click to expand...

its only been in the bottles about 2 weeks. I tried a bottle the other day... it wasnt terrible but it definitely had a harsh cinnamon taste.

i was expecting the mouthfeel to be a little thicker but it wasnt a bad brew, hopefully it only gets better with time