Dark Witbier

I was wondering if anyone has ever had any experience making a wit style beer with orange peel and corriander, but using some dark specialty grains and some lactose sugar.
I was thinking of making something like that, but don't want to have a disaster of a batch to drink afterwards.
Also, any experience with chocolate wheat malt? I saw some on MoreBeer's site...

 

Closest thing I can think of would be Unibroue's Trois Pistoles.

Give it a try if you haven't already....

 

Here's the recipe i was thinking of:
5 lb Belgian two row
2 lb American Wheat Malt
1 lb Flaked wheat
1 lb Chocolate Wheat Malt
1 lb Flaked oats
Mash at 152F
Before boil add .5 lb Lactose Sugar

0.5 oz Cascade Pellets (45 min)
0.4 oz Bitter Orange Peel (15 min)
0.4 oz Corriander seeds (crushed) (15 min)
0.5 oz Cascade Pellets (10 min)

Ferment at 70F with White Labs English Ale Yeast for 10 days
Store at 40F for two weeks before bottling

 

Chocolate Wheat should be used in 5% of the total grain bill.
I say up the wheat by a 2lbs and drop half the chocolate wheat.

 

agreed, needs more wheat malt (should be around 50% or even more), but 1/2 lb of chocolate wheat is probably more than enough.

sounds like a good idea. it's not a wit with that yeast, tho. you need a belgian strain.

 

Found a similar recipe in Randy Mosher's book "Radical Brewing" called Tangerine Porter. I was thinking of doing that one instead, but subbing out more wheat malt...

 

no no........ be my guinea pig and do the 1st one you posted with only half a pound of the chocolate and up the wheat malt. Sounds tasty to me

 

Re-worked the recipe and got cold feet with the roasty taste, so i decided to see how dark belgian candi sugar would work.
Here's the new recipe:
Crescent Moon
12-A Brown Porter


Original Gravity: 1.051 (1.040 - 1.052)
Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (1.008 - 1.014)
Color: 22.1 (20.0 - 30.0)
Alcohol: 5.0% (4.0% - 5.4%)
Bitterness: 28.71 (18.0 - 35.0)

Ingredients:
4.0 lbs American 2-row
2.0 lbs White Wheat Malt
1.0 lbs Wheat Flaked
1.0 lbs Oats Flaked
0.7 oz Cascade (7.4%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
0.7 oz Cascade (7.4%) - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
.3 lbs Rice Hulls
1 ea White Labs WLP400 Belgian Wit Ale
1.0 lbs Candi Sugar Dark
1 oz Bitter Curacao/Bitter Orange (Peel) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
0.5 oz Corriander crushed - added during boil, boiled 10 min
.25 oz Black Peppercorns - added during boil, boiled 10 min

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.29

 

There's a clone of the hacker-pschorr dark weiss beer (forget the exact name) in the beer captured clone book. Looks tasty to me. If I get a chance I'll post it.

 

a dunkelweizen is not the same as a wit. i'm sure it doesn't include the coriander or orange peel.

 

Ah yes, Wit. Orange. Coriander. I see what you mean. Ooops!

 

Here's a little bit of an update to the recipe I made:
First, I removed the roasted grains and instead used dark belgian candi sugar to darken it.
In searching opinions on how to use corriander and peppercorns, I found several people that would grind their spices, so I thought i would give it a try. I pulsed up the spices in a bullet blender until they were all rough chunks of spice, and added them like the recipe called for. A week later, when I was transfering to secondary, I took a gravity reading and tasted the sample. MY GOD it was peppery! I wasnt sure how i could fix it, until i thought that peach flavoring would really mellow out the pepper, and also compliment the spice with some fruitiness. A week later, I bottled it with 4oz of peach flavoring. Its conditioning now and I will post the results when it is ready to drink.

 

Glad to see im not the only guy with this crazy idea. I too am trying to create a dark Belgian wit, the Germans have dunkelweizen the dark version of Heffe. The difference there is after the required 50% wheat, they swap the pilsner malt for Munich. I did this to my Belgian wit recipe. I am also trying to make a batch darker yet with amber candi syrup and some chocolate malt. I would be curious to know your results.

 

I attempted something like this here is the link. I remember the midnight wheat not being overly roasty but enough so that the corriander and orange peel needs to be up'd a bit.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/black-wit-anyone-ever-make-one-252916/

 

What happens if you use more than 5%? Does it give off flavors or does increase the probability of a stuck mash?

 

It gets acrid.

 

And by acrid he means it tastes like tree bark.