Witbier Blue Balls Belgian Wit (Blue Moon Clone)

[Demon]

Thanks dude is this beer a clone or look a like of a Hoegaarden ?

It is a Blue Moon clone.

 

[ZombieBrew83]

It is a Blue Moon clone.

I respectfully disagree. I've made this batch a few times and its a Belgian Wit (Hoegaarden) way more than an American Wheat (Blue Moon.) Taste and style guides agree. Either way it is very delicious. This recipe, and primarily this yeast, will give you a healthy clove flavor not found in Blue Moon.

If you ferment it with a wheat yeast (I've used S-04 with great results) your finished product will be much closer to Blue Moon.

The first time I made this I was expecting Blue Moon and was sorely disappointed. However, I did end up with a very satisfying Belgian Wit. I like to make this with Wyeast 3942 for more fruity notes and softer spice flavors.

 

[beergood12]

Made this last weekend. I am wondering if I need to rack to the secondary ? Or just leave it for another week and bottle .

 

[swackattack]

No secondary necessary. I did a 3 week primary. Ended up fine

 

[beergood12]

Thanks for the feed back.

 

[theshoe82]

Going to try brewing this next week. Can't wait!

 

[letmeholleratya]

Going to try brewing this next week. Can't wait!

It's a damn good recipe. Not blue moon, but very tasty. One of my favorites by far.

 

[theshoe82]

Just finished the boil on this. I had to sub US goldings for EK as I had none on hand. I also added 1oz of bitter orange peel instead of .75 oz, and I also will be using WLP 410 (Belgian Wit II) instead of the WLP 400. It smells so good, the best smelling beer that I have made to this point. The orange and coriander aroma is excellent!

 

[theshoe82]

I also forgot to mention; USE A BLOWOFF TUBE!

 

[kingmatt]

Brewing this up tomorrow with S-04, thanks for the recipe!

 

[OBayBrewer]

Going to be starting this one today. Any thoughts on using 1/3 as much Magnum hops at 15ish% instead of Goldings East Kent?

 

[OBayBrewer]

Started this baby yesterday. I made two minor (I hope!) changes. First, I used 1/3oz of Magnum hops at 15.2% simply because that is what I had on hand. Second, I let the coriander seed and orange peel boil for 10 minutes rather than the 5 mins the recipe called for. It smelled heavenly and I had good yeast action about 6 hours after pitching. I plan to have this as one of the beers at our annual New Years party. I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

[BierMuncher]

Started this baby yesterday. I made two minor (I hope!) changes. First, I used 1/3oz of Magnum hops at 15.2% simply because that is what I had on hand. Second, I let the coriander seed and orange peel boil for 10 minutes rather than the 5 mins the recipe called for. It smelled heavenly and I had good yeast action about 6 hours after pitching. I plan to have this as one of the beers at our annual New Years party. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Sounds like it will be spot on.

 

[OBayBrewer]

Started this baby yesterday. I made two minor (I hope!) changes. First, I used 1/3oz of Magnum hops at 15.2% simply because that is what I had on hand. Second, I let the coriander seed and orange peel boil for 10 minutes rather than the 5 mins the recipe called for. It smelled heavenly and I had good yeast action about 6 hours after pitching. I plan to have this as one of the beers at our annual New Years party. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Just did a hydro reading on this brew this morning and it is already down to 1.010. My OG was 1.040 which should give me an ABV of approx 3.94%.

It tasted pretty good, but the hops were prominent, though this should mellow with time. There was a taste of wheat on the back of the tongue that lingered nicely after each sip. The mouthfeel was a bit thin, but not bad. I think time in the bottle will round everything out nicely. I'm just hoping it is ready by New Years. I know it will be drinkable, but probably not truly "ready".

Definitely a good, simple AG Witbier that I will try to always have on hand!

Thanks Biermuncher!!!

 

[BierMuncher]

Just did a hydro reading on this brew this morning and it is already down to 1.010. My OG was 1.040 which should give me an ABV of approx 3.94%.

It tasted pretty good, but the hops were prominent, though this should mellow with time. There was a taste of wheat on the back of the tongue that lingered nicely after each sip. The mouthfeel was a bit thin, but not bad. I think time in the bottle will round everything out nicely. I'm just hoping it is ready by New Years. I know it will be drinkable, but probably not truly "ready".

Definitely a good, simple AG Witbier that I will try to always have on hand!

Thanks Biermuncher!!!

The mouth feel on this beer improves greatly once properly carb'd.

 

[allthingsgiant]

Just pulled my first pint of this stuff from the kegerator exactly 1 month from brew date. Brewed it per BierMucher's recipe verbatim, except I added a full oz. of bitter orange peel (didn't want to waste the last 1/4 oz). OG 1.041, FG 1.010. Mashed at 150F. Currently at 2.5 carbonation levels, will get it up to 3.5 here in the next week. I also added some gelatin to the keg (standard practice for me) to try to clear it up a bit (didn't work so much, that's ok).

Note that I currently have a head cold, and can't smell very well which might sway my comments, but my initial thoughts are that it's very light-bodied, and definitely bitter/spicy from the orange. The mouthfeel is very thin, too, like water. Pale in color (Beersmith says 3.5 SRM, and I agree). Good coriander flavor, perfect quantity. It's definitely very easy to drink and put back. I will be interested to put a slice of orange on my glass (gasp!) and see if that offers any improvement to it (might sweeten up the spiciness of it).

Not a super huge fan at the moment, but also not a huge witbier / Blue Moon fan in general. Maybe it's the head cold I'm dealing with, maybe it's the low ABV I'm not used to. Maybe next time I'll jack up the ABV another 0.5% with more grist, and mash at 152-154ish. I dunno... I do agree with other reviews that it tastes more like a Hooegarden than Blue Moon.

Either way, a good quality session witbier, and I bet it would go back smoothly after a day in the summer sun (it's 30 degrees and snow on the ground as I type, which might affect my response, too).

Thanks for the recipe.

 

[OBayBrewer]

Bottled 5 gallons of BB 26th December and am hoping it will be drinkable for New Years. If not, it'll stay in the fridge and finish and I'll enjoy it later.

Thanks again to BierMuncher for a great, simple, delicious recipe. Slainté!

 

[nickmv]

So I'm getting ready to brew this one this week, but the numbers aren't adding up for me.

With 4.5 lbs of 2 row and 4.5lbs of flaked wheat, I'm showing 1.044 @ 70% for a 5.5 gal batch. I see you show 1.038???

Am I missing something? Using BeerSmith 2

 

[OBayBrewer]

Bottled 5 gallons of BB 26th December and am hoping it will be drinkable for New Years. If not, it'll stay in the fridge and finish and I'll enjoy it later.

Thanks again to BierMuncher for a great, simple, delicious recipe. Slainté!

It was drinkable, but has gotten better and better every day since! This will be a staple, though I'll dial back the hops a bit in my next batch. I ended up using APPROXIMATELY 0.33 oz of Magnum at 15.32% instead of the EKG at 5%. Next time I'll pick up the EKG instead is subing something else. Anyway, damn good brew!

 

[nickmv]

Just tried this @ 7days (1.048 was my OG -- way overly efficient) with 1oz coriander @ 10min, 1.2oz navel orange peel @ 6 mins.

This is absolutely fantastic at only 1 wk old. I'm going to go ahead and keg one of the carboys. Def the fastest beer to be drinkable for me. This is definitely getting rebrewed again and again.

Also, it reminds me much more of a Hoegaarden than a Blue Moon, as others have indicated, especially in terms of color. It's very light. This is hitting the keg in time for the Super Bowl for sure.

 

[bears34]

Was the fermentation very low with this recipe? I brewed one about 5 days ago and it is very slow... Thanks!

 

[kathy2472]

Bought this recipe kit from brewmasters. This will be the second time brewing. Planning on making tomorrow. I have a few questions. It says to strain the wheat grains out and add the extracts and you know the rest. I really don't know the rest. I am beginning to think this may be a partial mash recipe. and I maybe in over my head. Can anyone give me specific directions. I promise to toast you with the very first beer if you do.


3.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Wheat Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)
2.00 lb Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM)

1.49 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00%] (60 min)

0.75 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
0.75 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 10.0 min) Misc

1 Pkgs Belgian Witbier (Wyeast #3944 or White Labs WLP400) Definitely want a Belgian Wit yeast though.

Mash your flaked wheat at 155 degrees for 60-75 minutes (the longer will up the efficiency and ABV%)

Strain the wheat grains out and bring wort to boil, add extracts and you know the rest...

 

[leftcontact]

Yes this is a partial mash.


Put the flaked wheat in a mash tun of some kind - often a keg or cooler with a filter and a spout on it. you will want some rice hulls in there too to avoid a stuck mash (happened to me first time I made it). I think a pound should do but I am certain others will correct me. Add water heated to the specified temperature and keep at that temp for the time specified. (I stick my cooler in my oven on low.)

At the end of that time, drain the tun into your brew kettle. Boil that puppy for 60 minutes. Add the hops at the times specified (10 minutes means when 10 minutes are left on the clock.) at the end of the boil, chill to room temp, transfer to primary, pitch yeast, and ferment just like an extract.

Edit: if you don't have a mash tun yet, you can try partial-mash-in-a-bag - put the flaked wheat in a muslin bag, heat water to mash temp in your kettle, keep it that warm for the duration of mash, and when mashing is done pull the bag out , squeeze it to get the runoff into the kettle, raise to a boil, and proceed as in the paragraph above. No need for rice hulls, you will just have a large bag of oatmeal looking glorp to throw away. I don't do this because I have a mini masher, but it may work easier for you.

 

[kathy2472]

Thanks your direction are great. I really appreciable the help.

Kathy

 

[leftcontact]

No problem. This was the second batch I ever tried too and I didn't know about the rice hull truck; wound up with a stuck mash (filter completely jammed with glorp) and that freaked me out so much I burned the LME. things went downhill from there.


Edit: Not this recipe, but this is my mini mash tun:

 

[bears34]

FYI, I put 3lbs of rice hulls into a 10G batch to prevent clogging.

 

[nickmv]

FYI, I put 3lbs of rice hulls into a 10G batch to prevent clogging.

FYI, I used only .5lbs of hulls in a 8.5 gal batch with ~7.5 lbs of flaked wheat. Not only did I not get a stuck mash, my efficiency was well over what BierMuncher called for. He said it wouldn't convert well, but that's news to me -- mine was 10pts over! The mash seemed very thick, but it sure converted just fine. Of course mileage may vary.

I also used 1oz coriander freshly ground (not crushed) @10mins, and 1.25oz navel orange peel @ 7 mins. Overall, I think I should've added orange at 10mins as well, and upped the coriander a bit. A great beer regardless.

 

[bknifefight]

3lbs of rice hulls for 10 gallons is a lot. I think I used 1 lb for the 10 gallon batch I did a few months back.

 

[cbehr]

Has anyone added any fruit to this recipe? Was thinking of splitting of 1G and adding blueberries and 1G and adding strawberries.

Still haven't decided on the yeast yet...is it REALLY that huge of a difference? I prefer Blue Moon to Hoegarden so I'm thinking of S-04 or 3942.

 

[nickmv]

I might brew this again with blood oranges this time, and actually incorporate the fruit into a 2ndary.