First Witbier - Feedback

[KRASHED]

About to brew my first Witbier and it's hopefully going to be drank by a decent sized group of friends. How does this look?

15 gallon boil volume, 11 gallon batch size.
Mash is double infusion light body (from Beersmith 2)

9 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 45.0 %
9 lbs Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 2 45.0 %
2 lbs Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 3 9.9 %
2.00 oz Saaz [4.20 %] - Boil 70.0 min Hop 4 14.7 IBUs
2.00 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 10.0 mins) Spice 5 -
2.00 oz Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 10.0 mins) Spice 6 -
2.0 pkg Belgian Witbier (Wyeast Labs #3944) [124.21 ml]


OG: 1.052
FG: 1.011
ABV: 5.4%
IBU: 14.7
Color: 3.1 SRM

Having a bit of trouble with off flavors with light beers. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[TasunkaWitko]

I am not an expert by any means, but it looks good to me.

Some suggestions (subject to better advice from more-knowledgeable folks):

1. Make your wheat 40%; your pale ale 50%
2. Mash @ 154
3. I like Hallertau Mittelfruh for hops, but nothing wrong with Saaz
4. Orange peel at 5 minutes, rather than 10
5. I've read that these beers should be fermented a bit warmer

As I said, these are suggestions only - I've never made this exact style, but based on my reading and a couple of similar brews, you might consider them, unless you hear otherwise from someone else.

 

[Kharnynb]

9 lb flaked wheat sounds like a huge amount, you sure that shouldn't be wheat malt?

 

[TasunkaWitko]

@Kharnynb - Good catch - I missed that.

 

[Kharnynb]

ah...sorry, wit, not wheat beer, so unmalted grain would be the best option..

 

[z-bob]

I brewed one recently; used 1/3 pilsner malt, 1/3 wheat malt, and 1/3 unmalted wheat (elbow macaroni) with Willamette hops. Coriander, bitter orange, (I accidentally added them at 10 minutes instead of 5), and German wheat yeast. It's still conditioning in the bottles; needs another week or two before I can judge it. The early sample just tasted yeasty.

You want a lot of flaked wheat (or equivalent) but you have too much for the 2-row malt to convert. It might work if you used oat malt instead of flaked oats; I dunno, I've never used oat malt but I assume it can convert itself.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

I'm not so sure about using that much un-malted grain, and would suggest replacing the flaked wheat with malted wheat (40 to 50%).

If the OP wants to use flaked wheat maybe it would be best to have that in place of the flaked oats (10%)

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

ah...sorry, wit, not wheat beer, so unmalted grain would be the best option..

BYO magazine has a recipie for Hoegarten Wit which uses white wheat and flaked wheat. (1# for 5 gallon batch) The whole grain will provide more fermentables. So, while the flaked wheat will work it may not be fully practical.

 

[z-bob]

A high percentage of unmalted wheat is appropriate. It's just a little too high here (not even by all that much) 60% 2-row or 6-row and 40% wheat flakes would probably work just fine.

 

[Lefou]

I'd reduce the unmalted grist and replace with a portion of higher diastatic malt.
Doing so might reduce the body and influence the estimated ABV, but it would solve the mash conversion issue.

If you're having "off flavors" in light SRM beers, the water might be the culprit. Mash pH can be predicted and adjusted by adding a few mineral salts. Filtering the water will also help.

 

[Lefou]

For the past few recent brews, I've gravitated to light SRM beers.
Why? Because experiments into dark ales and dark malted ciders failed.

I dumped one partial mash, thin, astringent and sour Dunkel and one dark malted cider. Chalk it up to zeal and not understanding water chemistry, mash pH, and malts. Ten gallons down the drain or poured on rose bushes can be painfully wasteful and expensive when you use extract.

So what's your water like?

 

[thisone]

My tap water is bad for light beers, so I've been using a mash/ph calculator to adjust the ph more to my liking. I end up swapping out around 60% of my mash water with distilled water and adding some lactic acid to get the target mash ph down to the lower end of the acceptable range. That seems to work best for me

And just make sure your procedures and sanitation are good too; it's possibly that these off flavors could be present in your dark beers too, but they're just less noticeable because there are other flavors hiding it

 

[z-bob]

I'm on a mission to brew a light malty or balanced beer using my local tapwater. It has been a struggle but I'm getting there. Next step is add enough lactic acid to just get the pH down to about 5.6 or 5.7 instead of trying to get it below 5.4. And if that works, I will start making my own lactic acid.

I can brew good beer using half RO water and half tapwater, and add a few ounces of acid malt to the grist. I might go back to that, but I like a challenge.

 

[xCSx]

Here is my recipe i've brewed a few times - delicious. You can choose not to dry hop if you don't want extra flavors.



HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: wit-5g

Brew Method: BIAB
Style Name: Witbier
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons (ending kettle volume)
Boil Size: 7 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.041
Efficiency: 75% (ending kettle)


STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.052
Final Gravity: 1.012
ABV (standard): 5.22%
IBU (tinseth): 19.67
SRM (morey): 3.48

FERMENTABLES:
6 lb - American - Pale 2-Row (57.1%)
3 lb - Belgian - Pilsner (28.6%)
1.5 lb - Flaked Oats (14.3%)

HOPS:
1.5 oz - Saaz, Type: Pellet, AA: 3.5, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 19.67
2 oz - Motueka, Type: Pellet, AA: 7, Use: Dry Hop for 12 days

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Infusion, Temp: 125 F, Time: 20 min, Amount: 7.75 gal
2) Infusion, Temp: 150 F, Time: 60 min, Amount: 7.75 gal
3) Infusion, Temp: 168 F, Time: 10 min, Amount: 7.75 qt

OTHER INGREDIENTS:
0.79 oz - Coriander, Time: 10 min, Type: Spice, Use: Boil
0.79 oz - Orange Peel, Time: 1 min, Type: Spice, Use: Boil
0.79 oz - Chamomile, Time: 1 min, Type: Spice, Use: Boil

YEAST:
Wyeast - Belgian Witbier 3944
Starter: No
Form: Liquid
Attenuation (avg): 74%
Flocculation: Med-Low
Optimum Temp: 62 - 75 F
Fermentation Temp: 70 F
Pitch Rate: 0.35 (M cells / ml / deg P)

 

[KRASHED]

Thanks for the replies. Just going to switch over from flaked to malt. That's what the recipe called for but after I read the BJCP guidelines I switched the malt to flakes.

Water sucks. Recently started using RO water from a local supplier so I don't think that's the culprit.

 

[KRASHED]

So my grain bill is now 3lbs flaked wheat, 6lbs wheat malt, 9lbs pale malt 2-row, seems to be a much more agreeable fit with Beersmith tolerances.

Switched the orange peel to 5 minutes as well. Using RO water

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Hey -

That looks pretty good, I think - I liked the flaked oats too, when I did mine - but mine wasn't intended to be strictly to style, so your final decision is probably best. If you want to try it sometime, let me know, and I'll point you toward the recipe.

I don't know much about water chemistry, but you might need to add something to the RO water in order to get what you're looking for. Hopefully some others can confirm or deny. I've had great luck with our local spring water, so I use that for pretty much everything, un-modified.

Good luck, and let us know how this goes. I am a big fan of this type of beer, and beer's like it.