Hoegaarden clone is finally in primary

[CatchinZs]

Morning all,

Very pleased with my clone and second batch this morning when I found that less than 8 hours after pitch it is happily perking along. Color is much darker than original but it doesn't bother me at all. OG was 1.049.
Man does a 60 min boil do a good job of reducing your wort volume. I had to run to the store to get a couple gallons of distilled because even the extra pot of pre boiled and cooled water didn't make up for the difference.


Few questions :

My AHS hop bags seemed a little on the heavy side. I don't have a scale so I found by Googleing a conversion table that an ounce is roughly 2 Tablespoons.
If that is the case I would say that AHS packed about 1.5 ounces.
All but one hop addition required .5 oz so I just split the pouch to be safe and used roughly 1/2 of the pouch, any issues with that?

I wasn't sure if I should leave the hops, bitter orange and coriander in the primary so I filtered it all with some cheese cloth. Was I right by removing this?
If not is the a corrective action that needs to be taken?

Second batch was much easier than the first. So overall I'm very pleased.

 

[Cheesefood]

Which recipe did you use? The one in my sig was amazingly close to Hoegaarden, after it aged a few months.

No problem filtering out the stuff...probably best in the long run.

 

[CharlieB]

AHS usually ships by the ounce or 1/2 ounce. dont forget that 2 tablespoons equals an ounce in liquid, not necessarily weight.

 

[DeathBrewer]

a friend and i brewed a hoegaarden clone from Beer Captured. It was pretty dark in the end and wasn't exactly a hoegaarden, to tell you the truth. but i gotta say, it was an AWESOME beer!

 

[CatchinZs]

Which recipe did you use? The one in my sig was amazingly close to Hoegaarden, after it aged a few months.

No problem filtering out the stuff...probably best in the long run.

I used the AHS clone kit...it seems like your list of ingredients is pretty much spot on what the AHS kit contains.


My Wit has been in primary since the Aug. 1st. I used a starter and it had a very active fermentation for the first 5 day and then slowly died off. I cracked the lid on Friday to check the gravity but the krausen was still very thick so I snapped the lid back on to give it a few more days.
I checked it last night and the krausen was still high but appeared to be falling.

If I understand the formation of Krausen correctly it should form during active fermentation so that means that it has held a krausen for about 5 days now.

My question....is this normal for a Wit to hold krausen for so long.

 

[Willie3]

Wits and hefewits are notoriously famous for being violently active for a few days and then slowly deactivate over what seems to be forever. The brew will continue to ferment out. Depending upon your yeast it can last from 1 to 8 weeks. My longest was an AG hefe that took nearly 6 months before it was ready to keg. One of the best brews I ever encountered. No wait, all home brewed beer is the best brew ever encountered.

Typically though the standard practice of taking Hydros and visually inspecting the brew is the best way no matter how short or long a period of time for the fermentation to nearly cease. Standard 1-2-3 method is a good way too but Hydros are best for inexperience.

Going for the jugular on wits though Huh? Hoegaarden, the Dom of Wits. Enjoy!
- WW

 

[CatchinZs]

Going for the jugular on wits though Huh? Hoegaarden, the Dom of Wits. Enjoy!
- WW

Yeah...I've never really been scared of failure.
I'm not nearly arrogant enough to think that it will be perfect but that just give me another reason to try again.

Man I hope it doesn't take this 8 weeks to finish up...no time frame or anything but I would like to taste it while it's still hot outside.

 

[CatchinZs]

So far things seem a little off.
After 3 full weeks in primary I decided to rack to secondary to get out of the trub and remaining krausen.
A very thin layer of krausen was hanging on for over a week and I started to feel like I may have a problem.
My hydrometer indicated that it was at the correct FG.

The beer has a great smell but taste is hard to explain.
To be honest it doesn't have much of a taste at all. What little bit of taste is has I couldn't really put my finger on the flavor. I'm going to give it time in secondary and bottle to see what the end result is.

 

[CatchinZs]

Week in secondary and there doesn't appear to be any infection.
High Astringent smell so I guess this beer is going to sit for a few months to see if it mellows.
Fermentation temps were in the 72 degree range, my basement is colder but the temp on the fermenter stayed at 72.

Should I leave it bulk condition for two weeks or just bottle? Not sure how a beer that appears to be extremely green should be stored.

 

[EdWort]

Leave it in the secondary till you are good an ready to bottle. I've left beers in secondaries for a couple of months before bottling.