Homebrew #5: Belgian Witbier

Even though I just got through brewing a saison around two weeks ago, I style have a jonesing for Belgian beers that can only be satisfied by more brewing. I thought about doing another saison, but I decided to wait until the saison fermenting now is down so I can taste it, make improvements, and brew the exact same thing again. This seems like the only logical way to actually improving my brewing. Anyways, saison was out, so I decided to take on the Belgian witbier.

I had just had Funkwerks' Belgian White about a week ago and loved it. It drank similar to a ginger beer with lots of citrus and spiciness. I knew I really wanted to capture the strong citurs flavors that were prominent in Funkwerks Belgian White, and most other Belgian witbiers, but I decided to leave out the ginger. After reading too many recipes all over the internet and consulting some of my recipe books, I formulated my own witbier recipe on BeerSmith that I think will really come out strong.

Here it is...

Zach stirring while I add the grains
during mash in.

Brew Day: 1/11/2012

Grains:

5.5 lbs - Pilsner (2 Row) Belgium

5 lbs    - Flaked Wheat

.25 lbs - Munich Malt

Mash Schedule:

Mash in:    3.2 gal at 166*F. Hold at 152*F for 60 minutes

Sparge 1:   2.1 gal at 168*F. Hold at 150*F for 25 minutes

Sparge 2:   2.1 gal at 170*F. Hold at 155*F for 20 minutes

Sparge 3:   2.6 gal at 166*F. Hold at 154*F for 20 minutes.

**My mash schedule was not supposed to look like this at all. Belgian Witbier recipes usually require you to gradually increase the temperature of the mash-in from around 122*F to 154*F, but as far as I know I cannot do that with a plastic cooler, so I planned to mash in at 154*F with 3.3 gal and do two sparges with about 2.3 gallons. However, after I saw how much wort the mash-in yielded, I knew my plans were going to change drastically. (The mash-in yielded 1.5 gallons. Sparge 1 yielded 1.5 gallons. Sparge 2 yielded 2 gallons, and Sparge 3 yielded enough to bring the preboil volume to 7.5 gallons and with some to spare) The sparge temperatures and times listed under the mash schedule were not planned. They are the result of reaction to the mash-in yielding so little wort.**

Pre-Boil Volume: 7.5 gallons

The ingredients for the boil less the hops.

Boil:

Boil Time: 90 Minutes

1 oz       German Hallertauer Hops       90 minutes

12 oz     Seville Orange Marmalade       5 minutes

.75 oz    Coriander Seed, crushed         5 minutes

1 g         100% Chamomile                  5 Minutes

4g          Fresh Grapefruit zest              0 minutes

Cool down with wort chiller and snow to 168*F

**Our hose was was completely frozen since it was snowing, so while I boiled some water to dump on the hose to thaw it out, I put the kettle in a mound of snow in order to start cooling as much as I could. If it wasn't for Mother Nature I would have been in quite the bind. The hose was thawed with one kettle of water dumped on it.**

Post Boil Volume: 6 gallons

**The opposite of the boil off situation with the saison happened with this brew. I over compensated for the boil off and ended up with 1 gal more of wort than intended. A large part of this is due to the type of boil I utilized. Instead of having a roaring boil, I kept the pot just hot enough to be at a boil, though not rapid. Beacause the boil wasn't as intense as HB#4, I think less water was boiled off. Luckily my fermenter can handle 6 gallons**

Original Gravity: 1.048 (target was 1.050)

**I am assuming the gravity is off by the small amount because I have more water than anticipated. The slightly lower OG should not be much of a problem.""

Pitch 2 packages of Wyeast 3944 Belgiant Wit yeast

Even though the mash schedule was completely off and I had to pretty much make up what I was doing along the way, my numbers still came out around the targets, so I can say things went pretty well. The beer tasted extremely good out of the tester. Citrus and orange flavors are on the forefront with some spice from the coriander and earthiness from the chamomile, while the hops add a bit of bitterness to dry it out just a tad. The only downside I can think of is the color. It looked on the light brown side of yellow, which is a bit off putting to be honest. Hopefully some of the sediment will settle and allow the color to be less muddy looking.

This was a really fun beer to brew despite taking more or less an entire day. This is my first recipe that I more or less created so I am interested in seeing how it comes out...

*UPDATE* I noticed the airlock on the fermenter bubbling rapidly at the 12hr mark. Fermenation seems to be progressing nicely.