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| Orange peels were zested with a cheese grater. Under the 17g of peel is the 10g of coriander and 1g of grains of paradise. I also added 4g of chamomile. |
It's been a long time since I attempted to brew a witbier. While that beer was alright at first, it seemed to develop a metallic taste over time and ended up not being all that enjoyable. For this attempt I hoped to use some of the advice I've learned over time, especially from Randy Mosher's great Radical Brewing. Some of those tips include using fresh citrus peel, opting for Indian coriander, and adding chamomile into the mix. I also threw in some of my own twists by including grains of paradise and including 3 types of wheat (unmalted (raw), torrified, and malted) and golden naked oats, along with 6-row barley (more on that in another post).
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| 4 different adjuncts: bottom/right: malted wheat, left: golden naked oats, top center: torrified wheat, top right (small amount of light colored grains) unmalted (raw) wheat. |
Note to self: use rice hills when brewing a wheat beer. This one got so stuck trying to runoff I ended up disconnecting the barb on the out spigot from where it attaches to the inlet under the false bottom, making sure that there was no chance of runoff. I ended up having to put the wort/grains through a double colander filtering setup. Very low efficiency rate, tons of frustration, plenty of lost wort and grains spilled everywhere, but hopefully all is not lost as I still ended up with a wort that showed moderate signs of fermentation less than 12 hours after pitching.
In the end I added 6 oz. of dry wheat malt extract to the 6 gallons of pre-boil wort to up the gravity from the drastically low 1.025 level.
This beer seems to have gotten infected, probably time to trash the bucket. The beer has some slight off flavors with a bit of a pretzel/chemical smell in the nose and a touch of plastic in the flavor. Rather than give up on the beer already I added a few vials of blends I have been saving but didn't have any specific plans for. The contents of these vials include several commercial saison strains, Brettanomyces Lambicus, Lactobacillus Delbruekii, and BKYeast's C2 strain. While not undrinkable the beer isn't what I wanted it to be so I'm hoping these strains can improve the beer even if they take it in a very different direction.
8/31/16
Tasting pretty pleasant, slightly tart but with more citrus character than it had in the last tasting and no noticeable off flavors.
9/25/16
Gravity at 1.007. Kegged 3 gallons straight, blended the rest with the bottom of my sweet cherry lambic (mostly purée). Flavor is candied orange, bread dough, cherry pie, and low-moderate tartness.
Fermentables
| |||||
Amount
|
Fermentable
|
Maltster
|
Use
|
PPG
|
Color
|
4.5 lb
|
6-Row (US)
|
Any
|
Mash
|
35
|
1 °L
|
2.0 lb
|
Torrified Wheat
|
Any
|
Boil
|
36
|
2 °L
|
1.0 lb
|
Unmalted Wheat (BE)
|
Any
|
Boil
|
36
|
2 °L
|
1.0 lb
|
Wheat Malt (DE)
|
Any
|
Boil
|
37
|
2 °L
|
0.5 lb
|
Golden Naked Oats (UK)
|
Any
|
Boil
|
33
|
10 °L
|
0.35 lb
|
Dry Malt Extract - Wheat
|
Any
|
Boil
|
42
|
3 °L
|
Hops
| |||||
Amount
|
Hop
|
Time
|
Use
|
Form
|
AA
|
1.0 oz
|
East Kent Golding (UK)
|
30 min
|
Boil
|
Pellet
|
5.00
|
Yeasts
| |||||
Name
|
Lab/Product
|
Attenuation
| |||
Belgian Wit Ale Yeast
|
White Labs WLP400
|
0.76
| |||
Extras
| |||||
Amount
|
Name
|
Time
|
Use
| ||
1.0 g
|
Grains of Paradise
|
5.0 min
|
Boil
| ||
4.0 g
|
Chamomile (Dried)
|
5.0 min
|
Boil
| ||
10.0 g
|
Coriander Seed
|
5.0 min
|
Boil
| ||
16.0 g
|
Orange Peel
|
5.0 min
|
Boil
| ||
Mash steps
| |||||
Step
|
Heat Source
|
Target Temp
|
Time
| ||
Protein Rest
|
Infusion
|
115.0 °F
|
15 min
| ||
Saccharification Rest
|
Infusion
|
155.0 °F
|
60 min
|
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