This week I take an in-depth have a look at my Witbier recipe and a number of the design selections made in designing this beer. This can be a recipe I’ve brewed dozens of instances over greater than twenty years, but it surely at all times delivers a refreshing style and end.
The Witbier Type
Witbier is a Belgian model of beer, with a barely spicy end and distinctive yeast character. It’s a very drinkable, refreshing, reasonable energy and sometimes has some haze from the usage of unmalted wheat. They’re usually extremely carbonated, have a dry end and are calmly spiced.
The BJCP model information lists Witbier as having a colour between 2-4 SRM, an unique gravity of 1.044-1.052, bitterness between 8-20 IBUs and an Alcohol stage of 4.5-5.5% ABV. Attribute substances embrace a big portion of unmalted wheat, generally uncooked oats, a particular wit yeast and in addition spices together with Curacao orange peel and coriander seed.
Designing a Witbier
When sitting right down to design a beer, I like to begin with the grain invoice as it’s normally one of many simpler items to settle. Within the case of Witbier, the BJCP model information recommends 40-60% unmalted wheat, so I made a decision to begin with a 50-50% break up of pale malt and unmalted wheat as the bottom. I didn’t embrace oats, although some brewers do as I really feel the unmalted wheat gives sufficient protein and physique by itself.
The one query was which sort of unmalted wheat to make use of. I instantly discarded uncooked wheat as that might require an in depth cereal mash to transform it and I wished to maintain issues easy. That left flaked and torrified wheat as choices. Flaked wheat is extra extensively obtainable so the ultimate malt invoice is just 50% pale malt and 50% flaked wheat. Use Belgian pale malt whether it is obtainable. I focused an unique gravity of 1.049 which provides an ABV of roughly 5%.
Bitterness is just not a serious function of the beer however you do want sufficient hops to steadiness the malts. I made a decision to make use of East Kent Goldings as it’s one in all my favourite traditional English hops as an alternative of European hops. Whereas I may maybe have used one of many common Continental hops like Hallertauer or Tettnang, I felt that the English hops would possibly give it a extra delicate however barely advanced end with out the spice of a number of the noble hops. My objective was to not spotlight the hops, however merely steadiness the beer. I hopped to a 19 IBU stage which is inside vary for the model. For a similar cause, there isn’t a want for a whirlpool or dry hop addition.
In step with a easy to brew drinkable beer, I opted for a primary medium physique, single infusion mash with no mash out. The beer already has loads of physique from the flaked wheat, and requires no particular mash steps. Whereas the mash can run a bit thick because of the great amount of flaked barley, I’ve not had issues with a caught mash on this specific beer.
Conventional wits are made with a small addition of spices, so I used the traditional Coriander Seed and Curacao Orange Peel mixture added 5 minutes from the top of the boil to offer it a little bit of spice end. For this specific model the usage of Witbier yeast is definitely essential because it gives the phenolic end that’s attribute for this model. In consequence I picked White Labs WLP400, Belgian Wit Ale because the yeast to make use of.
Brewing BeerSmith’s Wit
The brewing of this beer, very similar to the recipe itself is an train in simplicity. Mash the 50-50% pale/wheat malts utilizing a medium mash temperature, sparge and boil as you usually would utilizing the only boil addition of hops after which add the spices 5 minutes from the top of the boil. Cool and pitch the yeast and ferment at room temperature for 2 weeks. Then bottle or keg as desired, carbonating at only a bit larger stage than you would possibly usually.
The consequence shall be a pleasant pale ale that will have a slight haze from the wheat, however may be very gentle, refreshing and drinkable. Even my associates who have been raised on mass market American Adjunct Lagers like Budweiser and Michelob all get pleasure from consuming my Wit and its an incredible summertime beer.
Right here’s the total recipe for the Wit on the BeerSmithRecipe website which you’ll be able to simply obtain or make a personal copy of so you’ll be able to scale it to your gear profile in BeerSmith:
I hope you loved this week’s article on designing a Witbier. Thanks for becoming a member of me on the BeerSmith House Brewing Weblog. If you wish to take the guesswork out of brewing, please strive my BeerSmith recipe software program from BeerSmith.com. Make sure to join my publication or my podcast (additionally on itunes and youtube) for extra nice recommendations on homebrewing.
