Recipe For PENSANS WIT
INFO for 23 litres at OG ~ 1047, ~ 16 IBU
Limited process info, specific to PenSans Wit is given here.
For more detailed info on the PenSans processes go here.
Detailed info around handling the strange ingredients required in a Belgian Wit have yet to be written up in the processes section but you will find enough info in this current page to get you going !
BACKGROUND DISCUSSION
- The Belgian Wit style is one of the most satisfying styles that I have brewed, partly because of the results and partly because of the challenge I experienced in getting it to work ! Like many specialised styles from that part of the world you do not find yourself with simple malts and single temperature infusion mashes. Rather, you have to learn to handle unmalted ingredients, lots of gumminess in the mash and ingredients that may not be readily available. Even if they are, the chances of you getting accurate information on how much extract a particular grain will yield is fairly low . . . but don't be deterred . . . its MORE than worth the effort.
- The information I give on this page is a summary of how I went about making a Belgian Wit and was influenced a lot by the ingredients that I could locate locally. Local for me, is the city of Pretoria in South Africa. Where you live there will almost certainly be different choices available. For instance, sourcing Belgian Pils malt as a base malt would be something I could possibly arrange on import once-off, but I would certainly not be able to do it all the time or very quickly, hence I have gone for a standard Pale Ale malt as the base malt because its what's sold locally. Some say it has too much caramel flavour in it for the style but . . . beggars can't be choosers, so use whatever makes sense to you !
- I have also brewed the beer on three occasions by the time I came to write this page. Two of these were good, one wasn't as-good ! So hopefully my learning will assist you short-cut some of that learning ! I have also tried to tell you some of what I would do on brew #4, sometimes the bright ideas only arrive after a few attempts.
- The style guidelines for a Belgian Wit vary depending on who you ask but I found the following general guidelines. OG = 1040 to 1055, bitterness = 12 to 22. For this brew I tried to hit somewhere in the middle of these ranges and so came up with targets of OG = 1047 and bitterness = 16 IBU.
- Now, your experience with gummy mashes full of wheat may be more than mine (let's face it, it's unlikely to be much less than mine before I started out on this particular journey !) and so you may be quite relaxed with your process and your equipment may have even been able to cope with things better than mine. However, I am very much a single temperature infusion sort of guy and so the recipe and all processes are written from that perspective . . . yes, I got dreadful extract amounts and so have upped the ingredients to account for it. So please keep that in mind ! So, onto the recipe and process.
GRAIN BILL
| GRAIN |
AMOUNT
METRIC |
AMOUNT
IMPERIAL |
AMOUNT
% |
EXTRACT
POTENTIAL
OF GRAIN |
CONTRIBUTION
TO EXTRACT |
| Pale Ale Malt |
3.99 kg |
8.78 lb |
50% |
1038 |
1032 |
| Wheat : Unmalted |
1.79 kg |
3.94 lb |
22.5% |
1018 |
1007 |
| Wheat Flakes |
1.79 kg |
3.94 lb |
22.5% |
1018 |
1007 |
| Rolled Oats |
0.40 kg |
0.88 lb |
5% |
1018 |
1001 |
| TOTALS |
7.97 kg |
17.54 lb |
100% |
- |
1047 |
NOTES ON THE GRAIN BILL
- The total amount of grain may sound high but as mentioned above, I have experienced low extraction rates in this recipe, possibly due to my overall inexperience with the ingredients. If you can fit that much in your mash tun then go for it, its certainly better than being disappointed at the end of boil when your OG is only 1030 or something !
- I calculated the above extraction rates based on the potential given for each grain with an overall brew-house efficiency of 60%. 60% you say . . . ouch ! And that was after adjusting the extract from the unmalted wheat, wheat flakes and oats to half that of the pale ale malt. I did some side experiments on the wheat and wheat flakes after my first brew attempt and found these extract potentials of 1018 to be close to what I was getting. Let me know if you calculate things differently. The overall data worked though as, on a subsequent batch, I changed the relative amounts and was able to accurately predict my OG, so they must be in the ball park.
- In selecting the wheat component I found over my three batches that the use of large amounts of unmalted wheat did not give as good a flavour as the wheat flakes and so am assuming that the lack of a cereal cooking stage to release those starches from their natural state was to blame. But the beer itself is based on up to 50% of unmalted wheat. Hence why I have settled on a balance between the unmalted wheat grains and the flakes. I am tempted to try more wheat flakes proportionately in a future brew but for now am happy with the above split. Keep in mind as well that if you want a cloudy beer you will need those long chain proteins from the wheat which will never get broken down to any large degree in the mash. The cloudiness is also a factor of the yeast though.
- As for sourcing ingredients, I bought the unmalted wheat grains from the health food section of a major supermarket (PnP) and the rolled oats were simply the 'large grained rolled oats' on sale as a breakfast cereal. Make sure there's no added sugar etc. I used 'Tiger Oats Large Flaked Oats'. Another note, if the shop offers the unmalted wheat grain already crushed, BUY IT !!! Cracking that stuff got me worried about breaking my mill, its VERY HARD!!! Not to mention the lack of an arm for half an hour after trying to hand crank the mill !!
- The amount of each ingredient was chosen to give around 23 litres of wort for fermenting. My reasons for this are that (assuming you live in a metric world of sorts) the fermentation buckets are 25 litres in size and 23 litres of wort allows for 2 litres of headspace, not a lot, but its balanced by the fact that you can get 20 litres of beer to bottle ! I have calculated things to get you 24 litres in your boiler at boil-end and, assuming a litre is lost on transfer, that's 23 in the FV.
- So, that's it, 50% pale malt, 5 % rolled oats and the rest split evenly between unmalted wheat grains and flaked wheat.
HOPS
| HOPS |
Purpose |
Boil Time |
Metric |
Imperial |
~ IBUs |
| Southern Brewer @ 9.0% |
Bittering |
90 mins |
6 g |
0.2 oz |
8 IBU |
| Goldings @ 4.0% |
Bittering |
90 mins |
8 g |
0.3 oz |
8 IBU |
NOTES ON HOPS
- A Belgian Wit is not known for whacking amounts of hop bitterness, flavour or aroma ... why else would they have all that orange peel and coriander in there ?! So, keep the bitterness low and, if possible, use something like Styrian Goldings as the feint whiff of a noble hop like Goldings is definitely one of the characteristics of the beer. But only a feint whiff OK ?!?!
YEAST
| Belgian Wit beer yeast, try Wyeast 3944 or WhiteLabs WL2. |
NOTES ON YEAST
- If you want that authentic Wit flavour and aroma you should most definitely go for the correct yeast. I have tried the Wyeast smack pack OK. I was not successful in culturing from a bottle of Hoegaarden Wit which is bottle conditioned. I used a standard ale yeast that time and was still happy with the result although it wasn't true to style. If you have successfully made a starter from a bottle of Hoegaarden Wit then please tell me how !
MINERALS
| MINERALS |
PPM |
| Calcium (Ca) |
50 - 80 |
| Magnesium (Mg) |
< 20 |
| Sodium (Na) |
< 30 |
| Sulphate (SO4) |
< 50 |
| Carbonate (CO3) |
low |
| Chlorine (Cl) |
< 60 |
NOTES ON MINERALS
- As you will see, just about everything is down here. I do not recall off hand where I dug these numbers out from and will put in the reference when I find it. I would imagine though that, as the bitterness is low, the sulphates and chlorides would need to be naturally low so as not to accentuate the bitterness or sweetness respectively. Anyone else got any info here ?!
THE MASH & SPARGE
- With all those unmalted grains in there you must be ready for plenty of gumminess in the mash. If you have not experienced it before its rather like someone putting loads of white coloured putty (prestik / blutak) in there and hoping you won't notice; believe me, you'll soon notice ! For this reason you will find that the mash will need occasional stirring to help stop it setting as a solid blob. Also, it blocks up the holes in your false bottom beautifully. So, if you're hoping to mash and sparge in the same vessel, forget it, you're about to find out why people invented the 'lauter tun' as a separate vessel for improving mash run off ! My advice is to get yourself a second insulated vessel to use for the mash and then to transfer it at mash-end into your normal mash-tun. Of course, if you don't believe me, go right ahead and experience a 3 hour sparge with loads of re-stirs, underlettings and 15 minute pauses for everything to settle again !!
- You will need to do a step infusion mash at the very least here as the ingredients require at least one protein rest. My current schedule tries to combine good mash practise and simplicity of operation for someone not equipped for large infusions during the mash. I would simply run out of mash tun space ! The suggested mash schedule follows in the table :-
THE MASH SCHEDULE
| STEP NAME |
START TEMP |
DURATION
(Minutes) |
HEAT METHOD |
| Protein rest |
50°C |
30 |
Infusion |
| Amylases |
65°C |
90 |
Infusion |
| Mash out |
75°C |
10 |
Infusion |
NOTES ON THE MASH SCHEDULE & MASHING-IN
- In your hot liquor tank, adjust the pH using an acid solution to a value of 5.6 - 5.8. This may sound low but you do not have any roasted malts to help reduce the pH, or large amounts of Ca to do the same. From a mash liquor of pH 5.8 I achieved a mash of pH 5.6.
- Mash in at the start by adding in 1.8 litres of mash liquor for every kg of grain you have. This may sound low but you're not going to aim first-off for the amylase stage as in a normal single temperature infusion mash (which sees the starches gelatinise and the mash quickly thicken) and so you can get away with a lower liquor / grain ratio. The lower the amount you can get away with in the mash-in step, obviously the more top up liquor you can add later to achieve the various infusions. This is a key point when your mash tun isn't big enough for a mash involving multiple infusions.
- If you need to add any minerals to the beer I choose not to add my minerals to the hot liquor tank, choosing instead to add it to the mash liquor in the mash tun prior to mash in. (Read here for my reasoning).
- Add minerals to the liquor in the tun. The minerals that can dissolve will dissolve in the couple of minutes that you spend gently stirring to ensure a settled liquor temperature.
- Usually when I mash in for a single-temperature infusion-mash I do not recommend giving the mash massive amounts of stirring. However, as you will later transfer all this to another vessel for sparging and as it gets fairly gummy in there, feel free to stir well on mash-in.
- The protein rest can be expanded upon to have one around 43°C and one around 53°C but, for simplicity sake and knowing that some haziness in your beer is actually encouraged, just relax and try a single protein rest at 50°C.
- Some folk recommend that you have both a beta amylase (60°C) and an alpha amylase (69°C) step in this beer but, again, for simplicity, try a single amylase rest in the middle at 65°C. There's so much else going on in this beer that you can keep this one simple.
- There are some very compelling reasons to have a mash out in this beer. I often go easy on this in my ales as the sparge time is usually fairly quick. However, in this type of beer, the high temperatures of the mash-out have two great benefits. Firstly, the higher temperature makes the mash much less viscous, meaning the wort can run off easier. This is important with such a gummy mash. Secondly, the purpose of the mash-out, to kill off the amylase enzymes is important here because the sparge step can take a lot longer than you'd anticipated, hence the enzymes continue to nibble away and you lose any control you thought you had over your final gravity.
- My recommendation for this step is that you invest in another mash-tun. Now, this doesn't have to be anything more glorified than a plastic vessel with foam insulation around the outside. It doesn't even need a tap. You put your initial mash liquor in here, add the grain, stir occasionally, add the top-up liquor when needed and generally speaking avoid all worries about a stuck mash later.
- At the end of the mash you use a scoop to transfer the mash into your vessel with the false bottom. I'd suggest a covering of sparge liquor in this vessel before transferring the mash across, just to help reduce any risks of the holes clogging . . . paranoia has a place here, believe me !
- Adjust the pH of the sparge liquor in your hot liquor tank to around 5.7, again using an acid solution. Aim for a sparge temperature of 75°C. As you mashed-out earlier you should still have a fairly hot mash there so 75°C should work fine.
- After you have your mash back in the vessel with the false bottom, give it 20 minutes or so to settle and then start recirculating slowly. When you have a wort that is free of bits of grain etc you can start directing the runnings into your boiler. Don't expect it to come out crystal clear like your ales or lagers do !! Haze is a part of this beer's make up and so just make sure there are no solids in the spargings.
THE BOIL
- The bittering hops can be added either as a 'first-wort' style (when there's sufficient spargings in your boiler to start heating it) or just as the wort comes to the boil (this will minimise boil overs too.)
- I have used a boil time of 90 minutes in my attempts at this beer and been happy with the results. However, long boil times, other than getting maximum extraction from your hops, also sees (haze producing) protein matter precipitating in the boiler. On my first attempt at a Belgian Wit I ended up boiling for 3 hours to get the OG I wanted (the wheat and oats didn't contribute as much extract as I had hoped for), the final beer was almost clear ! I suspect the long boil time played a big role in this. In fact, I'd love to see what the wort looks like at a professional level at the stages of first runnings and boil end . . . any thoughts ?!?!
ORANGE PEEL AND CORIANDER
- Everything we read about Belgian Wits refer to curacao orange peel being used in the boil. This is a bitter orange peel but is often quite difficult to source. I have imported some from California but was not overly impressed with its influence compared to me taking standard (sweet) oranges and making some peel myself. Your experience may be different. I would therefore suggest that if you can't easily get curacao orange peel then you either look for dried orange peel at a fruit and veg shop (surprisingly some do have it) or make some yourself.
- My routine for home made orange peel was to buy a bag of large oranges, not the satsumas / nartjie type and to carefully peel them to separate the peel from the orange. I used a potato peeler for this. I then reversed each piece of peel and used a small vegetable knife to scrape the white coloured pith off the inside surface of the peel. I presume from the stuff I imported that the pith isn't a problem as it was on the imported version. However, I assumed the flavour comes from the orange-coloured bit of the peel, not the pith and so, I wanted to know 'how much of what' I was weighing out. Am I weighing more pith with this batch than last time ?!?! Best to be sure I thought !
- To dry the peel I popped it into an oven on a baking tray at 65°C for 5 hours. This counts as a slow dry process as I didn't want to damage the delicate flavours. In this process I lost 75% of the starting weight. This is another reason for removing the pith I felt, it would allow me to know whether I was drying peel or pith ! So, whatever your recipe needs in the orange peel department, if you're making it from oranges yourself, start with four times that mass in the oven to be sure of having enough at the end of the 5 hours. I also felt that the peel wasn't entirely dry even then so maybe try a longer time ? I was too cautious to use a higher temperature; the time would have come down but heck, if I had burned it I would have cried !
- You also need coriander in this beer and I eventually used the small grains you get at grocery shops. I understand you can get much larger grains if you know where to shop and that these apparently give a much spicier flavour profile. See what you can find. I crushed the grain in a coffee grinder before using it in the boil.
- My schedule for the orange peel and coriander was worked out after averaging loads of articles and recipes. My feeling now is that you'll basically have to experiment and see how much you get in the final beer. Loads of aromatics can be lost on a rapid fermentation anyway so there are loads of variables at play. The schedule I currently use is shown in the next table :-
| INGREDIENT |
AMOUNT |
TIME BEFORE
BOIL-END |
| Orange peel |
14 g |
25 mins |
| Orange peel |
14 g |
15 mins |
| Orange peel |
14 g |
5 mins |
| Coriander |
10 g |
10 mins |
| Coriander |
10 g |
0 mins |
Continuing with the boil . . .
- Add Irish Moss when you have 15-20 minutes of the boil to go. This at least removes the hot break that is floating around. Its already in suspension, so no problem using the Irish moss.
- After 90 minutes, turn off the heating source and give a gentle but strong stir to get the whirlpool effect going.
- Allow the wort to settle for 30-40 minutes to allow the trub and hop debris to settle.
THE BIG CHILL
- Chill to pitching temperature (18-22°C) using either an immersion chiller or a counter flow chiller.
OXYGENATE
- For ales, I STRONGLY recommend that you invest in a stainless steel 'stone' with a porosity rating of a couple micron and use this, with an oxygen bottle, to inject suitable oxygen levels into the wort prior to pitching. Its a part of the real brewing process . . . if you can afford it, don't compromise ! I am not sure however, what the pros do around oxygen levels in these types of beer and would love some feedback. I have kept to my usual ale regime so far.
FERMENTATION
- Ferment at the correct temperature range for your yeast, this is typically 18-20°C for an ale yeast and Wits get fermented in this temperture range. You may even up it to the higher end to see how much more fruitiness you can get.
- If you have made some cracking good wort, cared for it well, chilled it to the right pitching temperature, oxygenated correctly and fermented with sufficient yeast then your primary fermentation for an ale-type beer shouldn't take more than 4 days. After this, allow it to rest a day or two longer to ensure the yeast has done a thorough job.
- You should then transfer to a secondary fermentor with finings and allow a further 2-3 days for things to settle out.
WHAT THEN ?
- Bottle or keg as you normally would. My Wit beer is presently chilled to about 4°C for 2 days prior to running it unfiltered into stainless steel kegs. I have artificially carbonated mine but obviously go for your usual priming routines. I'm just so used to kegging and carbonating and getting instant beer that I have trouble persuading myself to do anything different these days !
- Thanks for reading this article ! Naturaly I'd love to learn more and having only done three batches to date I know that I still have a lot to learn. However, if you haven't made one before I hope that the information presented here will at least get you off to a good start. And please, send me feedback on your own attempts or where I have committed heinous errors please tell me !!
