Brew Day: Wannabe Wit

CAVEAT: If you’re looking for a traditional Wit recipe, please look elsewhere.

I have wanted to make a Wit for some time now, but I hesitated on most occasions only because I didn’t have the right grains. Wheat is equally important to a Wit as is the Pilsner or Pale Ale malt but I ran out of Wheat malt with my 3 wheat beers: Wheat Stout, Amber Wheat IPA and the Watermelon Wheat.

I had everything else: Pilsner malt, the hops, the orange (or citrus) peel, fresh coriander and the yeast. Just not the Wheat malt. But the urge to brew a Wit only increased ever since I started liking the smaller, simple beers after I tasted the Cream Ale.

But then what the heck: this may not be a perfect, to-the-point Wit, but it will certainly have the other elements that make a Wit. And with that in mind, I decided to brew a Pilsner-only Wit.

There are two elements of the Wit I had an issue with: the orange peels and the coriander, or the amount of each thereof. Most recipes I went through had additions of about a gram of coriander and a gram of orange peel per litre. Some of the recipes pushed those amounts higher. To be on the safe side and indeed enjoy what I drink, I decided to stick to just a gram of each per litre. Of course, I will gauge both these elements when I taste the beer and that should give me an idea of how accurate or inaccurate I am with the orange peel and coriander additions.

There was quite a bit of washed WB-06 from all the wheat ales that I brewed earlier and that was enough for this low gravity Wit. Bitterness was calculated to under 20 IBUs for easy drinking.

The more I explore Wits, the more I realize about the potential this beer presents the brewer with and the extent I can push it to. I will have a proper Wit recipe sometime in future and then work on additions to that recipe and see how they go.

For now, this is a Wannabe Wit.

Wannabe Wit

Specifics

Batch size (litres): 8 litres
Type: All Grain

IBU: 17

SRM: 4

OG: 1.048

Grains and Sugars

1.66 kg Pilsner Malt

Hops
3 grams Aurora @ 45 min.

Other Additions
Added 8 grams orange peels @ 5 min.
Added 8 grams freshly crushed coriander @ 5 min.

Yeast

Fermentis WB-06 Wheat Beer Yeast

Schedules

Mash at 66°C for 60 minutes

Batch sparged at 80°C for 30 minutes

Boiled for 45 minutes.

Notes
I took a whiff of the fermenter and the aroma of the orange peels stood out. The coriander, not so much but I'm hoping for everything to come together when I bottle it.