First Brew Plans - Wheat Beer. Help appreciated!

[Show Me a Stein]

Hi all,

I'm about to pull the trigger on buying some ingredients to make a wheat beer (along with some equipment, and I want to minimize delivery costs!). I am basically looking for a bit of reassurance that I'm not making any drastic mistakes.

My overall aim is to produce a relatively low-IBU beer, though it doesn't need to be low ABV (in fact, higher is probably preferable). 25 and under ideally. I would have opted for a lager, but that seems to be more difficult for me to create given the necessary temperature and storage constraints, but I do also really like wheat beers of all varieties, which seems to have the same process as a normal ale.

Ingredients:

• M21 Belgian Wit Yeast 2x10g - probably won't need all of it?)
• Muntons Wheat Spraymalt 3 x 500g - planning to brew 40 pints (got a 25l fermentation bucket)
• Undecided on hops - Saaz? Any recommendations appreciated!

This seems rather simplified, but I'm trying to keep it basic. I assume some hops are actually necessary for this, despite my desire for a low IBU. I imagine it would come out rather sweet without any! I would rather keep this basic, so I haven't really looked into adding coriander or fruit peels etc. but that doesn't sound too difficult to do if there's low-risk of it overpowering the taste.

Am I missing something, or would the above taste like witbier using the 3 main ingredients above? Is the Muntons Wheat malt going to cut the mustard? I have no knowledge of any companies' reputations really.

Also - is there a way I can anticipate the end ABV based on the spraymalt, before I get to measure it with a hydrometer? i.e. now. Is there some calculator to determine the gravity/end abv based on the weight of the extract / proportion to water?

Thank you all in advance! :)

 

[RichardM]

I think you probably need more of the dried wheat malt extract. The Greg Hughes book has a Belgian Witbier, the malt extract version uses 2.7kg of dried wheat malt extract. The expected ABV is 4.5%. His recipe has 32g of Saaz at the start of boil for 15.3 IBU.

There is software available that will calculate the ABV and help with formulating recipes. I use Beersmith but there are others which people will recommend.

 

[Show Me a Stein]

Thank you so much, that is a great help!

I'll definitely look up that book and play with Beersmith now that I know about it.

 

[Show Me a Stein]

Going by Beersmith,

3000g of Wheat Dry Extract (i.e. Muntons Wheat Spraymalt (55% malting wheat, 45% malting barley): 6 x 500g )
1 packet M21 Belgian Wit Yeast
30g Saaz Hops

gives me estimates of :
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.078
Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.014
10.2 IBU,
4.8% ABV,
10.9 EBC.

All of those are within style except for for the colour, which I'm not sure will actually be that dark. The wheat malt says it's a maximum of 12 so I put 11.5 as the value. In any case, I'm not fussed about the colour too much.

So fingers crossed this will work out for me. I'm considering adding a tiny bit of coriander 15 mins before the boil is complete, but it seems just the 3 ingredients above will produce some sort of witbier.

 

[RichardM]

Going by Beersmith,

3000g of Wheat Dry Extract (i.e. Muntons Wheat Spraymalt (55% malting wheat, 45% malting barley): 6 x 500g )
1 packet M21 Belgian Wit Yeast
30g Saaz Hops

gives me estimates of :
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.078
Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.014
10.2 IBU,
4.8% ABV,
10.9 EBC.

All of those are within style except for for the colour, which I'm not sure will actually be that dark. The wheat malt says it's a maximum of 12 so I put 11.5 as the value. In any case, I'm not fussed about the colour too much.

So fingers crossed this will work out for me. I'm considering adding a tiny bit of coriander 15 mins before the boil is complete, but it seems just the 3 ingredients above will produce some sort of witbier.

Yes, you should get a good beer from that. Do you have any temperature control for the fermentation? A lot of the Belgian flavour comes from a fairly high fermentation temp, about 24 centigrade

 

[Clint]

One vital thing when brewing a wheat...fit a blow off tube...airlocks are useless unless you have a 60 litre bin!

 

[Show Me a Stein]

Yes, you should get a good beer from that. Do you have any temperature control for the fermentation? A lot of the Belgian flavour comes from a fairly high fermentation temp, about 24 centigrade

Great to hear.

Hmm I don't. How essential is this? I'm planning to keep the fermentation bucket in the closet which, having just sat in it for a minute, is probably about a normal room-temperature, perhaps on the cooler side if pushed. Probably 18-20C. What's the simplest way of increasing the temperature, if there is one?

One vital thing when brewing a wheat...fit a blow off tube...airlocks are useless unless you have a 60 litre bin!

Oh jeez. 60 litre??? Sounds like I may need the blow-off going into the bath! Should I start with the airlock or just accept that this will need a blow-off? I have a second fermentation bin as I was planning to move it to a secondary fermenter (then leave it a while and bottle from it - it has a tap). Will I need to use a blow-off for both do you think?


Also, unrelated, I've actually changed my mind and am going for 2.4% alpha rated Tettnang hops. I'll add a little more (to 36g) to compensate for the even lower alpha rating, and it gives a predicted (and still in-style according to Beersmith) IBU of 8.1, which sounds good to me.

 

[Clint]

Just fit a blow off tube...wheats are very busy...and messy...put your fv on a tray or something as well. It will settle after a few days but will be crazy to start..
As for moving to secondary ..I never bother,just do it on bottling day.

 

[Show Me a Stein]

Just fit a blow off tube...wheats are very busy...and messy...put your fv on a tray or something as well. It will settle after a few days but will be crazy to start..
As for moving to secondary ..I never bother,just do it on bottling day.

Cheers. I have have plans to put tarpaulin (or even the fermentation vessel in another giant vessel!) just in case anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem. At least it should be interesting!

 

[Baz Chaz]

Interesting to read this thread, just brewed my first wheat beer this week, when I pitched the yeast and put the FV in the brew fridge the Inkbird temperature was reading 24 ° c
The next morning the brew was going like a train, really glad I changed to a blow off tube a while ago! Even more so than Kveik Voss in summer!

 

[Show Me a Stein]

To give a conclusion to this thread, this ended up a really great wheat beer! I'm now brewing it again!

Here were some notes I had from Beersmith.

Ingredients

Amt​	Name​	Type​	#​	%/IBU​	Volume​
3000.00 g​	Wheat Dry Extract [Boil] [Boil for 60 min](11.5 EBC)​	Dry Extract​	1​	100.0 %​	-​
45.00 g​	Tettnang [2.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min​	Hop​	2​	10.1 IBUs​	-​
13.00 g​	Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 mins)​	Spice​	3​	-​	-​
0.72 oz​	Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 5.0 mins)​	Spice​	4​	-​	-​
1.0 pkg​	Belgian Wit (Mangrove Jack's #M21)​	Yeast​	5​	-​	-​

Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color
Est Original Gravity: 1.052 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.0 %
Bitterness: 10.1 IBUs
Est Color: 11.1 EBC Est Calories: 174.4 kcal/12oz

Measured Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.006 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 7.2 %
Measured Calories: 197.8 kcal/12oz

Interesting to read this thread, just brewed my first wheat beer this week, when I pitched the yeast and put the FV in the brew fridge the Inkbird temperature was reading 24 ° c
The next morning the brew was going like a train, really glad I changed to a blow off tube a while ago! Even more so than Kveik Voss in summer!

Would be interested in finding out how it turned out!

 

[Baz Chaz]

@Show Me a Stein - Very pleased with my first attempt in August, tastes good (brewed 15 litres, 26 bottles, only four left!) The difference between a glass of Leffe blonde and a glass of my brew is clarity, the 'real' Leffe is much clearer, but apart from that it passed the taste test fine, not much difference at all.

 

[moto748]

I made Beercat's 'no boil no chill' wheat beer a while back (in the Completed Recipes folder), and found it straightforward and was delighted with the results. I did actually infuse a bit of tangerine peel in some of it, it didn't do any harm, but seemed too little to make a detectable difference. I split a tangerine between 2 demi-johns, so that was about 9 litres, but boiling it was would likely give a greater impact, I suppose.