First-Time try at Witbier didn’t go to plan.

[TrubWolf]

Hi All - I’ve never used wheat malt before so thought I’d try a simple Belgian Witbier recipe as a start. I’m kind of aware that wheat-malt does not convert as easily as Maris Otter for example. Anyway I scaled the recipe so that I should have finished with 29L of wort in the kettle @1045 (checked in BrewersFriend).
Recipe used 50/50 MO/Wheat-malt 2.9kg each.
Starting mash pH of 5.1 and mashed at 65C for 60mins.
Anyway the long & short of it was that I ended up with 20L @ 1045 aunsure.... and the wort was surprisingly clear.

Alas too late I did a starch-test on the spent grain and there was a s**t-load in there although the mash-wort had looked ok earlier.

I’d really appreciate some input here - Is there anything that looks obviously wrong here? Maybe I’ve managed to make a witbier with little from the wheat....

 

[Fritzpoll85]

How much water did you add at the various stages (mash/sparge?)?

 

[TrubWolf]

I use a Recirculating mash (Braumeister) and added 27L for the mash then did a sparse with 3L - Up till now I have rarely sparged as the efficiency had been very good.

 

[Fritzpoll85]

Was it a 60min boil? (just trying to work out the water losses)

 

[Fritzpoll85]

Not using a calculator,but some rules of thumb:

- 1 liter liquid absorption for a kg of grain
- total water added is 30L, and around 6 kg of grain, so you lose around 6L to the grain?
- Leaves around 24L of liquid

You then have to factor in losses from the boil, and anything you lose just in the equipment (trub at the bottom?) - but I'm not not familiar with the BM. But even ignoring those, I can't see how you'd get to 29L in the FV if you only added 30L water total, simply because of the grain absorbing the liquid.

 

[TrubWolf]

Hi - Was 70min boil. I have a reasonable handle on my losses based on previous brews but I may be missing something:
Grain loss ~0.75l/kg grain
Boil-Off=6L (70mins boil)
I tend to keep an eye on the gravity during the boil and add water as necessary to meet the FG.

 

[Fritzpoll85]

Hi - Was 70min boil. I have a reasonable handle on my losses based on previous brews but I may be missing something:
Grain loss ~0.75l/kg grain
Boil-Off=6L (70mins boil)
I tend to keep an eye on the gravity during the boil and add water as necessary to meet the FG.

Even using your numbers, you started with 30L of water:

- Lose 4.35L to absorption (0.75 * 5.8kg) - leaves 25.65L
- Lose 6 L in the boil - leaves 19.65L

So depends how much water you topped up with, but you didn't have enough liquid to make it to 27L unless you added 7 or 8L. Perhaps your calculator was misconfigured? I don't think it's the grains or method - probably just raw volumes of water involved.

 

[TrubWolf]

I checked my notes and I got 24L@1044 pre-boil and as you correctly point out this will never achieve my target volume.
Realistically I was expecting (quick calc) 1053 pre-boil so after adding extra liqour I would end up at 1045.
Something went wrong in the Mash process or maybe I am doing something daft!

 

[Fritzpoll85]

It looks like the mash went fine to me - you got to your target OG. The wort was clear (which is fine for this style - I thought most of the cloudiness came from the low flocculating yeast?) - I've certainly had clear wort on my hefeweizens which use more wheat than you do.

I've not seen people do an iodine test on the spent grain - I've seen it done on the wort, specifically avoiding the grains because the grain will give a false positive. Did you test the wort as well?

This just looks like the calculator was a bit wrong, with something misconfigured in some way. If your target batch size was 27L, then your own figure suggest that you needed at least 37L* before accounting for losses in your equipment.

I'd recheck the calculator, but your beer is probably fine :)


* Edit to include - got to 37 by (batch size + boil loss + grain absorption) = 27 + 6 + (0.75 * 5.8) = 37

 

[TrubWolf]

I was expecting to use 39L total water (pre-losses ) based on the result from the BrewersFriend calculator. Yes did iodine test on the wort and was ok.
I guess because of the discrepancies and “me not knowing what to expect with wheat malt” had me confused. Thanks - I’ll dig a bit deeper with the calculator.

 

[Fritzpoll85]

I was expecting to use 39L total water (pre-losses ) based on the result from the BrewersFriend calculator. Yes did iodine test on the wort and was ok.
I guess because of the discrepancies and “me not knowing what to expect with wheat malt” had me confused. Thanks - I’ll dig a bit deeper with the calculator.

Yeah so not sure why it told you 27L mash and 3L sparge.

 

[TrubWolf]

It’s hard to get all of the info across clearly here but I have a 7L kettle loss so starting with 39L:
Grain loss= -4.3L
Boil-off= -4.8L
Gives amount in kettle ~30L @1045 (Calc); I ended up with ~20L @ 1045 (actual) Here is the discrepancy because this forced me to (precariously) tip out the otherwise 7L kettle dead space loss into the fermenter resulting in a kettle loss ~1L.
Hope this makes sense

 

[Fritzpoll85]

I use a Recirculating mash (Braumeister) and added 27L for the mash then did a sparse with 3L - Up till now I have rarely sparged as the efficiency had been very good.

Yes, I can follow the calcs but based on this post you started with 30L, not 39L, which would more of less account for the discrepancy you've observed.

Your sheets says 12L sparge, but in your post you only did 3L.

 

[TrubWolf]

In the past I have not found the need to spare much in my system so I did a token 3L (maybe this is part of the issue but I doubt all of it) - I then progressively added the difference of water during the boil to target a final gravity of 1045.

 

[TrubWolf]

Thanks for your inputs - From your experience do you agree with the mash temperature/duration/pH for weis beer?

 

[Fritzpoll85]

In the past I have not found the need to spare much in my system so I did a token 3L (maybe this is part of the issue but I doubt all of it) - I then progressively added the difference of water during the boil to target a final gravity of 1045.

Ah right, so you added 9 L of water during the boil?

If so, I don't know how you lost the rest, except that 0.75L/kg looks very low for an absorption rate (1-1.1 seems more realistic)

Your calculator output attachment suggests you were only going to get 22.8L (not 27) - see the estimated amount in the fermenter - so if your grain absorption number was too low then this would account for the difference

I think it looks like you've mashed perfectly fine and done everything right. But your calculator is giving you 23L in the fermenter (when you were hoping for 27), and your grain absorption factor is probably somewhat optimistic which probably accounts for the difference down to your final 20L

Does that make sense?

 

[TrubWolf]

Ah right, so you added 9 L of water during the boil?

If so, I don't know how you lost the rest, except that 0.75L/kg looks very low for an absorption rate (1-1.1 seems more realistic)

Your calculator output attachment suggests you were only going to get 22.8L (not 27) - see the estimated amount in the fermenter - so if your grain absorption number was too low then this would account for the difference

I think it looks like you've mashed perfectly fine and done everything right. But your calculator is giving you 23L in the fermenter (when you were hoping for 27), and your grain absorption factor is probably somewhat optimistic which probably accounts for the difference down to your final 20L

Does that make sense?

Hi Yes - I just added water during the boil. This is the way I have always done it on my system and has the numbers have worked fine using Barley-malts in the past. I agree the calculator predicted 23L in the fermentor after a kettle dead-space loss of 7L. If I had left that 7L in the kettle I would have only managed 14L into the fermentor. That was what forced me to tip the braumeister over to get as much out as possible.

I'm going to make sure I understand the steps fully behind the calculator as there is a discrepancy. Hopefully the beer will be good. Thanks

 

[Fritzpoll85]

I think that's the best starting point - I'm sure the beer will be fine, but a shortfall of several litres of wort isn't going to be a mashing problem, I don't think. Either the amount of water was wrong at some stage or the boil was longer/more vigorous than you planned.

But if you were trying to get the calculator to give a batch size of 27L, then the outputs suggest something went awry! Let me know if you work it out. But 20L of beer is still pretty good going! :)

 

[BeerCat]

The wort will be clear if you are recirculating even if its wheat. I always mash for 2 hours minimum to ensure full conversion especially if i do a full volume mash. I get the same efficiency from wheat as barley. Its well worth stirring a few times as well.

 

[Hanglow]

Your mash pH is way too low, you can go to 5.8pH or so for a wheat beer. You'll get a more cloudy beer. You can adjust the pH of the wort to 5.1 or so at the end of the boil though. Wheat malt converts fine, in fact it has more diastatic power than MO typically has. You might be thinking of flaked wheat.

If you were using flaked wheat instead of your stated wheat malt then the MO would struggle to convert the whole mash