Witbier / Biere Blanche Cheat

[cheshire-cheese]

I recently visited a brewery in France, the St Germain Brewery, which brews one of my favourite beers, Page 24 Blanche. From what I gather, this white beer is brewed with barley malt, wheat malt, malted oats, orange peel, coriander and Flanders hops.
I've never before used orange peel and coriander in an all grain brew, so I thought I'd experiment with a Cooper's can:

1kg Dry malt extract, wheat - added to 2 litres of water brought to the boil
25g Orange peel - 15 minute boil
25g Coriander - 15 minute boil
10g Hallertauer Hersbrucker hops - 15 minute boil
1 can Cooper's Australian Lager
Made up to volume
1 sachet Brewferm yeast, Blanche

Here's me messing around with the Cooper's Australian lager kit

Anyone know if Flanders hops is a variety or just the area?

 

[Grumpy Jack]

Excellent video! :clap:

I've just done a Brewferm Tarwebier kit this morning, I'll be interested to see your results with a view to a bit of experimentation... :grin:

 

[cheshire-cheese]

I've just done a Brewferm Tarwebier kit this morning, I'll be interested to see your results with a view to a bit of experimentation... :grin:

I kept it as simple as I could so, if it was a disaster, I could find the problem more easily.
From what I could see on beer fora, the coriander usually goes in for the last 15 minutes of the boil (the boil gets refered to as "l'ebu" on French fora - short for l'ébullition) and I had to fight my desire to dry roast it in a frying pan first, as if I were about to make a curry. Perhaps I'll do this next time, it may give an interesting flavour, then again, it may give an awful one. I'm sure the result of this brew won't be spectacular, it would be better to have a higher % of wheat malt for the whole brew - the bag of DME I used will have been 45/55 barley to wheat malt and the Cooper's kit made up the rest. So, maybe the wheat character will be slight, but it will be interesting to see how the orange and coriander additions go.

 

[Dunfie]

Good work cheshire-cheese

Very interesting to see how you have converted the lager kit into a blanche. I have used the Brewferm Blanche in a Hefe a couple of time and it is quite a neutral clean yeast. It should certainly allow your corriander and orange peel to come out.

Let us know how it turns out. :clap:

 

[Bru4u]

Brilliant, enjoyed this a lot, can you post it the videos of your brewdays so it won't get lost :thumb:
Bru

 

[Grumpy Jack]

the coriander usually goes in for the last 15 minutes of the boil (the boil gets refered to as "l'ebu" on French fora - short for l'ébullition) and I had to fight my desire to dry roast it in a frying pan first, as if I were about to make a curry. Perhaps I'll do this next time, it may give an interesting flavour, then again, it may give an awful one.

That's exactly what I thought when watching the video... would dry frying it be too harsh? Probably not but it might be acquired taste at the end... I will definately be watching for the results on this one! :)

 

[cheshire-cheese]

That's exactly what I thought when watching the video... would dry frying it be too harsh? Probably not but it might be acquired taste at the end... I will definately be watching for the results on this one! :)

Yeah, curiosity may get the better of me one day and I'll try the dry frying bit.