Wit Gone Indie

2016-05-03 18.12.12Michael Tonsmeire wrote the book on American Sour Beers. He also has a pretty slamming blog (The Mad Fermentationist). Y’all should give it a follow. Last summer he posted his Indië Wit recipe, I thought it sounded amazing. I’m not a huge IPA brewer, but I have made my share of them. Anyways I wanted a spring time beer and this is exactly what I wanted. I am very pleased on how this turned out.

Tasting Notes

Aroma- Sweet oranges (almost orange juice like), tropical fruit and citrus hop aromas. The witbier component is a bit tough to pick up in the background, but it’s there. The spices and hops are sharing the monkey bars on the playground, but the hops are the alpha of the two.

Appearance- Very cloudy, gold in color, white fluffy head that’s retaining

Flavor- very large orange, tropical and citrus hop flavors, pepper, coriander, bready malt on the verge of showing some tartness, your sour heads would even think this is tart at all. It is more of a Witbier with a large hop character. The hop stand didn’t add very much bitterness. Which leads to a very drinkable beer.

It is very interesting how different both batches are. they are both very similar, but the kegged beer and the bottled beer are different. Personally I believe the kegged version has much more hop flavor than the bottled version. I might need to do a side by side comparison soon and up date this post.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
11.5 gal 60 min 72.4 IBUs 3.5 SRM 1.048 1.012 4.6 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Specialty IPA 21 B 1.05 - 1.085 1.008 - 1.018 40 - 100 5 - 40 2.2 - 2.9 3 - 10 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pale Malt (2 Row) US 11 lbs 53.01
White Wheat Malt 5 lbs 24.1
Wheat, Flaked 4 lbs 19.28
Acidulated (Weyermann) 12 oz 3.61

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Warrior 26 g 60 min Boil Pellet 15.6
Citra 56.7 g 20 min Aroma Pellet 14.1
Mosaic (HBC 369) 56.7 g 20 min Aroma Pellet 11.5
Simcoe 56.7 g 290 min Aroma Pellet 11.6
Citra 56.7 g 9 days Dry Hop Pellet 14.1
Mosaic (HBC 369) 56.7 g 9 days Dry Hop Pellet 11.5
Simcoe 56.7 g 9 days Dry Hop Pellet 11.6

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Coriander Seed 12.00 g 5 min Boil Spice
Blood Orange Peel 1.00 oz 5 min Boil Spice

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
French Saison (3711) Wyeast Labs 80% 65°F - 77°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Mash In 158°F 45 min

Notes

Heated 7 gallons of water
Mashed at 158 degrees for 60 minutes
Raised mash temp to 170
Recirculated at mash out temp for approximately 20 minutes

Added gypsum at 60 minutes

At flame out added orange peel, coriander, and all whirlpool/hop stand hops. Whirlpooled for 20 minutes started wort chiller.

One carboy filled to 5.5 gallons
- Two yeast packs (dated 11/29/2015 & 2/8/2016)

One carboy filled to 4.5 gallons
- One yeast pack (dated 2/8/2016)

Started fermentation around 66 degrees, plugged in heat lamp and set controller to 70 degrees.

3/17/2016 – Dry Hopped both carboys
Carboy 1
28 g. Citra (14.1% AA)
28 g. Mosaic (11.5% AA)
28 g. Simcoe (11.6% AA)

Carboy 2
28 g. Citra (14.1% AA)
28 g. Mosaic (11.5% AA)
28 g. Simcoe (11.6% AA)

3/26/2016
Bottled one carboy (Gold Medal winner)
Kegged other