How crazy is this?

5lbs Wheat DME
.5oz Styrian Goldings @ 15
15 Minute Boil

Wyeast Belgian Witbeer Yeast

?

I know it's not going to fool anyone into thinking that they're drinking Hoegaarden, but would it be at least a reasonably Witish beer?

Throw in some spices and go for it. I used some grains of paradise with good results. Get some orange peel and coriander and call it good if you want to keep things really simple. Either way, good luck.

I assume this is a 5gallon batch? By "quick" do you mean a quick brewday or quick to be served? Anyway, be careful with those spices. I recently made a wit (6lbs Wheat DME. 1oz orange peel and 0.5oz coriander last 15 mins of boil), and there was way too much orange flavor. I'm sure it would have mellowed a bit with some aging, but I always thought wheat beers were better fresh. Also I was running low on homebrew to drink....

I would definitely try the grains of paradise. I wish I had done that instead. I recently tasted a Sam Adams Summer Ale. It's a wheat beer brewed with grains of paradise. I thought it was pretty good.

GOP can be pretty good. I brewed up a Summer Ale clone last year with some GOP and lemon peel and when comparing it to the original thought it was significantly better, the GOP and peel showed through well without the cloying sweetness I get from most Sam Adams beers.

Someone said that wits are best drunk young? Is it true?

I'd imagine it was significantly better than sam adams. Got a recipe for that clone, Boonie? Might make that my next brew... Did you use dried lemon peel or lemon zest?

Not on hand but I'll try looking around for my logbook tomorrow.

IIRC it was between 50/50 and 60/40 wheat to pils malt, OG 1.045-1.050 FG 1.005-1010 (I like em dry), bittering hops to 15-20IBU's, and 1 or 2 ounces of GOP and peel of 3 lemons at 5 minutes, probably used US-05. Very light easy drinking summer beer that let the spices through.

radtek - Bottled my wit after 2.5 weeks in the primary and let it carbonate in the bottles for 2 weeks. This is the first beer I have bottled in about 2 years. Makes me thankful I keg most everything. Very good right out of the primary. I'm getting ready to do another one and plan to keg after 2 weeks or so. I thought it was great without any aging. Very refreshing with a very light spice to it. I would recommend it for a beer you want to drink quickly.
Cheers and happy brewing
CN

Is that a dried peel or a fresh peel of lemon? I do extract so it would be like 60/40 anyway for the malt. For the GOP, do you just grind it up and throw it into the boil? Do you filter it out at all before fermentation? My last wit, I scooped the orange peel out, but i just let the ground coriander settle to the bottom of the primary and then secondary.

Fresh peel (hence the 3 lemons ) , pretty much zested into the boil. Don't think I ground the GOP up, just tossed the seeds in. No filtering into the fermenter, too much work. Definitely not a wit though, very much a spiced american wheat.

When I used the GOP I crushed them and put them into the last 5 minutes of the boil along with the dried orange peel.

Hey, you could have peeled those three lemons and dried them out for all I know, Boonie. I almost dried out my own lemon peels for my last wit... Sounds pretty good though. I'd be willing to work with this recipe for my second wit ever (also second wit of this spring...). Cheers man, thanks for the inspiration. Can I just get GOP at a grocery store or do I have to go to a specialty place?

I could've dried out those peels, but I try to follow the Denny style of brewing, drying them out would've just been too much work with little or no gain in my mind.

I bought the GOP at my lhbs, but if you can find it at the grocery store you should be fine, lhbs's just tend to charge more.

Hope all goes well with the inspiration. If I find my log I'll post the actuals.

Oh believe me, I'm of the same "quick and easy" mindset, I just thought that the zest would be more overpowering than a dried peel. I guess I'll be shopping around for the GOP. Was thinking about a dubbel for my next brew, but I may have been swayed towards the quick and easy wit. Ehh, who am I kidding, I'll do both in the next few weeks. Complete recipe would be great, Boonie. Thanks in advance.

P.S. This thread has officially been hijacked. Someone give simpledad some more advice to make up for it...

Sorry simpledad, I'd say the Wheat DME is likely made with Wheat Malt and not Unmalted Wheat, so that may make some difference. You'd probably want to add some spices that fit the style as well.

FWIW the zest of three lemons wasn't overpowering, it was noticeable but not to the point of it being overwhelming, at least to me. Taste-wise compared to Sam's Summer Ale mine was more of a lawnmower beer, honestly my version would need like 2# of Crystal malt to compare to Sam's, but that might just be me since I get that from a lot of their beers.

JZ states that fresh zest is the only way to go with a wit. That it (zest) contributes something that dried peel can't. And, that dried peel is too bitter.

I did a Belgian Blonde with fresh lime zest and it was really good. Also used some coriander and GOP. I'm against drinking a wit too young if coriander is used. The coriander needs a month of aging to smooth out. A wit is not quite like a hefeweizen. Give it 3-4 weeks. As for the coriander and GOP, I just put then in a baggie and whack them a few times with a hammer. May way of coarse grinding...

1. Quick as in quick to brew.
2. I do have some GOP around. I can toss those in there if I have the memory for it.
3. Orange peel is a good idea too.

My goal is to get this beer brewed and in the fermenter rapidly and inexpensively.

Slat,

4# Pale Malt
4# Malted Wheat
.5# Corn Sugar

.5oz Cascade @ 6.9 (60 minutes)
1oz Tettnang @ 4.3 (15 minutes)
1oz Tettnang @ 4.3 (2 minutes)

2 grams GOP (2 minutes)
Fresh Lemon peel, 3 lemons (2 minutes)

US-05

OG 1.042 FG 1.006

If I did it again I'd probably start a bit bigger and drop the sugar, but as it was it was pretty tasty.

Did you really get the wit character with 05? To me, a big part of the flavor comes from the phenolic flavors imparted by the yeast.

I double Denny's sentiments. Where you find US-05 you can hopefully find T-58 which I've used with good results.

I thought they were talking about the SA Summer Ale recipe. That would be an American wheat, in which US-05 would work well.

BoonieBrew said: "GOP can be pretty good. I brewed up a Summer Ale clone last year with some GOP and lemon peel and when comparing it to the original thought it was significantly better, the GOP and peel showed through well without the cloying sweetness I get from most Sam Adams beers. "

You're right Herzog...I missed that.

Yeah, we definitely got sidetracked.