Brew in a bag Wit?

[timmy]

Hey all,

Does anyone know if wits can be produced successfully using BIAB?

The recipes I've seen use plain flour but I reckon this would cause problems similar to stuck sparges.

I've been itching to make an AG wit - I've only ever done partials (and only one of them....). I have a kg of munich malt and a load of bakers flour in the cupboard along with the requisite hops/spices/yeast for this style. I'd like to make a small batch as a tester. Has anyone got some suggestions on how I might go about it (even if it's not BIAB)...

Cheers,

Tim

[Kevnlis]

I do not think the munich malt will be able to convert the flour. There is no reason you can not use the BIAB method. Use a malt like Galaxy in the mash and you will be fine.

[Trough Lolly]

Do you have real Munich malt, ie, Weyermann Munich I???

Cheers,
TL

[timmy]

'twas Powells Munich, TL.

No matter; I'll get some pilsner malt for this one.

Can you suggest a mashing schedule for this? From my (limited) knowledge of mashing, I think I'll need to:
- Add the grains and the flour to a bag and hold it at a lower temp (for the glutenase??)
- Raise to ~66 deg to convert the barley malt

A couple of questions on ingredients, though:
- Will normal flour be OK for this, or will I end up with a stodgy mess? If not, will I need to use rice hulls to aid draining?
- I can buy normal wheat grains from my local Indian supermarket. Would it be better to crack this and use it instead of flour?

Cheers,

Tim

[Trough Lolly]

Timmy, this is one tough question!

If you were "traditionally" mashing, the flour will be fine as long as the base malt has sufficient diastatic power to convert the available starches present - . Potatoes happily convert with good base malt - it's actually not a bad beer! Anyway, I digress; the BIAB technique is a fun innovation but as to how it would handle an addition of flour, is unknown to me - why not toss the question amongst the BIAB fans over in the Aussiehomebrewer forum for their comment?

Graham Sanders is a flour using wit afficionado - some of his thoughts are here

And his actual Tropical Flower Wit recipe is here...

Cheers,
TL

[timmy]

Thanks TL.

Might do a traditional mash for this in a small batch until I find my feet. The BIAB will probably be bloody messy.

Cheers,

Tim

[SpillsMostOfIt]

It is possible that with a BIAB mash, the flour might find its way into the boil. If you believe your boil needs to be clear, this will cause you a problem. I do not believe you will get stuck though.

It is my intention to make a Hoegaarden-like wit with plain flour when the brew schedule allows. It all seems pretty simple to me.

[timmy]

I can't see why it would be any different from a traditional mash - if anything you'd think that the bag weave would be finer than most meshes at the bottom of a lauter tun. I suppose if you were to use something like muslin it would be even better.

[SpillsMostOfIt]

With a traditional mash, you can recirculate to allow the complex path filtering thing to work *before* diverting your liquor into the boiler. With BIAB, you just get whatever falls through along with whatever fell through while you were actually mashing. I don't believe the stuff that does find its way through matters (assuming you have achieved complete conversion) - I don't aim for a clear pre-boil liquor as it will settle with the proteins, trub and insects at the end of the boil.

I wouldn't recommend muslin for BIABing. It probably isn't strong enough by itself and (from memory) the holes are bigger than those in the Swiss Voile. Also, each thread intersection of the Swiss Voile is knotted, so your cloth holes are unlikely to grow in size and allow grain, etc through. My biggest grain bill to date has been 12kg dry (for a double batch of Hefeweissen) and the trusty baggie did not bat an eyelid.