The great Hoegaarden clone - in progress

[ryan]

Altho you probably wouldn`t want flaked barley in a Hoey. Worth considering in other beers though

[damian44]

You can order torrified wheat from Grape and Grain. If its been crushed you can just steep it, and add the juices to the boil. It gives the beer a lovely syrupy texture.
But I think it adds enzymes to the beer.

Cheers Damo

[rwh]

Do a search; there have been heaps of threads on this. It's essentially puffed wheat; some people use the puffed wheat breakfast cereal if they can't get it from the HBS.

[Paleman]

Cheers all !

[Pommie]

ok. so I've brewed this beer and must say it tastes good from the barrel. I've just kegged it so looking forward to trying it for "real".
My question is what OG and FG does everyone get with this brew. I started at 1.046 and finished 2 weeks later at 1.016 - alcohol approx 4.1%. Does this seem about right.
I did use a refractometer for my readings and the SG's are from a conversion 0f 11.4 brix and 7 brix respectively.

When I plug my brix readings into the formula on this site http://brew.stderr.net/refractometer.ht ... &brix=11.4 I get 6% alchohol

Very tempted to go back to my hydrometer

[James L]

if you used the torrefied wheat, your FG will be higher than 1010... from memory, i think my brew was about 1016.. should be good to bottle.

[Pommie]

Thanks for that, surprised at how low my alcohol is. Thought Hoegaarden was meant to be about 5%

[James L]

from the website, its supposed to be about 5.4%. but i guess with this recipe we have been trying to get the flavour right first. Next time if you go to make it you can up the malt and make it 5.4, but you'll need to add the extra hops to compenstate (not alot though).

when i put those values in i got 4.5%. also, priming the bottles should increase the acl% but a few points so you arent too far off.

[Hopmeister]

Kudos to everyone who developed this recipe.

I've had mine in the bottle for almost a month now, and a bunch of blokes I had over for a drinking session yesterday were thoroughly impressed with the product.

Even a non wheat-beer drinker was asking for more.

Sam

[Hopmeister]

Is there, or is there likely to be, a reasonable dried yeast option for this recipe?

I'm thinking of the new Munich dry yeast.

Sam

[pixelboy]

You could use Safale K-97 or Ross's Weizen yeast.

Obviously results will differ slightly but you'll still get a tasty brew.

[homebrewer79]

I went by the first recipie on this thread and I have to say, 10 days in the bottle and it's bloody nice . The only thing I changed was the corriander seeds because I didn't have any, so I put a pinch of ground corriander seeds, also used K-97 and kit yeast because I've read alot about the K-97 having trouble starting. It is by far the best beer I have made in about 2 years. I made it to 23 ltrs and only ended up with 4.5% ABV. The only thing I couldn't find on this tread is the volume that it is made to, next time I'll make it to 22 ltrs. Excellent job to those who put in to this recipe

[grunthos]

Hi Chapz,
Been a while since I said I'd report back, but now with only 3 bottles of the Hoegaarden clone left it's time to post my recipe variant and ask about DOUBLING UP - this recipe was for 12 litres - I'm keen to do 23-24!

1.5kg Morgans Extra Pale Liquid Malt
100g Light Dry Malt Extract
170g LDME in Yeast Starter
50g Torrified Wheat (not puffed wheat - this is the real stuff AND cheaper)
7g Goldings @ 30 mins
7g Goldings @ 10 mins
19g Fuggles @ 5 mins
16g Coriander - cracked
9g Dried Bitter Orange Peel
1g Cumin - crushed
WLP 500 Yeast

Made to 12 litres and pitched at 24 degrees

SG 1050
FG 1008
Alc ~6.2%

Bulk primed with 75g dex.

My notes here (from 2 months later) say: AWESOME! Maybe a little too much orange.

I recall that the colour is too Orangey for Hoegaarden and the taste was quite in your face.

Since then the cumin has mellowed out almost to the point of non-existence but the colour is still there.

The next batch I would drop the amount of Orange by a couple of grams (though 'er indoors liked it a lot).

This thing tastes 99% like Hoegaarden so I don't want to mess with it too much.

Opinions / comments?

Cheers for a FAB recipe you guys.

[gibovski]

I read this post from top to bottom and being the lazy bastard I am I have made my lazy version and it turned out an absolute Gem.

200g sanitarium puffed wheat added to 4 litres of cold water and slowly heated. I removed the puffed wheat with a strainer when it got to around 80 degrees.
700 g light honey boiled for around 15 minutes
30 g freshly crushed corriander, zest from 2 mandarins boiled for 3 mins
Added an ESB 3kg wheat kit and boiled for a further 2 mins.
Strained into the fermenter
Made up 24 litres and added Safbrew WB-06 that comes with the ESB wheat kit.
Bottled after 10 days primed with the regular 1/2 teaspoon sugar per stubbie

3 weeks on this is a cracker.
Head and head retention is the best I've ever had. Pretty damn close to hoegarden, slightly cloudy like the real thing, creamy mouth feel like the real thing.

Easy. Yep...

[tazydevilonbeer]

Hi just made and bottled the hoegaarden just wondering on if it gets better in the bottle with age or will it loose some flavor?

[pixelboy]

id hazard a guess it would be best after 3-4 months in the bottle..

[damian44]

I thought mine lost a bit of zing after 3 months. I like to drink it fresh.

[tazman67]

Being a wheat beer 2 to 3 months is max.. JMHO

[homebrewer79]

Hi just made and bottled the hoegaarden just wondering on if it gets better in the bottle with age or will it loose some flavor?

I have made this beer 3 times now and once it gets to a month in the bottle I feel it looses most of it's character, still a very nice beer but not as good as it is really fresh

[Flux]

Hi what a great read this thread is!! you guys have done heaps with this brew, what a great help to brewers, nice to see as it's my favourite drop but have never been able to duplicate the colour and get a SRM of around 4.0 so I've decided to go AG and try and clone this beer so it looks the part too.
Also heard for AG brew For a cloudy look, you can add a teaspoon of flour to the boil. For variants, also try a hint of chamomile....

Has anyone got a really good all grain Hoegaarden recipe that they could share please?