Un-malted Witbier advice please

[rotten]

Hello all.
A friend of mine is giving me a bag of unmalted wheat out of his silo, it looks very clean and needs to be turned into a Belgian Witbier IMHO. The only problem I have is I know nothing about it, apart from what the interweb tells me.

I think I read somewhere that the crush needs to be finer than normal, would putting in through the mill twice at my normal setting be O.K.
I will aim for an OG of 1050. My usual eff is %75, how much of a drop could I expect?
Mash temp, how does 90 min @ 64c sound? I would do a 90 min boil too, is that too long for this style?
Yeast wise I'm looking at either of the following - WY 3942, Belgian Wheat. Or WY 3944, Belgian Witbier.
Hops, don't know? I'm assuming a noble hop would be in order, maybe saaz. All I have in stock though is Fuggles.

Lots of questions I know,
Cheers

[speedie]

rotten
a word of advise on milling grain
it would be better if you dont run through the wheat twice for a finer grid as i have had problems doing this before
the grain dosent feed through my rollers properly
so a small ajustment in gap size is advisable
wheat is tuff to grind it is like putting small ballbearing in the mill

you can mash at a higher temperature with little worry of extracting much astringent polyphenols from the wheat
traditional brews have a grain bill as follows 55% malted barley 40% unmalted wheat and 5% unmalted oats
hops are generally either styian goldings,saaz,hallertau or east kent goldings
do you plan to use any spice in your brew
hope that this is of some help
speedie

[timmy]

Hey rotten,

Look for Graham Sander's Tropical Flower Wit on the interweb. He uses plain flour in his recipe but adds rice hulls to aid sparging. With regard to yeast, you can't go far wrong with 3944. I'd also get some Saaz for this. I don't think Fuggles will cut it, although there isn't much hop flavouring in a wit anyway. To be true to style, you'll also need dried orange peel and coriander seeds. I've used dried mandarin peel in my last few wits and it's come out lovely.

Cheers,

Tim

[bullfrog]

With the coriander seeds, from what I've tried so far, I'd avoid the cheaper Aussie-grown variety and go for the more expensive Indian-grown type. Few bucks more, look more-or-less the same but taste worlds apart. The orange flavour really comes out in the foreign variety. The Aussie-grown stuff has a different taste entirely.

[rotten]

Thanks for replies guys.
I actually brewed something on saturday, have only just seen your comments though. I ran through mill at normal setting twice, tough stuff wheat. Mashed @ 64 for 90 min, sparge went fine. My temp adjusted pre-boil OG let me down though. I thought I would have had 1037 post boil OG instead of 1047, which would have been O.K. Post boil OG 1012, so it went down the sink yesterday. Wasted 45 gm of G Hallertau.
Need to think about this one a bit more
Cheers

[emnpaul]

There seems to be something wrong there Rotten. What did you mash it with?

Cheers
Paul

[speedie]

rotten my comments went south ?

[SuperBroo]

Hey Rotten,

Now I could be wrong here (usually are), but I had a really low post-boil reading a few brews ago, and yes, I had a bit of a sook about it...

then I stirred the wort a bit, and took another sample, and the reading was ok.

I use a refractometer for pre-fermentation measurements, and I wonder if i just took the small sample from the top surface, which could have been very 'thin'.

Maybe same for you ??? (hope so)

cheers,

[speedie]

how is the ferment going rotto

[rotten]

how is the ferment going rotto

Thanks for replies guys.
Post boil OG 1012, so it went down the sink yesterday.

[speedie]

that is a real bummer to hear

[Tourist]

You need some malted grain in there to provide enzymes to convert the starch. Though I hate to say it, speedie was dead-on.

[rotten]

Thanks for that.
I never discounted speedies advice. I was under the impression from extensive reading that I could do an all unmalted wheat brew. Maybe it won't go to the chooks just yet
Cheers

[emnpaul]

Thanks for that.
I was under the impression from extensive reading that I could do an all unmalted wheat brew.
Cheers

I was afraid of that but didn't want to assume.

How big is your sack (of wheat)? I can't offer any advice as to how it's done, but have you consideed malting it yourself?

Cheers
Paul

[rotten]

How big is your sack

Aahemm, getting a bit personal there

It's a big one, still got at least 20 kg left, not hard to get more either. The only other gain I have left atm is 4-5 kg of pale, and 5-6 kg of marris otter. What temp and how would you malt wheat?
Cheers

[jayse]

You should expect pretty reasonble yield from the unmalted wheat, not that much less then you expect from pale malt.
Try it again and this time use 50% pale malt with it, also should have some coriander seeds, orange peel and such.

[emnpaul]

What temp and how would you malt wheat?
Cheers

Seriously no idea myself, but had a quick look on Wiki just out of curiousity. You might be able to have a crack in your oven if you're really keen... 20kg doesn't sound all that feasible but maybe if you were looking for something to do on a rainy day. Link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malting#Malting

Cheers
Paul

[Tourist]

You should expect pretty reasonble yield from the unmalted wheat...

As long as you mash it with a significant portion of malted grain, otherwise you get sweet f.a., as rotten has successfully proven.

[emnpaul]

Hi Rotten,

Just stumbled across this thread while browsing topics. Malting: http://www.homebrewandbeer.com/forum/vi ... nich+brown

Cheers
Paul

[rotten]

Thanks for the link mate
I'm gunna give it a go