This Belgian Witbier was brewed using the recipe in Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing book on page 207…

Belgian Witbier Recipe:

Main Mash

3 lbs Belgian Pilsner Malt

1 lb Munich Malt (10 L)

Adjunct Mash

3 lbs Unmalted Wheat (Soft White Wheat Berries)

2 lbs 6-row malt

1 lb Rolled Oats (Old Fashioned)

Use 1 lb of Rice Hulls To lauter

.5 oz Northern Brewer Hops (90 min)

1 oz Tettnanger Hops (30 min)

1 oz Tettnanger Hops (5 min)

Zest from 2 Small Oranges (5 min)

.5 oz Indian Coriander (5 min)

.25 oz Chamomile (5 min)

1 L Starter WLP 400

RO Water

1/8 tsp Gypsum to main mash

1/2 tsp Gypsum to Adjunct mash (see video)

Instructions, Tips for brewing and comments

This beer has got to be one of the hardest beers I’ve brewed to date… managing multiple mashes, timing and coordinating everything wasn’t exactly easy…. so here’s a few tips…

The key to brewing this beer is to prepare… notice how I threw in all my grains into my kettles, did mineral additions and had everything in place before starting…

I started by cooking the oatmeal… and while that came to a boil I doughed in my adjunct mash at 104 F… When the oatmeal was done cooking I added that to the adjunct mash and brought it up to 122 F for a 15 minute protein rest… While the protein rest was going on, I had my strike water for my main mash ready to go at 114 F to dough in the main mash at 104 F… the main mash was barely wet during the dough in…

After the 15 minute protein rest of the Adjunct Mash I brought it up to 150 F… since this is the starch to sugar conversion temperature I had to double check my pH to make sure I was within range… I had originally added 1/4 tsp, but the pH was around 5.6, so I added another 1/4 tsp to bring it down…

The next step here would be to bring the adjunct mash to a boil and the main mash to a protein rest… since bringing grains to a boil takes longer I waited a bit on the main mash and timed it so the main mash would be sitting at a protein rest temperature (122 F) for 15 minutes along with the adjunct mash which was going to be boiled for 15 minutes as well…

The one mistake I did was to use a stainless steel pot which tends to have grains stick to it more… I should have used my aluminum pot which doesn’t stick… my adjunct mash scorched a bit, and picked up a burnt oatmeal aroma… to keep that from going into the beer I avoided scraping the bottom when transferring my adjunct mash into my main mash… while I hope the flavor doesn’t transfer, it will be something I’ll look for in the finished beer…

Once the adjunct mash went into the main mash, everything was pretty much the same… I held the mash at 155 F for 45 minutes… due to the amount of adjuncts, I ended up doing an iodine test to make sure the starches had been fully converted…

I bought the wheat at Whole Foods… sold under the name Soft White Wheat Berries… and the chamomile I got from chamomile tea bags… just teared them open and took out the chamomile…

Other than the scorching of the grain in the adjunct mash, everything went pretty smooth… not sure what to expect once the beer is done fermenting, but I’m optimistic… definitely a hard beer to brew… enjoy!

how to brew