AG26-AG27-AG28-AG29 A Quarter Past Wit

Knocked out a wheat type beer, not a true wit as I didn’t use 50% wheat but it was good enough. This brew was to use up my freezer hops so I can make some room for some new ones.

During the weighing of ingredients I decided to try something new and did a single decoction. Wikipedia bit (don’t shoot me if wrong): Protein degradation via a proteolytic rest plays many roles: production of free-amino nitrogen (FAN) for yeast nutrition, freeing of small proteins from larger proteins for foam stability in the finished product, and reduction of haze-causing proteins for easier filtration and increased beer clarity. In all-malt beers, the malt already provides enough protein for good head retention, and the brewer needs to worry more about more FAN being produced than the yeast can metabolize, leading to off flavors. The haze causing proteins are also more prevalent in all-malt beers, and the brewer must strike a balance between breaking down these proteins, and limiting FAN production.

Mash at ~50C

Of the various types you can do I opted for this one to save some time and really to try something new. I mashed in at 50C for 20 mins and then extracted 12L of wort and brought to the boil. On hitting boiling point it went back into the mash tun and briefly stirred. The temperature rose to 67C. Mash was continued as normal.

About right!

Hops and boil went well, added the zest and the rest of the oranges with a good squeeze, hope that some flavour comes through. It did last time if I shook out the dregs into the glass.

Some hops

Obligatory grain shot

Corriander

I was expecting a SG of 1.045 but ended up with 1.046.

For another first I broke out my plate chiller. I must say despite a few leaks from my plastic connectors which will be going to stainless steel it was fab. Cooled as fast as it pumped out. It is a bit weird not seeing the break in the kettle but if it is good enough for commercial brewers then it will do for me. I did burn my hand on the heat exchanger, not sure why I had to touch it…

30 Plate heat exchange

In action

Looks like a good colour

After the boil

I fermented this with T-58 dried yeast. It was all mostly done in 3 days, hope it didn’t get too hot. Will have to check the clove flavours out.

Yeasties at work…

Better looking yeast

I had some ideas during the brew day to split on secondary ferment to 3 batches. When the time came it actually went 4 ways.

AG26: Natural (12.5L)

Gravity at bottling was 1.012 so it should be around 4.4%.

AG27: Honey (12.5L)

To achieve a nice honey taste I used 177g of New Zealand Manuka honey and fermented for a week. Lots of secondary action within an hour or so of putting into FV. Due to the extra sugars the alcohol will be slightly higher than 4.4%, wrong to suggest 5%?

AG28: Mango (12.5L)

Added 1.2Kg of frozen mango chunks from Sainsbury’s. Had a sneaky taste during the ferment and it was pretty good. Due to the extra sugars the alcohol will be slightly higher than 4.4%, wrong to suggest 5%?

AG29: Raspberry (12.5L)

Again added 1.2Kg of frozen raspberries from Sainsbury’s. Colour was leached right out of them really quickly. Due to the extra sugars the alcohol will be slightly higher than 4.4%, wrong to suggest 5%?

Lots of space required

All bottled up and awaiting a first taste. Looking forward to the raspberry beer the most. No extra sweetness added and raspberries can be quite sharp so given I like weird things like this it should be good. In case you’re wondering about mango beer I was put on to this by my cousin Emma who had it in a bar in Edinburgh and kept telling me. A bottle is going her way for some taste testing.

Natural

Mango

Raspberry against natural