Beer Filled Wednesday

I've been trying to plan my next few batches of beer; I've been running low lately (only one keg and one fermentor full). Since it's summer soon I will be brewing a Belgian Wit. That's one of my favorite styles of beer especially in summer. After that I want to brew a tweaked version of my Mocha Porter.

Traditionally, wits are brewed using approximately 50% un-malted wheat in the grain bill. The problem with un-malted wheat is that it needs to not only be mashed, but it also needs to go through a protein rest to break down the high protein content. This requires two separate mash temperatures: 122F for the protein rest and ~145-150F for the mash. The procedure for this will be setting up all the grains in water and equilibrating at 122F for about 15 minutes for the protein rest, followed by a hot water addition to bring the temperature up to 145-150F for the regular mash. Because of the water necessary to increase the temperature enough (thank you thermo!) I will need to use the large mash tun I usually use for 10 gallon batches. This will be interesting. I hope I don't mess anything up. My tentative recipe for this beer is below.

Wit Bier

Malt:
-5.00 lb British 2-row malt
-4.00 lb Flaked Wheat
-1.00 lb Flaked Oats
-0.50 lb Munich malt

Hops:
-1.00 oz Hallertau hop pellets (4.8% AA, 60 minutes)

Other:
-0.50 oz Corriander, crushed (5 minutes)
-2 Orange zests (5 minutes)

Yeast:
Not sure yet. It depends on what yeast strains Beers of the World has. I imagine they have Wyeast #3944 Witbier Yeast, but we'll see.


An update on the Mild Ale, too. The Mild is still bubbling a little bit through the airlock. The yeast went crazy for the first couple days, but they've trailed off. I'm hoping that since the initial gravity was fairly weak (1.042) they finish soon so I can keg it already. I love good session beers.