BIAB WITBIER INSIGHT

[smcluskey]

Brewing up 5G of Wit for a buddy and his son's first bday celebration. Equipped, only, for BIAB at the moment. Listened to the CYBI episode discussing Wits and I'm concerned that the the passive sparge/mash of a BIAB will not produce the wheat flavor that is a necessary balancing component of the Wit style. My water is relatively hard so i plan to use spring. Can i up the amount of unmalted wheat to compensate? Anyone have experience, advice or a website to search out further direction?

[ziggy]

The yeast and spices dominate the flavor in that style. What do you think you'll be missing from not sparging?

[Effingbeer]

Why not do a "mostly mash" and use a dry wheat malt extract?

[smcluskey]

Mostly mash is not a bad idea. I thought that the wheat malt would not convert the same without a few rests and a more complicated mash schedule. And then the wheat malt flavor won't come through as prevalent...

[brewinhard]

A single infusion mash will be just fine providing you are not using raw unmalted wheat (ie wheat berries). If you want to use unmalted wheat, then you can go with pre-gelatinized wheat flakes which can also be mashed in a single infusion fashion to convert properly.

[ziggy]

OH! you might be thinking of a Ferulic acid rest that is sometimes performed with hefeweizens. The theory is that if you rest at 110F, more Ferulic acid is liberated from the malt and ferulic acid is the precursor to 4-vinyl-guaiacol, which tastes like cloves. As far as I know it has not been proven but some people do it.

Mashing through different rests and such doesn't really affect flavor, it's usually more of an efficiency thing. You can do a protein rest and a beta glucanase rest, etc. Since you are doing BIAB that shouldn't matter.