Winter White: Blanche Niege

Brew Day 10/13/12

 

This was the white counterpoint to the Chocolate stout I brewed last time Kel and I were up in Sonora.

As stated in my previous post, the idea is to get a base black and a base white recipe down and brew riffs of each in the summer and winter. I figure Stouts/ Robust Porters and Wit’s both lend themselves to great seasonal drinkers depending on the finer points of the recipes. The Black beard is going to swing between a smooth, smoked honey porter for drinking around the campfire in the summer and a velvety, dry chocolate stout in the winter. The white will be a low-gravity Wit that will swing between something tart and fruity in the summer and spicy and comforting in the winter. Which brings us to our case-in-point: Blanche Niege.

Blanche Niege- (Winter Wit Bier): I’m aiming to hit my “wintery” buttons without making a sipper that drinks like holiday spiced cough syrup. Creamy, spiced, and warming without being hugely sweet, boozy, and malty. I like the thick, full flavor that unmalted wheat and oats gives to Wits without lending much sweetness, and the spicy Hoegaarden yeast character works wonderfully with additional spicing. In the summer I’ll probably go with something crisp like lemongrass and ginger, but this winter I thought that bitter orange peel, grains of paradise, and American toasted Oak would be just right for some hearth-side quaffage. I am fermenting this batch in the mid-high 60’s to encourage more of the earthy/ spicy esters as opposed to the tart and crisp fruity phenols that the yeast produces at higher temps (although this summer, I’ll be all about the mid 70’s). Otherwise, the recipe is a pretty straight forward Barley Malt/ Flaked Wheat/ Rolled Oats low gravity wort with minimal hopping. I went for American 2-row over the traditional Pils for a base malt as I thought saving some extra time on the mash and boil would be worth the swap (and I figured that the waxy/ bready character that Pils brings wouldn’t be missed in this particular beer). My spice additions were pretty conservative. Hopefully they allow for some context in later renditions of the recipe without being so overpowering I won’t be able to tell what is going on.

The Recipe (for 4.5 gal):

4 lbs Briess Organic 2-Row Pale Malt - 44%

4 lb Flaked Wheat - 44%

1 lb Flaked Oats- 11%

1 oz Czech Saaz @ 60min

Pitched 2 viles WLP400 (Hoegaarden strain) @ 65F with .5 tab Servomicies. Made starter with 2cups wort and let it cool overnight. Pitched whole starter the next morning.

Used Sonora Tap H2O with .75 g/gal gypsum for pale/balanced water profile and mash PH.

Mashed at 150F for 120min. Mash Out at 168F for 10 min.
Double Batch Sparge
60min boil

Collected 4.5 gal after boil.

OG: 1.042= 63% efficiency
FG: 1.009= 4.3% ABV
Calculated SRM: 4
Calculated IBU: Garetz 16, Tinseth 16

10/14- Down to 65F after cooling overnight, pitched 16oz starter.

11/16- Bottled 4.2 gal with .5cups table sugar at 50F for target CO2 VOL 3.0. FG 1.009. Hydrometer samples are quite tart!

8/8- Winter White Review. Its OK. Weird, but enjoyable.