Belgian hibiscus wit

[chadjaja]

I Have a great middle eastern shop near me and picked up a bunch of spices for beer projects.

First up was this hibiscus wit. Just a basic play on the house wheat beer but with 100g of dried hibiscus flowers added late in the boil. Bitterness is reduced slightly as the flowers add some bitterness to the brew apparently. Also the addition of orange peel is left out because we don't want the pronounced citrus and the coriander halved. The smell of the flowers in the boil was awesome and pronounced berry aromas. Turned the sort purple too!

Anyhow here is a guide
Jw pale wheat 45%.
Jw pills 35%
Jw trade malt 20%
Rice hulls (4 handfuls)
Magnum @60 mins (bitter to 15 ibu 's)
Hallerteu @10 mins (about 10g as only minimal bitterness impact)
10g crushed coriander seeds @10 mins
100g dried hibiscus flowers @10 mins
Wyeast 3944
OG 1048

Ferment on the lower scale at 18 degrees to limit the banana esters and achieve the more Clove range.

After a few days fermenting a sample. Its lightened to a light pink and smells awesome! Pronounced berries as before as well as the yeast character blending in. Will post a pic up soon. Should be an interesting beer but might takes few attempts to get balanced right.

Also just racked my Choc porter onto two Madagascan vanilla pods and have some licorice root and star anise for future stouts and porters.

[Oliver]

Interesting work chadjaja. I look forward to hearing how this turns out.

What were the other spices you picked up?

I wonder what a little rose water (another middle eastern flavour) would do to a beer ...

Oliver

[chadjaja]

Well its not dropping gravity as much as I would expect this yeast too. And it was top cropped pure yeast pitched into a one litre starter and onto the stir plate. It certainly took off as when I pitched at high krausen it was trying to climb out of the flask. Its sitting at 18 degrees too with a 2-3 inch krausen on it so the beer has taken off alright . Frustrated to say the least.

As for spices I got a few and dirt cheap too! Coriander, star anise, licorice root, hibiscus flowers, vanilla pods, cinnamon and chamomile.

EDIT! Just as I typed that I thought I'd check on it after I gave it a gentle swirl this morning and up the temp between 18-20 and its dropped 10 points since then! Wrapped

[chadjaja]

Not far off now! The strong berries aroma has mellowed slightly and the wit character showing as well. Its going to be an attractive beer in glass. This is what it looks like simply out of the fermenter.