Peach Wit Part II: Brew Day

Brewed up the Peach Wit today!  It was a bit of an experimental dry run.  There were a lot of firsts happening here and I botched a little bit; but it won't be noticeable in the final product.  I feel like it all came out respectably well.

I double milled the raw wheat in order to expose the kernel entirely, this should help me achieve a good extract efficiency and give me the OG that I anticipated.  The rest of the grain was milled as normal.  Oats and rice hulls were added after milling.

I opted for a long medium bodied mash on this one, 153F for 90 minutes.  I was hoping that this would yield a moderate body that will complement the fullness of the wheat and contrast the extra acid from the peaches.  The length of the mash should help compensate for the difficulty in converting raw wheat.  I mashed and sparged without counting the rice hulls in the grain bill, thus using a touch less water than I should have.  This probably cost me a few points in efficiency.  Between that and the difficulties associated with converting unmalted grains set me back 8 points of gravity.  Aiming for 1.050, I yielded 1.042.  This will likely result in a lower ABV.  You live and you learn when it comes to new mashing procedures.

I have recently read a lot about first wort hopping and figured that with only one hop addition in this brew, it might be a nice time to put it to the test and feel out what it's like.  First wort hopping is a revived brewing technique that originated in Germany.  Instead of waiting for the wort to come to a boil before hops are added, they are added to the brew pot before the wort is lautered and sparged.  The idea is that some of the potential aroma compounds that are isomerized immediately when added to boiling wort are allowed to steep out and develop, thus giving more flavour and softer, more even bitterness.

When we brewed our Saison we used a variety of spices at different times in the boil, from ten to five minutes out.  I found that the flavours muddled the beer and made it a touch bitter.  They aged and rounded out a bit, but I decided to add all the spices at flameout to try and generate a bit of a different feel.  More aroma and less flavour; if you will.  I also cut back significantly on the quantity of spices as I'm hoping for spiciness from the yeast as well.

Chillin'

The wort was cooled, strained and aerated and the yeast was pitched at 73F.  I've wrapped the carboy in HVAC insulation and a sweater to prevent the beer from going lightstruck and help regulate temperature.  I'm aiming for around 75F fermentation temp, this should dry out the beer and help compensate for my mashing mash up.  It should also force the yeast to throw a whole lot of spice notes and phenols.  These should complement the spices in the beer and contrast the creamy wheat.

All in all, I feel like the brew went well, the resulting beer might be a percent shy of my intended ABV but I don't feel like that's necessarily a bad thing.  It should end up a great fruity quencher with some complex spice and yeast notes.

Up next: Peach Wit Part III: Fermentation