Brevity Wit #2

Well, it was a busy weekend. I bottled Dummkopf Dunkelweizen (6.6% ABV) and Black Ryeday (6.9%) on Saturday night and then brewed up the second round of Brevity Wit on Sunday morning before the Super Bowl. While I hope it will be as good as the last batch, there were a few disappointments.

The Recipe:

4 lb 2-row pale malt
4 lb wheat malt
1 lb flaked wheat

5 AAU (28g @ 5% AA) East Kent Goldings @ 60 min

1 oz ground coriander @ 5 min
zest from 2 oranges @ 5 min (about 12 grams)

Wyeast 3944 - Belgian Witbier

Mashed at 152° for an hour using about 11 quarts of water. Sparged with 170°-190° water until I had about 26 quarts for the boil.

O.G.: 1.039
Est. IBU: 17.6

My biggest disappointment with this batch was that I only hit 70% mash efficiency. This is way down from the 90% efficiencies I had been getting; I was sort of counting on high efficiency this time to boost the alcohol and body just a little bit from the last batch while still using the same amount of grist. To add insult to injury, even after getting marginally better efficiency than with Brevity Wit #1 (which clocked in at 68%), I still ended up with a slightly lower OG than #1 (1.039 vs. 1.040). I'm not sure why this is; it was a pretty solid one-gallon boil-off. I suppose it is possible I didn't get a good reading for my OG, but presumably the chilled wort was sufficiently homogeneous in density when I took my sample.

This time I used whole-leaf East Kent Goldings so the batch ended up with a little bit lower IBU than #1, where I used pellets. I am a little torn as to whether I ought to bump the AAU when I'm using whole leaf vs. pellet or if I should just stick to the recipe. In this case, the hops are such a small portion of the recipe that I don't think it will matter much; still, it's something to consider for the future.

I did also make one intentional change in the recipe. This time, I zested two oranges rather than just one, as the orange was not all that discernable in #1. However it turns out, though, I'm hoping it will be at least as tasty as #1, which I really did like quite a lot.