Hoegaarden Wit

[Dave Savoie]

4.0 lbs Belgian Pils
2 lbs Belgian Wheat Malt
2 lbs Wheat Flaked
0.5Lbs Clear Candi Sugar

0.50 oz Goldings (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 60 min
0.25 oz Czech Saaz (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 15 min

2 oz Bitter Curacao/Bitter Orange (Peel) (not included in calculations)
0.5 oz Corriander crushed  
0.25 OZ Cumin Seed crushed

Yeast : WYeast 3944 Belgian Witbier or cultured yeast from a bottle of Hoegaarden

Original Gravity 1.047
Terminal Gravity 1.009
Color 3.01 °SRM
Bitterness 14.7 IBU
Alcohol (%volume) 4.9 %

[Shawn]

How come the sugar addition?

[Dave Savoie]

On the back of hoegaarden bottle it lists ingredients. Barley,hops,sugar corriander orange peel my guess is that Hoegaarden is light and in order to reach proper srm and ABV one must use a small amount of sugar

[Shawn]

My concern would be that the sugar would dry out the beer a bit, and a Witbier is supposed to be more medium-bodied. You could definitely still hit the ABV and SRM without the sugar addition... I don't really see how sugar will lighten the color of the beer anyway. It definitely won't DARKEN it, but all it will do is add to the ABV and dry out the beer some.

You're probably going to get a lot of the character from the yeast alone. The wheat and pilsner malt, and coriander and orange peel will probably be just enough to provide the rest.

[Dave Savoie]

the flaked wheat will add body thats its job

[Dave Savoie]

the sugar allows you to have a smaller grain to water ratio there for lighting the beer and still hitting my target ABV of 4.9%

[Shawn]

Yeah, I did a Witbier last year and used 5 lb Pilsner malt, 4.4 lb Flaked wheat, and 1.1 lb Flaked oats, along with a touch of Munich malt... ABV came in at 4.9%, and the color was still low (SRM 3.7).

[Dave Savoie]

but another reason is the brewers of Hoegaarden use sugar in their beer and Hoegaarden is what im trying to emulate