Fleur - The Making Of

Brew Day over the weekend! This year's Chinese New Year beer will be a Belgian witbier brewed with flowers and fittingly named Fleur.

In designing the recipe, I used a tried-and-tested recipe (essentially Hongaarden, as John so wittingly named it!). I wanted it to have a reddish-pink hue, which will come from the hibiscus, and a mix of floral notes to accentuate the banana and clove phenolics. Initial short listed candidates included jasmine, lavender, apple blossoms, Osmunthus, chrysanthemum, chamomile and rose. After some deliberation I decided to go with just the Osmunthus, apple blossoms and rose, since the others may be too jarring. 

Malt

Pils malt 2kg

Flaked wheat 2kg

Instant oats 400g 

Hops

Magnum 10g - first wort hop 

Others:

Hibiscus 60 mins

Rose 60 mins, flameout

Osmunthus 60 mins, flameout

Apple blossoms flameout 

Coriander seeds 10g flameout 

Yeast

Wyeast 3944 Belgian Wit - 2L starter

Mash schedule

Step mash: 55C for 20 mins, then 65C for 60 mins

As usual I'm doing the fermentation in a keg, but 3744 (as with other Belgian yeasts) is notorious for explosive fermentations. Just pitched 2L of the yeast in on New Year's Day, and added a few drops of Fermcap to minimise the blowoff. Checked today (3 Jan) and it's bubbling along very nicely, with almost no blowoff. Can't wait till primary fermentation's over! Planning to "dry petal" with more Osmunthus and rose, before serving it up for Chinese New Year.