Wit used to be my most brewed style, but I haven’t made any recently. Not many notes survive from my old wit brews, so I’m going to start from scratch with this recipe.

This brew will be a mix of recipes from Radical Brewing and Brewing Classic Styles

For one twist on tradition, I’ll be using Omega’s Jovaru Lithuanian farmhouse ale.

I made a plain saison with Jovaru recently and really liked it. Omega says it makes a good Wit, so lets find out.

They say Jovaru gives off some lemon notes. I’ll add a bit of lemon zest to accentuate that.

Recipe

Batch size:      5.5 gallons
Target OG:       1.047
Target FG:       1.009
Calculated IBU:  23
Calculated SRM:  4.5

Grain bill:
5.5 lb  White Wheat Malt   (58%)
2.0 lb  US 6-Row           (21%)
1.0 lb  Munich Malt        (10.5%)
1.0 lb  Flaked Oats        (10.5%)

Mash (Batch Sparge): 148 °F @ 1.6 qts/lb

Hops:
2.0 oz Hallertau Mittelfrüh 3.6%
       @ 60 minutes (13.7 IBU)
1.0 oz Saaz 3.75%
       @ 20 minutes (8.7 IBU)
1.0 oz Saaz 3.75%
       @ 1 minutes  (0.6 IBU)

Additional Ingredients:
0.15oz coriander
0.25oz whole chamomile
Zest of 4 oranges
  (cara cara, minneola tangerine, 2 mandarins)
Zest of 1 lemon

All additional ingredients added at 180*.
Steeped 5 min then continued cooling

Yeast:
2 packs Jovaru, no starter
Fermentation temp:
72°F for 24 hr, 73°F 48hr, 74°F rest of primary

Notes

2022-04-15 - Brew day. OG 1.047

2022-04-24 - Kegged. Will let it condition at room temp for another week before serving.

2022-05-15 - Pretty tasty. I like just about everything about this except the coriander is too strong and it messes with the balance of the beer.

I would also like a stronger citrus character. I think I might have to add citrus after fermentation to get the level of flavor I want.

Thoughts for next time

This was a good starting point for getting back into brewing Wits.

I would just scale back the coriander and up the citrus flavor next time.

I liked the Jovaru a lot in this. I’d use it again. I also tried an interesting one-off growler of a pale beer + aged hops + Jovaru and it was surprisingly good. I might experiment a bit with Jovaru as the base for some funky saisons as well.