Pierre Celis & Rhubarb Wit

Unbeknown to me, Pierre Celis, passed away earlier this year on April 9, 2011. At the time I was brewing a string of wits, including a sour wit, an imperial wit, a rhubarb wit, and a couple of traditional versions. It can be said that I enjoy drinking wit beer in the summer and I get all sorts of excited about brewing the style every spring. Beer enthusiasts and thirsty college coeds drinking Blue Moon on spring break owe a debt of gratitude to Pierre Celis for single handedly pulling witbier of the Hoegaarden region from the dustbin of history. A decade after Pierre's neighbor closed the last wit brewery in Belgium, he revived the style based largely on the process learned from his neighbor ten years earlier. Pete Slosberg (Pete's Wicked Ale), wrote a fantastic and touching ode to his friend Pierre Celis here, which is very much worth a read. Pete relates a story he learned about the now celebrated first batch of Pierre Celis in the mid-60's.

It turns out that when Pierre decided to start his brewing company, he utilized his recipe for making witbier from his neighbor, Mr. Tomsin, the last maker of witbier before it disappeared. Mr. Tomsin fermented his wort in wooden fermenters. Over time, the particular yeast(s) for his beers would stick to the wood and spontaneously ferment the next batch of wort. This, curiously, was not known to Pierre. When Pierre first made his own witbier, he used a metal fermenter and didn’t add yeast, because Mr. Tomsin never had. Well, guess what: Pierre’s first batch didn’t work!

What do you know? I found this not only humorous but reassuring as a homebrewer when one of the true legends of brewing could make such a mistake when starting out. Come to think of it, my first brewing experience was helping my father with a partial mash raspberry wheat in the mid-90's. After hydrating the dry yeast I dumped the slurry right into the hot wort--killing the yeast obviously.

Pete Slosberg's story about Louis Tomsin's technique makes one wonder what the fabled Belgian wit style tasted like prior to its resurrection by Pierre Celis? I have brewed white beers with countless variations in mashing process and ingredients and don't always adhere to tradition in my recipes, as shown in the rhubarb wit recipe below--However the more I stray from Pierre Celis, the more I get an itch to try making a beer like the original beer Pierre learned from his neighbor decades ago. The result is my brewing an array of wits in the spring time.

Early in the spring I am all sorts of jazzed to get down to brewing with things from the garden and the first thing to ripen is the rhubarb. I don't enjoy eating rhubarb much and it seems like most folks with a patch in the yard are willing to give it away. Rhubarb is better in beer than it is in jam or pie and if you have a little piece of garden to spare, throw in some and it will come back every year with little/no care. Another plus for growing your own rhubarb is that it grows everywhere. I saw a plant in Alaska that was touted as the world's largest rhubarb plant. My only recommendation is to keep an eye on it and pick before it bolts. Rhubarb can always be frozen until you are ready to use it in your brew.

Last year I cooked down a good amount of rhubarb in two batches. Rhubarb turns to mush after just a few minutes in a soup pot. The first batch I cooled and but in a gallon bag and stuffed it into the freezer. The second batch I cooked down and thoroughly strained it reserving the juice. I transferred the hot wort onto the frozen block of pulp and juice in a bucket to help cool and used the bucket as primary fermenter. I also added a pint on homemade orange/rhubarb marmalade. When I racked to secondary I added two quarts of rhubarb juice. The result was a wonderfully tart, purple beer. This year I wanted to make a little cleaner beer, so I left out the fruit addition to primary, adding only 2 quarts of strained juice to secondary. The result was a yellow beer instead of purple, filled with bits of rhubarb pulp. It is a much less tart beer where the rhubarb is slightly noticeable in the finish. This years version is more approachable with a nicely rounded flavor and a little hint of caramel that must have come from the Golden Naked Oats. I think next year I will be brewing both variations, but for a truly rhubarb beer don't skip both rhubarb additions, not to mention the marmalade--although not necessary.

I used an adjunct mash although I only had one pound of unmalted wheat, but I wanted to continue trying to get my witbier mash procedure down.

Rhubarb Wit Recipe:

Specifics:
Batch Size: 5.4 gallons
OG: 1.048
TG: 1.012
SRM: 4.54
IBU: 16.7
Adjunct Mash

Grain:
3 lbs. Pilsen
3 lbs. White Wheat Malt
1lbs. Oat Malt
1 lbs. 6-Row (adjunct mash)
1 lbs. Unmalted Wheat (adjunct mash)
.5 lbs. Golden Naked Oats

Hops:
.5 oz East Kent Golding at 60 minutes
.5 oz Hallertau at 20 minutes
1 oz Hallertau at 5 minutes

Yeast:
Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier

Extras:
1 oz Coriander (crushed) at 5 minutes
2 oranges (zest only) at 5 minutes
2 g Chamomile (dried flowers) at 5 minutes
2 Quarts Rhubarb Juice to secondary (additional 2 Qt. cooked frozen rhubarb optional to primary)
1 pint orange/rhubarb marmalade to primary

Specifics:
Brought malted grains to 122F for protein rest in mash tun. Heated unmalted grain and 6-row on stove top to 122F for 15 minutes then raising to 147F for 20 minutes. Raised adjunct mash to boil for 15 minutes--adding to mash tun to reach sacharrification rest at 148F for 60 minutes. Batch sparged at 172F for 20 minutes.