[Shayo]

Hey all

I've been trying to brew the Witbier kit recipe from morebeet.com.
The recipe has lots of oat and malt, which absorb large quantity of the water. Out of the 5gal batch I was able to squeeze only 2.5gal with a grain mesh bag.
In my first brew, I tried fermenting that, but got gelatinous mash. In my second attempt I added 2 gal, but I think that reduced gravity much.
Is there a trick I'm missing for brewing these types of beer?

[rburrelli]

Something does not sound correct with your water volumes. Are you following the kit instructions correctly? What was your strike water volume? Are you sparking?

[majorvices]

Is this an all grain or extract batch? Partial mash? There's no "trick" you are doing some thing wrong. Hard to say what it is exactly. Either you are not lautering or sparging properly or there is some top off water you are missing in the instructions. Are you using a hydrometer? You say that you think you diluted the gravity, but you should know exactly what the gravity is with a hydrometer (or refractometer).

[reverseapachemaster]

I can't see how any amount of grain that would produce a witbier would produce half the volume due to absorption. Something is off--perhaps this was meant to be a full mash rather than a partial mash?