The Brewing Network: The Jamil Show 3-13-2006

Randy Mosher. Radical Brewing

Style:

400 year old style
Init 1.044 – 1.052
final 1.008 – 1.012

Very Pale in color. It gets it color from its white haze.

Alcohol: ~4.5%

The beer is only lightly hopped; not a hoppy beer. More flavor from the spices you add. This beer is citrusy.

Smooth and creamy mouthfeel.

Aroma: Citrusy, spicey, orange. The orange is present but is not so strong that it is overpowering. You want this to be a beer, not an orange soda.

Spices:

All of the spices are added at “flame out,” at the very end of the boil.

Corriander – This is the main spice. Grind this up really fine.; a coffee grinder will do. If you can find Indian Corriander, buy it; it will produce a more balanced beer

Bitter Orange Peel – Most recipes call for this but his can be be a pain to work with. A nice alternative is to use fruit zest. Use the zest of most any citrusy fruit. Just be sure not to get the white part of the rind.

Cammomile – The secret ingredient.

Additional Spices could be used:

Star Anise – This works out well if used sudtley

Yeast:

Cal Ale yeast: Provides an overly neutral taste.

Wit Yeast: Designed just for Wit Beers.

Abby Yeast or Beglium Yeast: You will need to keep this on the cool side; mid 60s.

Grain Bill:

Base malts

2-row Pilsner Malt (and maybe a little 6-row for more enzymes and greater husk).

Rice Hulls to improve the filter bed.

30-40% Unmalted Wheat ( more wheat flavor than malted wheat )

Oats ( adds to mouth feel. Adds clarifying effect. Kills head retention. Wheat will offset )

* Old Fashioned Oats – decoction.

* Instant Oatmeal – Use with infustion mash
1-3% Acid Malt ( for latic tang )

1 Tbs Flour ( to ensure the haze )

Saaz or Tettanager hops

Extract

Use wheat liquid malt extract

Brewing Notes:

Keep it cool: 64 fermentation is good.

Use a normal pitch. Use a starter. This is a normal beer; not too big.

90 minute boil.

Do not use any clarifiers.. You want haze.

Hops; 90 min, 60, and 5 min.

Keep the fermenation temperature down and under control. Temp fluctuctuation will have the yeast kick off a lot of unwanted byproducts.

Commercial Examples:

Hoegarten
Blue Moon

There was very little sedimentation in the bottom of the bottom ( unlike the American Amber Ale of last). This fact will be pleasant when it comes to pouring but I am concerned that there may not be enough residual yeast to continue the carbonation.
I will let this beer mature and carbonate for another couple of weeks before letting the family and friends try it.

When bottling,  I racked my beer from my glass carboy into a bottling bucket,  a 6-gal food grade plastic bucket with spigot, and then placed the bottling bucket on a kitchen counter.  I attached my siphon hose to the male end of the spigot and attached my bottling wand to the other.   I used the open door of my dishwasher as my bottling station; this greatly contained the spill-over mess.  The dishwasher door wasn’t appropriate for the bottle capping stadge, however, and I just lined up the bottles on my kitchen floor, capping them in groups of 10-15.

When my leftover beer, I took the oportunity to take a sample of the batch.  The beer was as good as flat, room-temperature beer could be, but not bad.  I expect much improvement during the next three weeks in the bottle.  The orange and corriander flavors had melded nicely in the secondary and where not as pronouced as before; this was a good thing.  The beer did achieve the hazy, cloudy appearance that is typical with this style.

Having exended the primary fermentation by a week, I hope that their will be enough yeast in suspension to properly carbonate the beer in the bottles.

I checked the hydrometer reading today.  The yeast has continued to attenuate; the new Final gravity it 1.011 at room temp.   I will be bottling my beer this week.  Subtracting the beer that I am drinking now, I only have five of the previous batch left.   I need to buy some more bottles so that I can reduce the dry gap between batches.

OG: 1.046 – 1.050
FG: 1.012 – 1.018

Alcohol by Volume: 5%
IBUs: 11

2 x 3.3 lb. Briess Wheat Malt Extract
1 lb Flaked Oats
8 oz Crushed white wheat malt
1 oz Coriander Seed
1 oz Bitter Orange Peel
1 oz Tettnanger Hops ( bittering )
( no finishing hops)
5 oz Priming Sugar
1 Dry Ale Yeast. ( I used Munton’s but I would have rather picked a Belgium Wit yeast or English Ale yeast if I wasn’t such a cheap bastard.)

Checks out Brew Day for the process.

I checked the hydrometer reading today. The yeast has continued to attenuate; the new Final gravity it 1.011 at room temp. I will be bottling my beer this week. Subtracting the beer that I am drinking now, I only have five of the previous batch left. I need to buy some more bottles so that I can reduce the dry gap between batches.

Alcohol by Volume: 4%

I racked the Belgium Wit Beer today and took a little taste. The bitter orange peel came through well. At first taste, I couldn’t quite place the flavor and thought it could have been some really off flavor. On second taste, the orange came through. The beer has a quite a bit of sweetness to it. I can’t wait to get it into the bottle.

The beer is very, very cloudy even in small volumes. It has a dark amber, pumpkin-like orange color. I will need to look up the lovenbond reading for this style to see if mine is about right. [edit 9-27-06]  I double check this, and I am way off on the color.  I must have browned my extract during boiling. It is also possible that the extract was not very fresh; extract will naturally darken during long storage.   Even though I missed the mark on this one, it is certainly still a very good beer.

This brew really produced a lot of yeast. I am going to try to keep some of it. [edit] Decided to get some sleep; not saving yeast this time.

In a large saucepan, I added the flaked oats and crushed white wheat malt and about a gal of water, enough to cover the grain bag. To cover the grain bag, which I had to add more water than called for in the recipe. I attempted to hold the temperature at 155 degrees for 40 minutes; this proved to be quite the challenge. The temperature fluctuated quite a bit over the mash duration. The temperature also varied depending on where I placed the temperature probe. I ended up mashing for about 50 minutes to correct for the temperature fluctuations.

While I was mashing, I added 3 gal of water to my main brew pot and brought it up to a boil. On a boil was achieved, I added the malt extract and bittering hops and then returned the solution to a boil, stirring constantly.

After 40-50 minutes of boiling, it was time to add the wheat “tea,” coriander, and biter orange peel. To add the “tea,” I suspended the grain bag over the main pot and then poured the tea through the bag. I then sparged the grain bag with an additional 6 cups of water. Once the draining of grain bag slowed, I moved the grain bag back over its original pot and allowed it to continue to slowly drip. When enough of the sweet liquor had accumulated, I added it to the primary brew pot.

I brought the wort back up to a rolling boil for an additional 20 minutes. After which, I cooled the wort in an ice bath and pitched the yeast at 81 degrees F.

Less than 24 hours later, the fermentation was rolling (like I had never seen before ). The temperature, even in the basement, was far too high, 81-82 degrees. After noticing this, I opened up the AC vent to help cool down the room; it seems to be helping. Due to the high fermentation temperature, I will leave the wort in the primary fermenter for longer than the usual period of a week, maybe 10-14 days. The odor from the airlock is very nice; I can’t detect any diecytel odors ( buttered popcorn? )

A partial mash recipe

OG: 1.046 – 1.050

FG: 1.012 – 1.018

IBUs: 11

Alcohol by Volume: 5%

Ingredients

• 2 x 3.3 lb. Briess Wheat Malt Extract
• 1 lb Flaked Oats
• 8 oz Crushed white wheat malt
• 1 oz Coriander Seed
• 1 oz Bitter Orange Peel
• 1 oz Tettnanger Hops ( bittering )
• ( no finishing hops)
• 5 oz Priming Sugar
• 1 Dry Ale Yeast