lazy-ass wheat ale

I have a tendency to be a little lazy at times…

I bought a recipe of the month kit from Beer-wine.com last summer and I finally made it two months ago. Why did it take so long? The answer: because I Again, why did it take so long?

The recipe cameJhad to crush a pound of wheat. with 1 pound of wheat, 2 pounds of dried malt extract, and 1 quart of Briess Bavarian Wheat LME. It also included some Tettnanger hop pellets, Irish moss (which they forgot to include), 10 packets of “real” lemon juice, and ¾ of a cup of priming sugar.

That is the brew right before I racked it. It looked a little dark in the primary, so I got a little nervous. Once I start to siphon it out, I could see the real color and all was good. That's much better looking, isn't it? I thought so as well! Looks good. More laziness...

I hate sanitizing bottles. I thought I'd get a jump on bottle-duty by sanitizing a case of bottles in the dishwasher. I've used my d/w before for sanitizing bottles and it works great. It has a special sanitizing setting where it uses hi-temp water and very hi heat to dry and kill bacteria. Only one small problem...Jet Dry. Yep. Beer bottles do not like Jet Dry (or any other rinse agents for that matter). Rinse agents kill the head when you pour the beer. Oh the beer stays fully carbonated, but you get no head. And no head we all know what it's like to not get any head...when we pour beer. John Palmer explains why in his book. If you don't already have it, get 'How to Brew'. This is one of the best brewing books available. He does a great job at explaining everything you need to know. It even has pictures of what things should look like and it has some recipes in it. Well worth the money.

I digress. Bottles, I hate sanitizing bottles. I decided to invest in a mini keg system. I don't really have much room in my house for a kegerator and I really do not want to run downstairs every time I want a beer. Mini kegs are small enough to fit in the fridge and the tap-a-keg system fits onto them with an adapter. Beer-wine.com has a Mini keg system available at a reasonable price. Check it out. I should be receiving that soon, I hope. I'd like to try this beer and play with the mini keg tap system. That should be pretty cool.