Paul: June 2008 Archives
In the next few weeks, my entire team from work will be getting together for a week of meetings, presentations, more meetings, and possibly a scavenger hunt throughout the city. Since the company I work for is spread out across the country, it's not often that I get to see some my coworkers. To prevent from feeling completely disconnected with them, we communicate almost daily either via phone, email, or IMs. Of course it is mostly for work related subjects, but there are times where we just shoot the shit and talk about other things.
In preparation for the meetings to come (and of course the after work happy hours!), I decided to brew a special beer. I picked a wheat ale (or Blue Moon clone) because it is a very drinkable beer and a lot of people enjoy the taste. It also helps that the version I brewed last year was very good. ;)
This batch is a little different. I used the same base extract (5 lbs of Munton’s Wheat DME) and I also used the same pound of crushed wheat. I steeped the wheat in 152F degree water for 45 minutes and added the liquid to the kettle. I brought 6 gallons of water to a boil, added the DME and rice solids. I then added the first round of hops which were .75 ounces of whole Hallertau.
After 45 minutes of boiling, I added a tsp of Irish moss, .5 ounces of bitter orange peel, and .25 ounces of whole Fuggles hops. Gave it a quick stir and then inserted the wort chiller.
After another 10 minutes I added .5 ounces of coarsely crushed coriander. With 5 minutes left until flame out, I connected the water chiller to the new pump I recently purchased. I submerged the pump into a 48 quart cooler filled with about 3 bags of ice and cold water.
The boil completed and I started the wort chilling process. This pump isn’t exactly the fastest one out there, but it got the wort cooled down within 30 minutes. I aerated the hell out of it and pitch White Labs WL400 (That’s their Hefeweizen strain of yeast).
There was a decent amount of foam on the top of the beer before I covered it. When I checked in on the beer the following morning, there was nothing. I started to think maybe I did something wrong. I decided to leave it be for a couple of days.
Well later on that day; I noticed the foam coming back. And back. And back again. It got to the point where I had to ditch the traditional airlock in favor of a blow off tube. I filled another carboy up with about a gallon and a half of water. For the blow off tube, I used 5 feet of medium gauge vinyl tubing that has a ½ inch inner diameter. I connected one side to the inner post of a fresh airlock and the other side was submerged in water in the other carboy.
This was certainly an interesting sight. I never had yeast go this crazy before. The foam was moving through the tube at a pretty quick rate. It resembled something strait from a mad scientist movie!
I have a video that I’ll post once I get it online.
See ya
In preparation for the meetings to come (and of course the after work happy hours!), I decided to brew a special beer. I picked a wheat ale (or Blue Moon clone) because it is a very drinkable beer and a lot of people enjoy the taste. It also helps that the version I brewed last year was very good. ;)
This batch is a little different. I used the same base extract (5 lbs of Munton’s Wheat DME) and I also used the same pound of crushed wheat. I steeped the wheat in 152F degree water for 45 minutes and added the liquid to the kettle. I brought 6 gallons of water to a boil, added the DME and rice solids. I then added the first round of hops which were .75 ounces of whole Hallertau.
After 45 minutes of boiling, I added a tsp of Irish moss, .5 ounces of bitter orange peel, and .25 ounces of whole Fuggles hops. Gave it a quick stir and then inserted the wort chiller.
After another 10 minutes I added .5 ounces of coarsely crushed coriander. With 5 minutes left until flame out, I connected the water chiller to the new pump I recently purchased. I submerged the pump into a 48 quart cooler filled with about 3 bags of ice and cold water.
The boil completed and I started the wort chilling process. This pump isn’t exactly the fastest one out there, but it got the wort cooled down within 30 minutes. I aerated the hell out of it and pitch White Labs WL400 (That’s their Hefeweizen strain of yeast).
There was a decent amount of foam on the top of the beer before I covered it. When I checked in on the beer the following morning, there was nothing. I started to think maybe I did something wrong. I decided to leave it be for a couple of days.
Well later on that day; I noticed the foam coming back. And back. And back again. It got to the point where I had to ditch the traditional airlock in favor of a blow off tube. I filled another carboy up with about a gallon and a half of water. For the blow off tube, I used 5 feet of medium gauge vinyl tubing that has a ½ inch inner diameter. I connected one side to the inner post of a fresh airlock and the other side was submerged in water in the other carboy.
This was certainly an interesting sight. I never had yeast go this crazy before. The foam was moving through the tube at a pretty quick rate. It resembled something strait from a mad scientist movie!
I have a video that I’ll post once I get it online.
See ya
