Peach Wit Part II: Brew Day

Brewed up the Peach Wit today!  It was a bit of an experimental dry run.  There were a lot of firsts happening here and I botched a little bit; but it won't be noticeable in the final product.  I feel like it all came out respectably well.

I double milled the raw wheat in order to expose the kernel entirely, this should help me achieve a good extract efficiency and give me the OG that I anticipated.  The rest of the grain was milled as normal.  Oats and rice hulls were added after milling.

I opted for a long medium bodied mash on this one, 153F for 90 minutes.  I was hoping that this would yield a moderate body that will complement the fullness of the wheat and contrast the extra acid from the peaches.  The length of the mash should help compensate for the difficulty in converting raw wheat.  I mashed and sparged without counting the rice hulls in the grain bill, thus using a touch less water than I should have.  This probably cost me a few points in efficiency.  Between that and the difficulties associated with converting unmalted grains set me back 8 points of gravity.  Aiming for 1.050, I yielded 1.042.  This will likely result in a lower ABV.  You live and you learn when it comes to new mashing procedures.

I have recently read a lot about first wort hopping and figured that with only one hop addition in this brew, it might be a nice time to put it to the test and feel out what it's like.  First wort hopping is a revived brewing technique that originated in Germany.  Instead of waiting for the wort to come to a boil before hops are added, they are added to the brew pot before the wort is lautered and sparged.  The idea is that some of the potential aroma compounds that are isomerized immediately when added to boiling wort are allowed to steep out and develop, thus giving more flavour and softer, more even bitterness.

When we brewed our Saison we used a variety of spices at different times in the boil, from ten to five minutes out.  I found that the flavours muddled the beer and made it a touch bitter.  They aged and rounded out a bit, but I decided to add all the spices at flameout to try and generate a bit of a different feel.  More aroma and less flavour; if you will.  I also cut back significantly on the quantity of spices as I'm hoping for spiciness from the yeast as well.

Chillin'

The wort was cooled, strained and aerated and the yeast was pitched at 73F.  I've wrapped the carboy in HVAC insulation and a sweater to prevent the beer from going lightstruck and help regulate temperature.  I'm aiming for around 75F fermentation temp, this should dry out the beer and help compensate for my mashing mash up.  It should also force the yeast to throw a whole lot of spice notes and phenols.  These should complement the spices in the beer and contrast the creamy wheat.

All in all, I feel like the brew went well, the resulting beer might be a percent shy of my intended ABV but I don't feel like that's necessarily a bad thing.  It should end up a great fruity quencher with some complex spice and yeast notes.

Up next: Peach Wit Part III: Fermentation

$#!& Gushers!

Dammit!  We finally had our first case of contamination.  Spoils your beer and your fun!  What we have here is commonly called a 'gusher infection'.  Somewhere during the bottling process our beer got contaminated with a foreign yeast or bacteria, and it continued eating the complex sugars in the beer that our yeast would not.  This beer was primed with malt sugar to be carbonated very, very lightly, but the foreign bacteria produced a whole lot of CO2 as it ate our precious dextrins (the long chain sugars that yeast cannot ferment, and give sweetness and body to finished beer).  The result can be seen in this video!  Aside from nearly explosive quantities of carbonation, the beer became extremely thin bodied and bland as it aged.  Sadly, I had to dump about 3L of our bottled SMaSH Bitter as the taste declined and the chances of the bottles exploding increased (a legitimate concern, Google 'homebrew bottle bombs' for some depressing imagery).  My anal retentiveness about sanitation just doubled.

No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn! +4 Others

A motley collection of beer reviews here.  Heading up the line is one of the most interesting beers I think I have ever had the pleasure of consuming, a barrel aged sour stout from Bellwoods and Evil Twin.  Falling in thereafter are some samples I received from Great Lakes Brewery, Hissy Fit and Hissy Fit with Raspberries (AKA Raspberry Manilow).  A wheat wine from Flying Monkeys and a sturdy daily drinking brown ale from Neustadt.

Bellwoods x Evil Twin No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn
500 mL bottle. My bottle said 9.2%. Pours opaque black with a beige cap and lots of lacing. There is a hell of a lot going on here but it?s very well balanced. Aromas of cherry, raspberry, coffee, cocoa, heavy cream, porridge and oak. A touch of sweetness, then a big lactic sour bite, rounding into bitter, roasty malt notes. Ridiculously complex. Full bodied with medium carbonation and no noticable alcohol. Bought another bottle I will have to try very hard not to open. Wow.

Great Lakes Brewery Hissy Fit Grisette
650 mL bottle. Pours a cloudy straw yellow with a nice white cap. Aromas of citrus, banana, bubble gum and light grassy grains. Mild and tasty, bone dry and moderately carbonated with a slightly bitter finish. A quencher.

Great Lakes Brewery Raspberry Manilow
650 mL. Pours cranberry cocktail with a short lived white head. Raspberry, cranberry and a touch of grainy malt. Surprised not to see any yeast flavours here. Refreshing and dry, nice and fruity, but a bit much raspberry. Thin body and moderate carbonation.

Flying Monkey's City and Color
750 mL bottle. Pours dark reddish amber with a thick beige head. Aroma is maple, vanilla and little else. Not overly sweet but lacking balance. Only a hint of hop or yeast character. Nice wheaty mouthfeel. Boozy. Too one dimensional for me.

Neustadt Springs 10W30
473 mL can. Pours a rich dark reddish brown as the name suggests with a nice beige cap of head. Aromas of toffee, nuts, brown malt, licorice, dark bread and a touch of hop spice. Mildly sweet with minimal hop bitterness and only a hint of aromatics. Medium bodied with medium carbonation and a malty finish. Well made, nothing outstanding.

Thanks to Bellwoods and Evil Twin for producing a really great product.  If you live in the Toronto area and are beer adventurous, the bottle retails for $12 and I believe there is some still left; but hurry when it's gone, it's gone.

As usual:
http://www.ratebeer.com/user/169526/ratings/