Rachel Brew in the Bottle

Murky IPA

When I hear the work Murky, I think of “Public Opinion Pollster, Paul Murky of Murky Research” from Car Talk. What I don’t think of is an India Pale Ale… at least not until yesterday.

I opened up the first bottle of my recently brewed IPA, expecting great things. After all, it had Warrior Hops, which I’ve really enjoyed in Left Hand’s Warrior IPA. It had only been conditioning in the bottle for about a week, so I figured it was probably undercarbonated, but it did have a nice head when I poured it. I held it up to the light to take a look and I found it “murky”. I couldn’t see through it, which could be due to Chill Haze, especially since there was a significant amount of sediment in the bottom of the glass. If it is indeed Chill Haze, there are a number of things I could do in the future to avoid it, such as a Wort Chiller.

Brew Notes

- Whole Simcoe Hops instead of pellets or plugs (more sediment in the final product?). I’ve decided to use a hops bag from now on to try to keep it clean.

- Almost no airlock activity during all of primary… So little that I actually pitched 2 vials of the California Ale Yeast for safety sake. I can only guess that my explosive stout damaged the seal of my Fermenting Bucket.

Murky IPA

1 lb Crystal 60

3 lb Amber DME

3 lb Extra Light DME

1 lb Light DME

1 oz Warrior — boiling

.5 oz Simcoe — 15 min

.5 oz Cascade — 15 min

1 oz Cascade — 5 min

.5 oz Simcoe — dry

.5 oz Cascade — dry

White Labs California Ale Yeast

Witbier in Primary

With an OG of 1.054, which syncs up with QBrew, I think the Belgian turned out just about right…

Brew Notes:
- After a bit of advice from the mailing list I subscribe too, I decided to do a partial mash with the Flaked Wheat and Aromatic Malt. Since I had such a small amount to mash, I used only 1 quart of water, but it seems to have converted nicely, at least by the smell of it. If I were more of a pro, I would have checked with iodine, but I didn’t have any on hand.

- I used 2 Valencia Oranges and 2 Blood Oranges for my Orange peel additions. I just used the cheese grater we had and lightly grated the Oranges to shave off the “good stuff”

- Fresh coriander smells great and my cleaned coffee grinder did the job for pulverizing the seeds.

- This is my first batch to go in the new 6.5 gallon carboy. No more brew bucket for now… I want to see how happy my yeast are.

Rachel the Weiss

For my inaugural post, I figured I may as well start with 2 things I love… My Family and Brewing Beer.

As close friends and relatives will know, Kim and I are about to have our second child. We’ve been very fortunate to have such a happy little boy for our first child. We’ve been spoiled by Joshua’s infectious laughter and winning smile, even if it only has about 8 teeth so far. We look forward to what is in store for us when Rachel arrives in 5 weeks.

The other thing that is fairly prominent in my life lately is brewing beer. I’ve been home brewing beer for about 5 months now and I’ve really enjoyed it thus far. There is something very rewarding about being able to pour a nice pint and know that this tall, cool beverage was made with my own two hands. Admittedly, I’m still on the novice track, using Malt Extracts with a few Steeping grains, but I can’t say I’ve been truly disappointed by any of my result other than the Stout that almost exploded.

The way these two tie together is that I wanted to do a brew to celebrate Rachel’s arrival, and with only 5 weeks to go, I needed to get started right away. I thought about the old rhyme about “sugar and spice and everything nice”, which got me thinking about a sweeter spiced beer that I thought would be appropriate for the summertime. The beer I decided to make was a Belgian Witbier, mostly due to the fact that a Witbier (White Beer) is a great summer beer. As an added bonus, the recipe I’ve chosen (Celis Wit clone from Beer Captured) has Orange Peel and Coriander Seed in it to give it a sweet/tart/spiced flavor that I’m hoping will really go well with the style. This beer is also considered a Weissbier (Wheat Beer), which is where I got the name.

Rachel the Weiss
Steeping Grains:
4 oz Flaked Wheat
4 oz Belgium Aromatic Malt

@ 60 minutes
4 lbs Pale LME
2.33 lbs Wheat DME
3/4 oz Willamette

@ 15 minutes
1/2 oz Willamette
3/4 oz Orange Peel
1 tsp Crushed Coriander Seed

@ 5 minutes

1/4 oz Cascade

@ 1 minutes
1/2 oz Orange Peel
1 tsp Crushed Coriander Seed

1 Smack Pack of Wyeast Belgian Witbier