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