So yesterday I brewed a blonde ale. OG came in at 1.049, in the upper end of the style. BUT, you know how sometimes in the movies the opening scene ends up actually being the end? Such is the case here. I don't know what that literary device is called though. Do you?
Our journey begins much earlier. well, not that much earlier. March 1, to be specific. My plan involved brewing an American wheat ale. My plan also involved brewing completely outside, as a complaint from a neighbor brought the fuzz down. The office knocked on my door and said I wasn't allowed to have the propane burner on the porch. I went through this in great detail in my "pale ale" post. As such, a whole new set of challenges interjected themselves into my brewing process.
This whole new set of challenges really comes down to organization. Since i have a propane burner on for the bulk of my brew in a public space, i am required to be in attendance. i cant just leave or walk away or go lolly gag on the beer forums or whatever. I cant leave an open flame unattended. So, this forces me to be organized. This in turn, forces me to go up and down my stairs over and over again before i can begin my brewing process.
First, i get out my trusty collapsible, adjustible sawhorses from the utility closet. i bring the sawhorses down to the foot of the stairs where i create a work table with them. Then i go get my mash tun and various kitchen utensils. Then i go get the brew pot. Then i go get the propane burner and the propane from the deck. Then i go get my water. Then i bring it down and start to fill my kettle. THEN,...you get the idea. What it boils down to is I have to have everything ready before i turn the burner on. Once that burner is on, i do not like to leave my work space.
As you fellow brewers may know, there is always something that takes you away from your work space. Brewing is this way by its very nature. I think that is what keeps me excited about brewing. There is always that x factor, the unknown, the variable you have to solve for, the struggle, the challenge. It is ever present.
Most of the technicalities involved with brewing happen pre-boil. By this i mean extracting the sugar from the malt is in my opinion the most difficult part of brewing. There are a lot of variables to think about. This American wheat definately had its share. Wheat has a much different character than barley when being mashed. When mashing, barley has a soupy consistency, whereas wheat is much more "porridgey." What this means for the brewer, is that when it comes time to drain the sugar water from the spent grain (lautering the wort), wheat can gum up the works, causing a "stuck mash." This is a frustrating and time consuming problem.
To counteract the tendency for wheat to clog up the brewing system (oats act the same way), brewers will add rice hulls to their grain bills. Rice hulls do not impart any flavor or sugar to the mash, but assist in keeping the mash from becoming too tight as the liquid drains through it. This is advantageous to the brewer since it does not effect the sugar content or taste profile of the style of being created, and creates an environment that deters the dreaded stuck mash. Win/Win situation.
As I stood there gazing lovingly at my mash tun, these thoughts had begun to congeal in my head. I began to get nervous and my palms started to sweat. I had not added any rice hulls to my grain bill and it was HALF wheat. Shit. Well it was too late now to do anything about it but hope i didn't get a stuck mash. To spare you any further suspense, somehow, miraculously, i did not get a stuck mash.
The boil went along swimmingly. I even remembered to use my Irish moss! Totally unnecessary, I remembered to not remember. Does that even make sense? Stylistically, it is appropriate for a wheat beer to be cloudy. Oh well, we'll get em' next time. One thing to note: the boil was rather vigorous. Even with just a 60 minute boil i lost some volume. As such, my OG came in a little high and outside of the style parameter by a couple points at 1.058. Next time i will remember to keep a better eye on the boil.
Cooling the wort was the usual pain in the butt, but nothing out of the ordinary. Pitching my yeast was a breeze. I got lazy and didn't make a starter. Just the Wyeast smack-pack. It did the trick. Within a day it was attenuating quite nicely.
Accept for the fact that i was continually forgetting things i needed and sneaking hurriedly away to go get them and then coming back before anyone noticed i wasn't attending my open flame, the brew went fairly well.
The recipe is as follows:
American Wheat Ale- brewed 3/1/2010
Domestic 2 Row, 6.5 lbs.
Wheat Malt, 7 lbs.
Willamette Pellets 5%, 1 oz., 60 min.
" .3 oz., flame-out
Centennial Pellets 9%, .3 oz., flame-out
Wyeast SmackPack, 1010 American Wheat
Mash @ 152, 60 min.
OG 1.058
FG 1.013 (beer is a tad too alcoholic for style)
Now, we continue on our journey. Fast forward 27 days- 3/28/2010. Location: Justin Reisetter's house. Batch up to bat: Belgian Pale Ale. Batch on deck, Blonde Ale.
To be cont' (intermission, author needs to take a piss because of coffe and energy drink consumed)
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