Orange Hefe Fermenting

We brewed up a batch of the orange hefe on sunday. Didn't get finished till 5am ;_;. Anyway, the yeast is happily eating away at the sugars and spitting co2 out of the airlock. Cant wait to try this one in a few weeks!

I'm also thinking about making some mead as a side project, so here's some metal vikings brewing some up \m/

First Batch Bottled

We got our first batch into bottles last night (early this morning, really). The filling and capping of the bottles wasn't a problem at all. The cleaning and sanitizing was the most time consuming part of the process. For the next batch I'm going to get a sanitizer injector and some starsan, which should speed up bottling a bit.

Hopefully it tastes good

Tonight we're probably cooking up that orange hefe, I hope it turns out as good as it sounds!

Blood Orange Hefeweizen

This is an awesome sounding recipe (which I'm making as soon as my current batch gets bottled) from Sam Calagione. I found it browsing Homebrew Talk for ideas and it sounded soooo good.

• 6.6 lbs liquid wheat extract (~5.3 lbs dry extract)
• 1 ounce Hallertau hop pellets
• 1/2 ounce Saaz hop pellets
• 4 blood oranges, zested
• Yeast: Wyeast 3068 or 3638; or White Labs WLP300 or WLP380

1. Boil 4 gallons of water, remove from heat. Slowly stir in extract, then bring back to a boil
2. Add 1/2 oz. Hallertau hops and start timer for 60 mins
3. After 40 mins add the Saaz hops
4. Place the zest (not the white part, it's super bitter) and fruit of the orange in a muslin bag and steep in 1/2 gallon of water at 160F
5. Add another 1/2 oz. of Hallertau hops when there's 10 minutes left
6. After 60 mins, give the wort a good stirring and let it settle
7. Cool the wort down to about 70F and pour it into your sanitized fermenter along with the oranges
8. Aerate the wort, pitch the yeast, ferment for about 10 days, bottle, enjoy!

Thanks to gnedge for posting it, and Sam Calagione for creating it. Can't wait to brew this one up!

I Need This Beer

I've only seen the 60 and 90 minute IPAs around here. They're both nice beers, but the bigger the better! Even my friend who works for a beer distributor has trouble tracking it down... I'll get a bottle eventually. There's a recipe for the 60 Minute IPA in one of the brewing books I got, can't wait to brew that over the summer!

First Brew Day

We had our first brew day a couple days ago, a brown ale I bought with the fermenting equipment. For the most part it was smoother than anticipated, except for when I was putting on the airlock, the rubber grommet on the lid got pushed into the beer :(

Boiling the wort

FYI, it takes a LONG time to cool 5 gallons of water from 212F to room temp without the right gear...

What am I about?

What I plan to do with this blog is review beers from around the world and chronicle my personal brewing exploits. I enjoy beers of all shapes, sizes, and nationalities, and I want other people to as well. If I get someone to try a new craft or micro brew, or to try brewing their own, I'll be happy.

Cheers!