Orange Wit beer

Firstly, I have to mention this AWESOME guy called Mike at Brew and Grow in Roselle, IL.  He is the reason we can make yummie beer.  You go in there, take a few beers, reminisce over beers that you enjoy and a recipe develops.  This guy is just the best.  If you're near there drop by and say Hi.  They also give generous samples ;)

So the recipe we used for this beer is as follows:
5lb Pilsner malt (Rahr)
1lb flaked oats
2lb malted white wheat
2lb unmalted torrifies
1tsp amalyse enzyme
1/2oz corriander
1/2oz dried orange peel
3/8 oz cascade hops
Wyeast #3944 belgian Whit

While picking up the grains at the store, visiting with the guys and sipping our samples we grind up our grains.  There is a hand mill in store and this is my purpose in life ;)

The night before brewing we draw seven gallons of water (as much as much as the bucket can hold).  Then we add ¼ of a campden tablet; this is to bind the chloramine in the water since our water comes from a city source.  The Cl- ions will evaporate as gas overnight.  The tablet does help with Cl- ions too.

Now on brew day, we heat up about 3 gallons of water to 155F then we add our grains to the water which causes a drop in temperature; 

so, we continue to heat until we achieve 150F and then add 1 tablespoon of amylase (because it’s a wheat beer and 1 tablespoon because i can't tell the difference between a table- and tea-spoon) and then hold for one hour.  This extraction will result in a medium to dry beer.

Next, we transfer the liquid to the bucket and sparge the grains to wash the last of the deliciousness into the beer; this adjusts the volume to 6 gallons with the expectation that we will boil one gallon away.

We then wash the kettle, get rid of the grains and siphon the liquid (wort) back into the kettle.  At this stage it is important not to get too much air mixed into the wort.

Next we boil!  We bring the whole kettle to a rolling boil and add ¼ oz of the cascade hops.  Then 15 minutes into the boil we added the ½ oz orange peel and ½ oz of coriander seed. 

Here we're using sweet and bitter orange peel at 50:50. The final weight remains constant, we just felt like changing it up a little!

Then in the last 15 minutes of the boil we add the 1/8 oz cascade hops, a whirlfloc tablet and put the chiller into the beer to sterilize.

At the beginning of the boil, we popped the yeast package in order to bloom the yeast.  After the 1 hour boil the bag was looking very puffy.

Once the hour is up we attach the chiller to the water and chill the beer to room temperature (check the yeast package for exact measurements).  At this stage everything is sterilized prior to use (hoses, buckets, yeast packages, EVERYTHING!)  The beer is transferred into the fermentation bucket with lots of agitation.  Air is very useful here to get the yeast started before they turn all those sugars we’ve just extracted into alcohol.  We then pitch the yeast and close the bucket until it has mostly stopped bubbling (this takes about a week).

Once the beer has completed it’s most active fermentation we transfer it into secondary; at this stage we are trying to separate out much yeast form the beer.  If you’re not bothered about yeast then you can leave out this filtering step.

Once the fermentation is completed we transfer our beer to bottles.  There is a sterilize setting on our dishwasher and this is how we prepare our bottles.

We mix 3oz of priming sugar with a little water and heat.  Once we achieve boil we close the pan (with the lid) and continue to boil for 15 mins to sterilize.  Once cooled we transfer the sugar and the beer back into the sterilized bucket.  

Here we give it a really good stir to put air back into the beer and help wake up the yeast so that they can put the carbon dioxide into the beer.  Then we use a little widget to bottle.  

Now we wait at least 3 weeks to pop the beer and enjoy.