Brewing the Un-Wheat

I was at my brew shop last Wednesday trying to purchase ingredients to make SheppyBrew's world famous Summer Lovin' American Wheat. I was talking to one of the employees there about my win, and scooped out German Pilsner malt instead of the Wheat malt I meant to add to the recipe. By the time I realized my mistake, I had it crushed and blended in a bag with the rest of my malts.

Ooops.

At that moment, I decided to change what I was going to make last weekend. I decided to make Summer Lovin' Un-Wheat instead. Initially, I thought the only difference was going to be the pilsner malt replacing the wheat malt, but since I was changing the beer, I decided to try another thing I had been thinking about. Rather than the orange zest I put in the wheat beer, I am going to add orange juice concentrate after a couple days of fermentation. I also reduced the coriander a bit.

You can look at the whole recipe by following this link to the SheppyBrew website.

Brew day went pretty much as planned. I got started early Saturday morning. The mash temperature was pretty much where I wanted it. The pre-boil gravity was about perfect.

I remembered to add everything into the boil exactly when I wanted to add it.

I got the beer cooled and pitched right at about 60 degrees. The OG was exactly 1.050.

I kept the wort around 62 until the next day and let the temperature rise after that.

The beer has now been fermenting for two days and is still very active with lots of kraussen. Tomorrow or the next day, I will move the beer to my "secondary" fermentor along with a can of orange juice concentrate and let it sit for at least another week. Then I will keg it.

I'll be sure to let you know how it tastes.

Go Blackhawks.