Pic heavy - My Golden American Wheat Ale Beer Recipe

[CrealCritter]

Part 3 (10 file per post limit)

 

[CrealCritter]

Part 3 (10 file per post limit)

Before we grab that delicious kettle of wort and dump it in the carboy. I have to say a few words about hops. You may have noticed we didn't remove the hop additions, so there are two muslin bags of hops in the bottom of the kettle. Dogs love hops but hops can kill a dog, read here for more information ---> https://www.aspca.org/news/dogs-beer-getting-bottom-hops-toxicity. So treat your hops as you would any other poisonous substance.

Now we can add the wort to the carboy. Simply grab the kettle, remove the lid and as quickly as possible without spilling any, pour it into the funnel and into the carboy. As you come to the end of the pour, you'll see the two hop bags. If you careful by slowing the pour you can get almost every last drop out of the kettle while leaving the hop bags in the kettle.

Once you have dumped as much wort as you can into the carboy. Remove the funnel and place it into a bucket of sanitizer. Next dip your bung in sanitizer and place it snugly in the top of the carboy. Then drip the wadded up paper towel in the sanitizer and place it snugly in the top of the bung, while you dispose of the hop bags as a poisonous substance. Then rinse your kettle well in the sink, you don't want to leave it until later and possibly have your dog lick the wort out of the kettle remember the wort is sweet but it's poisonous to dogs.

Next you need to top the carboy to 5 gallons with distilled water. Make sure you clean the outside of the water jug with a rag soaked with easy clean, dip the top of the jug in sanitizer, remove the lid and wipe the top of the jug with a rag soaked with sanitizer. Also, remember any time you remove the bung and wadded up paper towel, dip it in sanitizer before replacing it in the top of the carboy. My carboy is marked with gallons and pints, many carboys are not. If yours isn't, when you first clean your carboy before use fill it with 5 gallons of easy clean and mark the height with a permanent marker for future reference.

Next with the carboy topped off and bunged with paper towel stuffed in the top, rock the carboy back and forth vigorously for a good 2 or 3 minutes. This mixes the distilled water and wort but more importantly it oxygenates the wort. Yeast needs oxygen and sugars to reproduce and feed.

Rocking the carboy

Once you've rocked the carboy topped to the 5 gallon mark, it's time to see just what the potential alcohol content could be. You use a hydrometer to determine the "OG" (Original Gravity) this tells you the amount of fermentables there is contained in your wort. There is a great article on hydrometer basics located here that I refer to often ---> https://www.homebrewit.com/hydrometer-basics-for-home-brewing-and-wine-making.

This recipe calls for a OG of 1.068 for a finished ABV (Alcohol By Volume) of 6.7% . i prefer my beers to finish around 7%. However, when I measured the OG I was over a little bit so I added more distilled water to bring the OG down to around 1.068. Just so happen I had to increase the volume to 5 1/2 gallons, which is perfectly ok, it just means I'll have a few more bottles of beer when I bottle. More beer is more better actually when I developed this recipe, I was conservative on my efficiency and rated myself, my brewery setup and processes at 70%. I guess I'm a little more effective, than I thought I was. I still have a ton to learn.

I syphoned wort out of the carboy to measure OG with a turkey baster for dollar tree. It works great and it's super easy to clean and sanitize. I have a nice wine thief that I can syphon off the bottom of my big 6 1/2 gallon carboy. But in all honesty, I like the 11" cheap $1.00 turkey baster from dollar tree a lot better. I bought two, so I have a spare.

Measuring OG with a hydrometer (1.068ish).

Noe that you tweaked your OG, go ahead and pitch the yeast. Even though I made a starter from yeast I harvested from a previous batch. The recipe calls for two packages of muntons dry ale yeast. Take a pair of clean scissors and drip into your sanitizer, remove the bung from the carboy. Cut the corner of one of the yeast packages and slowly pour the contents into the carboy. Try and aim for the center of the opening of the carboy because yeast will stick to anything moist like the inside of the lid of the carboy. Add the contents of the second yeast pack. Dip your bung and wadded up paper towel and place the bung back into the top of the carboy.

Adding yeast starter to the wort, with grand daughter's supervision

Now all you have to do is clean and sanitize your airlock (I like the 3 piece air lock). Fill the air lock 1/2 way with sanitizer. Remove the wadded up paper towel and push the air lock down into the hole in the bung and that's it.

Move your carboy to a dark cool place l (no sunlight) to ferment. Its kind of cool to observe the fermentation process when it starts producing CO2 gas that escapes through the air lock.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 2 - head fell and got a bubble through the air lock about once every 5 seconds. This batch took off like a rocket about 2 hours after I pitched yeast starter that I harvested from a previous batch.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 3 - there's a air bubble about once every 15 seconds through the air lock. Yeasties are cleaning up after themselves, eating the more complex sugars, on there way back to the bottom. They leave behind the beautiful tasty Golden American Wheat beer.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 5 - have a bubble trough the air lock about once every 45 or so seconds. Looks like it should be ready to be racked into the secondary fermenter by Sunday or day 7. You want to rack it into a secondary, a little before primary fermentation is complete. I'll also wash the yeast in the primary for reuse In future batches, it'll be 2nd generation.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 8 - racked into secondary to finish fermenting and clear as much as possible, before bottling. Wheat will never totally clear it's the nature of this style of beer. Most commercial wheats are filtered to clear and kill off the yeast and then artificially carbonated with CO2 gas.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 11 / day 4 in secondary. Clearing out nicely, most likely will bottle Saturday or Sunday. That's about right... 1 week in primary, 1 week in secondary, 2 weeks in the bottle.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 12 / day 5 in secondary. It's cleared out and ready to bottle but my bottling crew (daughter & son-in-law) ain't available until Sunday. That's OK a couple more days in the secondary won't hurt it none. We are going to bottle up Octoberfest at the same time.

About as clear as it gets for live yeast, unfiltered wheat beer.

There's a thin layer of trub on the bottom.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 16 - bottling day. Make up bottling primer by bringing a pint of distilled water to a boil. Turn off the flame and stir in 5 ounces of pure cane sugar untill fully dissolved. Cover with lid and cool the pan on the sink the same way to did your wort. Once cool dump the contents in to a clean and sterile bottling bucket. Then rack (syphon) your beer out of the secondary into the bottling bucket, leaving trub behind in the bottom of the secondary. Gently stir with a clean and sterile long handled spoon the beer in bottling bucket a back and forth motion for about 30 seconds to mix the primer into the beer real well. Place the lid on the bottling bucket and set on a counter to use gravity to fill clean and sterile bottles. A bottling wand comes in handy to fill bottles, spend the extra couple of bucks to get a good spring loaded kind. https://www.hobbyhomebrew.com/produ...filler-stick-for-12-racking-cane-siphon-hose/

Just remember everything that touches your beer must be clean and sterile and you'll be ok. For example, I place my bottle caps in a clean glass bowl and submerge them in san-star. Bottles are a pain to clean. If I need to remove labels, I soak them in warm water with oxy clean until the labels slip off. Then I'll remove glue reside with a scrubby pad. I use a bottle bush and brush the inside well. Then I rinse them twice inside and out with clean warm tap water to remove the slick film that oxy clean produces. I then soak them in easy clean for about 10 minutes, they dry sparkling clean. To sterilize the insides, I use a vinator loaded with Star-San water mix, which makes it easy... https://www.hobbyhomebrew.com/product/vinator-wine-bottle-sterilizer-rinser-avvinatore/

Anyways... This batch produced 51 12 ounce long necks. I'll crack one open after 2 weeks of storage at room temperature. It should be carbonated then but it improves with a little age and is at its peak after about 4 weeks conditioning in the bottle.

Gold capped bottles are this Golden American Wheat.

Hit me up if you want to brew this recipe. I'm far from a brewer but i'll do my best to answer any questions you may have.

Cheers and enjoy your smooth and rich home made liquid golden american wheat bread (previous batch of this recipe fully matured).

I hope you enjoyed this basic little how to. I'm absolutely sure I missed some major points. It's merely a reflection of my experience level or.lack there of with brewing beer. I have so much more to learn about this craft. But for me, I learn best by doing - so I'll keep on brewing and become a little more experienced over time.

Experience is a strange thing, you get it, right after you needed it.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 23 / Bottle conditioned 7 days. I put a bottle in the freezer for about 45 minute. I wasn't expecting much for only 7 days. But I was pleasantly surprised. When it poured with a nice creamy off white head. Its smooth and malty sweet. The head lasted all the way to the last swallow and left a lot of lacing in the glass. I gave my wife a bottle Friday to boil cook bratwursts in and they turned out awesome also.