American Wheat Beer (Yummy Success)

[CrealCritter]

Can't beat Irish Red ale!

Irish Red Ale is a awesome brew We can't get a real Irish Red Ale here in the USA because of the gov regulations on imported beer alcohol content. So the only way to experience a true Irish Red Ale, is to brew your own or try to find a micro brewery that just might happen to be brewing some. I was looking at a original Irish Red Ale recipe from 1793. Its a pretty malty and has a little corn also very lightly hopped. Sounds delicious, I'm looking forward to getting it in the primary.

• Traditional Irish Red Ale ingredients for 5.5 gallons (20.8 L)

• MALTS
• 8 lb. (3.63 kg) Maris Otter pale barley malt

• 1 lb. (0.45 kg) flaked maize
• 4 oz. (113 g) dark roasted barley
• HOPS
• 1.25 oz. (35 g) East Kent Goldings
• YEAST
• Nottingham ale yeast

East Kent Goldings hops has an amazing aroma profile with lavender, spice, honey and notes of thyme. Flavor-wise it is earthy and mildly bittering with a sweet, silky, honey-like character. East Kent Golding is considered to be the quintessential English hop, long held as one of the island's favorites for ales and pale ales.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Geeze Louise! That's some active stuff there!

 

[CrealCritter]

Plum Nutty... But I avoided beer on the ceiling, by installing the blow off tube and securing it all with duct tape. Duct tape is like one of the greatest inventions ever.

I'm just glad I caught it in time. I'm going to have so much fun cleaning the inside of this carboy, but its better than cleaning it off the ceiling any day

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 2 - I think this rocket fuel is done fermenting and ready to rack into a secondary to clear out. I need to take a hydrometer reading to be sure its done, but fermentation has came to pretty much a stop. I'm getting a bubble about once a minute through the air lock. Its not all that uncommon to have the initial ferment complete in a couple of days with beer like this, with dehydrated yeast especially if the yeast is fresh, which mine was.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 3 - primary fermentation is done. Golden American Wheat looks so delicious in there. It needs to get off the yeast bed and be racked into a secondary for about 2 weeks to clear and settle, I'm debating with myself on adding gelatin in the secondary to speed up settling or not.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 4 - now that i got it up on the kitchen counter so I could get a good look at it. It's most definitely ready to rack into secondary fermenter. It's very cloudy, I know the hipsters don't clarify their beer but I'm not a hipster. I like a clear beer, so it looks like I'll need to add some unflavored gelatin to help clarify this batch. I'll rack it tomorrow to allow it to settle more from moving it around.

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 5 - racked into a 5 gallon secondary to clear out. I calculated the alcohol content of 6.5%ish, it will increase to around 7%ish once bottled and fully carbonated.

This is what I call a yeast bed, glad to get it off the yeast.

Its actually quite delicious coming right out of the primary, lightly hopped and full of wheat flavor, just how I like a summer beer.

Letting my cleaner / sanitizer do its work on the krausen crusted carboy. The less I have to brush the better

 

[CrealCritter]

Day 5 - really surprised how its clearing in such a short amount of time. I went to my fiends brew store today, to pick up a few things. I showed him this picture of it racked in the secondary and he talked me out of adding gelatin to speed the settling. It'll most likely be ready to bottle by next weekend. It looks a bit darker than it really is because the carboy is blue glass.

1 day in the secondary and its about 1/2 settled already.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

That's great!

 

[Marianne]

Wowser! How interesting!