Brewed: Winter Wheat Ale

By scot in Beer, Beer Recipes, Home Brewing on Sunday, January 15th, 2017

Winter Wheat ale was a quick zigzag when trying to brew up another batch of Grass Cutter wheat ale. In case you haven’t been following along, Grass Cutter wheat ale is a beer that I home brew up for the wife once a year or less.

I haven’t had much time to brew lately. Telling the wife that I would make a beer she likes seemed to be the best way to carve out time from our busy schedule while doing good for others. 😀

I decided on Grass Cutter. Brewing it would have to do without the Saaz hops that I normally use as I was out and a trip to the home brew store wasn’t in the schedule. Not a big deal. Once brew day arrived, I collected up my supplies, including Azacca and Cascade hops. Yes, I know, no where near Saaz. It’s what I had.

Home Brewing Winter Wheat Ale

How did I come up with a new beer? First off, asking that rhetorical question loosely. Secondly, on brew day I was missing coriander as well. Coriander adds more pronounced orange while giving off some pepper notes as well. This is a big change to a beer that usually consider to be an Americanized Belgian Wit.

I had zigged around the hops, now it was time to zag around the missing coriander. Two major changes to a single recipe make for a new recipe, thus Winter Wheat Ale.

I also decided to add the zest at one orange, soaked in vodka, at bottling. I did this in the past with Grass Cutter and it adds a huge orange boost. Cheers to hoping this one turns out somewhat decent. Enjoy!

Recipe for Winter Wheat Ale

General Information:
Brew Date: Sunday, January 15, 2017
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: S-05, not hydrated
Yeast Starter: none
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.50
Original Gravity: 1.052
Finishing Gravity: 1.005
IBU: 20.8
Color: 4.0 SRM
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%
Alcohol by Volume: 6.17%
Primary Fermentation: 10 days @68*F

Grain Bill:
6.00 pounds 2-Row
3.00 pounds Red Wheat
1.00 pounds Munich

Mash:
Saccharification @150.3*F

Hop Bill:
1.00 ounces 2015 Cascade @20 minutes
1.00 ounces 2015 Azacca @5 minutes

Extras:
1.0 tsp Irish Moss @15 minutes
1.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient @15 minutes
1.0 tsp Orange peel, bitter @15 minutes
1.0 tsp Orange peel, sweet @15 minutes
1.0 fresh Orange zest (soaked in vodka), @15 minutes
4.0 quarts of rice hulls

Updates

• 2017-01-29: Bottled with 3.8 ounces of priming sugar and 2.0 cups of water. 28, 22 ounce bottles. Bottle crown label: GC.

Useless Fact: This year (2017), 30-second ads for the Super Bowl will cost around $5.5M.