Belgian Caramel Wit

For our second beer, we wanted to do something summery and lighter than the Pale Ale we did last. We purchased the kit from Fifth Season, an organic gardening store at Western and Jones Franklin. Their prices are better than American Brewmasters in North Raleigh but they only sell Brewer's Best kits. We decided on the Belgian Caramel Wit because it was very different than the Pale Ale and should be quite summery.

The instructions were unexpectedly difficult to follow. For such a widely used brand, I expected something simpler and more detailed to the specific recipe. I doubt we'll ever purchase another Brewer's Best kit.

Because we are still using a 3 gallon pot, we started off pre-boiling about 3 gallons of water to mix with the wort once it was completed. The recipe said to steep the grains in something like one gallon per two pounds of grains so we ended up steeping the grains in only 1 gallon of water. Two pounds of grain is A LOT of volume to submerge in 1 gallon of water. Seems weird to me, but it worked out okay.

Mmmm its like making Beer Tea.

We steeped the grains for 45m at approximately 155° then poured another gallon and a half over the grains to leech out any remaining flavor goodness and bring the boil volume up to 2.5 gallons. Because we were using a tiny hand-held meat thermometer it actually got all the way up to 169° at one point. We were afraid we burned the grains but it ended up being okay.

This recipe called for A TON of malt extract. 3.3 pounds of liquid and another 2 pounds of dry, plus 1 pound of candi syrup. The liquid malt was easy to add and went in first along with bittering hops. We did forget to turn off the burner but the bottom of the pot was easy to clean so it didn't seem to have burned.

Mt. Hood Bittering Hops

It turns green after adding the hops!

After 45 minutes we added the DME and candi syrup. The dry malt extract was much more difficult to add. When pouring it into the pot from the bags, the steam from the pot caused it to stick to the bag and clumped up. It was really hard to get mixed in. (Notice the new paddle spoon! Much easier than our standard kitchen spoon!)

DME is STICKY!

We boiled for another 15 minutes. To cool down the wort much faster than an ice bath, L built a wort chiller! We moved the pot to the sink then put the sanitized wort chiller in the pot. It attaches to the sink and cold water flows through cooling the wort, the flows down the sink. It makes the cooling process SO much faster!

Chillin' the Wort.

For this batch, we used dry yeast, but started it before adding it to the wort. Apparently true yeast starters involve multiple days and malt extract, but this worked just fine.

Yeasties bubblin' away.

We remembered to take an Original Gravity this time. It was 1.013. I think I'm going start a campaign to change the name of "Original Gravity" to "Initial Gravity." As a scientist, it just makes more sense.

INITIAL gravity.

 After a week, we racked it over to secondary fermentation. That's always a messy process.

All the gunk left behind in the primary fermenter.

After another two weeks, we kegged and pressurized the beer. The following day, which, coincidentally was another brew day, we tasted it for the first time!

It was REALLY tasty!! We took it to both of our mom's houses for Mother's Day and all the family agreed it was delicious! It's definitely something I would only want to drink in the summer and I don't want to drink glass after glass, which is good because it is lasting much long than the Pale, which only lasted a week!!