Belgian Wit Take 1

I have a project this summer...I need to make a beer good enough to serve at my friend's wedding. Pablo (his real name is Kevin, but I call him Pablo) asked me to brew one beer, and he would brew another to be served at the reception. We haven't discussed it in too much detail, but since it will be a summer wedding, his first thoughts were an IPA and a Belgian Wit. Since my first attempt at a belgian wit was not very good (no one even pretended to like it) I figure I should get some practice with the style. I decided to start easy, order a kit from Northern Brewer, and just swap out the bitter orange peel that it comes with (that stuff just looks like wood chunks) for fresh orange zest.

The plan was to do this in a scientific manner...I bought a notebook, I was only going to change one thing at a time, write down everything I did...but while setting up for brewday, I broke my hydrometer...aaaahhhh! Now I have to do this "science" project with only half of my "science-y" tools (the other being my thermometer). Oh well, even if I did take great notes and great measurements, the chances of me being able to repeat it is slim.

At any rate, this was my first all grain batch so maybe not knowing that I missed my gravity, or my efficiency is only 12% is a good thing. Here is the recipe (adapted from the directions that came with the Northern Brewer Belgian Wit kit)

3.5 lb Weyermann Pale Wheat

3.5 lb Belgian Pilsner

1 lb Flaked oats

Mash Schedule

Added 3 gallons of 163 degree water to bring to 152 degrees F (ok actually, the water was hotter, so I had to add ice cubes to bring it down to 152, but it went to 151, then dropped to 149 while it mashed for the hour)

Added 1 gallon of boiling water, to bring it to 156 F and started to drain to the brewpot.

Batch Sparged with 1.75 gallons at 172 degrees, plus some hot tap water (.25 gallons)

At this point I am not sure if I am even doing anything right, but I eventually got a pot full of wort, and put in on to boil.

Hops

60 minutes - 2 oz Strisselpalt

10 minutes - 1 oz coriander (whole)

10 minutes - Orange zest from 5 navel oranges

I pitched wyeast Belgian Witbeir yeast (I made a starter the night before, split between 2 growlers) and it is currently sitting in Dr. Tom's basement...we will see

Dark Lord Day 2010

I ended up not getting to Dark Lord Day until a little before 11 and it was already packed. There were no more legal parking places (I parked illegally, but there were too many cars for anyone to do anything about it) and the line was incredibly long. I carried my cooler full of beer and went in search of my friend Shane who had arrived much earlier. After finding each other, we went back to where he was hanging out with his co-pilot/Dad. From where we were standing, it seemed like we were waiting in line near the front... I asked Shane if we were in line and he didnt know. When the doors opened at 11, there were cheers and we started moving towards them...it turns out we were in line! I dont recommend trying the show up late and then cut in line strategy, but apparently it worked for my. I appologize to all that I cut, but in my defense, I didnt know and I only bought 6 of my 8 alloted bottles. The other two I used to get some 2009 vintage.

There they are...in all their glory...my freshly purchased dark lord (along with an empty bottle of Ottos Mt Nittany Pale Ale that I shared with guys around me in line)

Speaking of sharing, there was a lot of it. The sharing was by far the best part of the day. It seemed like anyone that I happened to be standing around was a homebrewer and had homebrew to share. It was awesome. Two guys I met while waiting in line to get a taste of the Dark Lord, Dave and Cy, were very cool and we tasted beer and talked about homebrewing for a while. Apparently they were taught to brew by the guy who is now the head brewer at Revolution Brewing in Chicago and they really wanted to introduce him to me. It would have been cool to meet him (especially since I could go and drink his beer later that night at the brewpub) but they couldnt get in touch with him. They also told me to try and come to some brew fest in Wisconsin, but that may be a little too far for me.

I tried looking for people I knew through twitter, but I had no luck. The cell phone reception was not great and sometimes couldnt get twitter to work properly. Maybe next time. I used my last ticket to get a taste of the alpha king, bought a sausage and went back to Chicago.

I finished the day at Goose Island with Amanda, and had some mussels and Matilda. It was a great dinner. On my way out, I bought myself a bottle of 2010 Bourbon County Stout and a t-shirt. It would have been awesome to be able to hang out for longer, but I had to get up and go to church with Amanda (she was preaching, it was pretty cool) so we called it a night after dinner.

Dark Lord Day was definitely worth the trip and I hope I can do it again next year. Cheers!