#abbey weiss

[brewmasterdros]

Abbey Weiss

With a cameo appearance by my friend GingerBrew!

[brewmasterdros]

Belgian Abbey Weiss - First attempt at all-grain brewing

This brew is based off of an Abbey Weiss recipe found on the HomeBrewTalk.com forums.  This is intended to be a light, easy drinking beer with nice belgian notes from the yeast and the chamomile and coriander, with very little in the way of hop or malt effects.

Brewed with the help of my friend GingerBrew using his equipment, since I have yet to take the financial plunge of creating my own all-grain system.  

For the fermentation I am going to simply use the spare bathtub in the spare bathroom, since I don't have temperature control (yet!).

OG: 1.052   FG: —     ABV: —    IBU: 20     SRM: 4

Size: 5.5 gallon       Mash: 167-164 for 60min       Ferment: 72-75 F

Grains:

7 lbs Pilsner Malt

5 lbs Wheat Malt

8 oz Rice Hulls (For mash consistency)

Hops:

2 oz Tettnang Hop pellets 4.5AA for 90 mins

Misc:

0.25 oz Chamomile Tea for 10 mins

0.25 oz Crushed Coriander Seed for 10 mins

Yeast:

White Labs Belgian Abbey Yeast

Notes:

10/22/11

Preliminaries went very well.  Used GingerBrew's equipment for my first all mash batch.  The 90 minute boil called for by the recipe seemed excessive, and I lost several gallons to the boil, winding up with about 4.25 gallons after boiling and sparging.  Also, despite using muslin bags for the hops, a lot of the material from the hop pellets ended up in my wort, so a LOT of straining was necessary.  Added 1 gallon of cool water to the wort to bring the volume up to 5.25 gallons before pitching yeast.

10/30/11

Racked from primary to secondary fermenter.  Still very cloudy, possibly due to movement when setting up siphon.  Gravity measured at 1.041

Tasting Notes:

10/22/11

After pitching, a small sample was taken to measure OG and for tasting.  Very strong bitter flavor, hoping it will mellow during fermentation and lagering.

10/30/11

Racked from primary to secondary fermenter.  Bitter flavor milder, yet still significant.