Andy's Orange Wheat Ale 1.1

Last year, I designed an orange wheat recipe that turned out pretty phenomenally. In an attempt to replicate that success, I brewed up the next iteration yesterday. It's essentially the same recipe as before, modified slightly to accommodate ingredient availability.


Andy's Orange Wheat Ale 1.1

• 8 oz. 15°L crystal malt
• 5 lbs. Bavarian Wheat Dry Malt Extract (Briess; 3.0 SRM; 65% wheat, 35% barley)
• 2 oz. Liberty hops pellets
• 1 tsp. Irish moss
• 1 package American Hefeweizen Ale Yeast (White Labs WLP320)
• 5 fresh Valencia oranges

Directions

• I heated 3 gallons of water to ~158°, and steeped the crystal malt for one hour. Then, I sparged with a half gallon of water (plus ~2 cups, to bring it up to 3.67 gallons).
• I heated the brew kettle to a boil and turned off the heat. Then, I added the dry malt extract.
• Meanwhile, I zested the peel of five medium-sized Valencia oranges (fresh-picked, without the nasty wax coating you get in the grocery store), resulting in 1.35 oz. (wet) of peel. I was very careful not to go down to the white part of the peel, which is too bitter. Then, I peeled and sliced up three of the oranges (the remainder went to make fresh juice - delicious!). I put those oranges and orange peel in a hop sack and placed them in a saucepan with 1/2 gallon of water. I heated this to just boiling, and turned off the heat to let it soak (~45 minutes).
• Once the wort mixture came to a boil again, I added 1 oz. of the Liberty hops. After 55 total minutes of boil, I added another ounce of Liberty hops. After 60 minutes, I chilled the wort.
• The Irish moss was added after 45 minutes of boiling.
• I poured the wort into the primary fermenter and added the hot mixture of orangey water, slices, and peel. I topped the fermenter up with cold water to 5 gallons, and pitched the yeast. The temperature was 78°, and starting gravity was 1.046 (adjusted for temperature).
• I plan to let this ferment in the primary for 10 days before bottling.