American Wheat Beer and General Updates

Today has been a productive day for me.

On my way back from an audition I stopped into Milk and Honey in downtown Salem MA to see if they had any rennet. Sadly, the answer was "no". Happily they had a great selection of organic food much of it from the area. They had an interesting selection of cheeses and other tasty things but what really caught my eye was their spices. They have a good selection of good quality spices for very cheap. I picked up an ounce of curry powder and an ounce of Chinese 5 spice for under 2 dollars. I am currently cooking some chicken with the 5 spice, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, brown sugar and garlic. It smells wonderful.

My sourdough is very active and I have been feeding it with white flour for the last two days rather than just the whole wheat flour I had been using previously. I am doing this to diversify what I can use it for. I love whole wheat but it's not ideal for every recipe. A couple days ago I did take half of the starter and make a nice thin crust pizza with fresh tomato, garlic and some of the ricotta I wrote about earlier. Very tasty. The crust came out nicely and had a great flavor that may have been a bit too robust for some but was great for me.

On another note I was welcomed home by a nice big box that included the ingredients needed for my next 5 brewing projects as well as a new brew kettle and some necessities like sanitizer. This was an order from my favorite online brew shop: Brew Masters Warehouse. I jumped right into brewing an American wheat beer that will eventually turn into a raspberry wheat.

This is the first wheat beer that I have brewed and it is also my first beer brewed using the technique known as decoction mashing. This is a technique in which you take a portion of the mash and boil it to make for a more pronounced malt character and increased body in the final beer.
The major part of the mash is currently resting around 154F and there is a small portion in a separate pot bubbling along. The unfermented wort is very tasty and I look forward to what this will turn into. The recipe is simple and is as follows.

1 gallon batch

1 lbs Briess white wheat
11 oz Briess 2 row
2 oz Briess 2 row caramel 10
.1 oz Chinook pellets at 30 minutes
Nottingham Ale Yeast

This is defined as an American wheat because I am using standard ale yeast rather than a traditional strain. It will lack some of the more complex characters that traditional wheat beers are known for but it will be a fine American wheat. Look forward to more updates on this batch and on my next small batch brews. I have ingredients for a graff, a smoked robust porter and an IPA all in 1 gallon sizes.