To start things off, I needed to bottle The Schitze! Barleywine Friday night. I tried cold crashing it before bottling. With Cold Crashing, you basically chill the bulk beer down so that more yeast and sediment fall out of it. This supposedly helps clear the beer more effectively, so you'll have a clearer final product. Here's a picture, along with Boone helping out.
Once bottling was done, there was about half of a pint left that couldn't fit into a bottle. So I had my first taste test of The Schitze!! Holy Cow! That stuff will knock your socks off! The initial taste is pure goodness. Smooth, sweet, some hoppiness and velvety. Then the alcohol kicks you right in the mouth. It's harsh. It's like jet fuel. However, this is why this beer is going to be aged for almost a year. It's a super heavy beer. It's going to take some time for that alcohol heat to mellow out. That initial taste though... That is really going to picque my curiosity as this brew ages.
Since the Secondary was now empty, that meant I had room to rack my IPA to the secondary. I couldn't really get my hop bag to work, so I just dumped in my hop pellets. I ended up using an ounce of Cascade, and a quarter ounce of Centennial to dry hop. If nothing else, this brew should smell pretty good. Here's how the IPA looks today.
So, with the IPA out of the Primary Fermenter, it just meant I needed to brew something to fill it up. For a nice simple summer brew I decided to make a Belgian Witbier. Here's the recipe:
- 6.6 lbs of Malted Wheat Liquid Extract
- 4 oz of Flaked Wheat
- The Zest of 3 Oranges
- Some Crushed Coriander (I'm not sure how much, I only had seeds and crushed them by hand)
- .5 oz of Centennial at 60 minutes
- .25 oz. of Centennial at 20 minutes
- Wyeast Belgian Wit Yeast
Presently, the Wit is bubbling away at about 68 degrees F. I plan on trying to keep the temperature as regulated as possible for this brew. This Beer will only be in the Primary for about 2 weeks, and then it goes straight to the bottle. Wits are not clear beers (mostly) and don't stand up to long aging so there will be no reason to rack this beer to the Secondary.
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