American Pale Wheat with Citrus Zest

I have run out of hoppy beer yet again - need to learn to time things better.  For my next Pale Ale I'll be going back to a recipe I've used quite a few times previously using a pretty good amount of wheat and a combination of Citra and Amarillo hops with create a beer with strong Citrus like flavors.  To further enhance the citrus character I'm going to infuse the beers with some real citrus flavors.

I'll be getting the citrus I'll be making a Oleo Saccharum which is a simple syrup that extracts citrus oil from the peals.  This is a ingredient for old time cocktails.  It is very simple to make, you just peal citrus zest off the fruit, cover it in sugar, and then wait a few hours to a day and the sugar will extract liquid and flavors from the fruit and turn to a syrup.

For my batch I'm going to be using Orange and Grapefruit - both of which have flavor similar to what I get from these hops.  I'll add this syrup on transfer to the keg and then let the sugar ferment off to carbonate the beer (and hopefully do a bit of oxygen scavenging as well in the process).

Other than the citrus it's a fairly standard beer.  I'll be using enough grain to get a ~3% beer, bittering with 1 oz of hops, flavoring with 5 oz of hops at the end of the boil, and then Dry hopping with 6 oz of the Citra and Amarillo.  This seems like a sweet spot to get a refreshing and drinkable hoppy beer that I can have as many pints of as I like.

I'm thinking the citrus will be a nice subtle additional element to the beer.  Hopefully it is present in the flavor but not overwhelming.  I plan to try this again if it's not a disaster.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 5 lb Pale Malt
• 4 lb flaked wheat
• 5 oz Crystal 10L
• 3 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Columbus (Leaf, 14.6% AA) at 60 min
• 2 oz Columbus (Leaf, 14.6% AA) at 0 min
• 2 oz Centennial (Leaf, 10.1% AA) at 0 min
• 2 oz Amarillo (Leaf, 8.8% AA) Dry Hop
• 4 oz Citra (Leaf 13.1% AA) Dry Hop
• Yeast:
• Imperial Yeast A38 Juice (3rd Pitch)
• Water:
• 14 gal of spring water
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min
• Extras
• Citrus Sugar:
• 5 oz Sugar
• Zest of 2 oranges
• Zest of 2 grapefruit
• 1 cup water

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6.25 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 160 for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 65 F
• Primary Duration:
• 2 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• 2 weeks in Keg

Results:

• OG:
• 1.036 (Target 1.038)
• Efficiency:
• 68% (Target 69%)
• FG:
• 1.013 (Target 1.013)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 63% (Target 63%)
• ABV:
• 3% (Target 3%)

Brewing Notes:

• 11/5/21 - Made a yeast starter with 100g of DME and 1 L of water.  Set this up on stirplate to propagate over night
• 11/6/21 - Brewday - 12 PM to 4:45 PM - Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 9 gal of spring water to 185 F
• Milled my grain.  Added Gypsum and CaCl to it so I wouldn't forget

• Moved 5 gal of water to the mash tun.  Let the water cycle through the RIMS until the system had hit 170 F
• Stopped the RIMS and stirred in the grain.  Took care to eliminate doughballs.  Let this settle for 10 min.  Temperature was 158 F after this
• Cycled the RIMS at 161 F for 50 min

• Heated 9 gal of spring water to 185 F for the sparge
• Drained the mash tun and added hot water to the top until I'd collected about 5 gal.  Started to heat the kettle after collecting 3 and had it a boil shortly after collecting 5.
• Topped up the mash tun with hot water and let sit for 10 min.  Slowly drained the mash tun into the kettle until I had 9 gal.  Did this very slowly so the boil wasn't interrupted
• Added the bittering hops at this point and boiled for 60 min

• With 15 min left I added the irish moss
• With 5 min left I added the wort chiller to sanitize
• At the end of the boil I added flavoring hops.  I put a low flow of water in to chill down to about 190 F.  I then let the hops steep for 30 min which took the temperature from 190 F down to 170 F

• Chilled the wort down to 70 F
• Drained into my stainless steel brew bucket - Pitched the yeast during the transfer
• Collected 6.25 gal.  Measured the gravity at 1.036
• Set the fermenter up in my fermentation chamber with my jar based airlock to capture some C02 which will protect the beer during cold crash
• 11/7/21 - Fermentation is a bit slow to get started - no airlock activity yet but there is a bit of foam on the beer which makes me feel a bit better
• 11/20/21 - Dry hopped the beer
• 11/21/21 - Cold crashed the beer to 45 F
• 11/25/21 - Made my citrus syrup:
• Pealed the thin layer of peal off 2 oranges and 2 red grapefruit

• Mixed the peal in a bowl with sugar

• Let this sit over night
• 11/26/21 - Kegging day:
• Transferred beer to keg until I had 5 gal.  I'd first filled the keg with sanitizer and pushed it all out with C02.  Then I fed the CO2 into the fermenter to push the beer into the keg
• Once the transfer was complete the keg was depressurized
• I added 1 cup of boiling water to the citrus syrup and filtered out the orange rinds.  The syrup has a very strong orange/grapefruit aroma

• Took the lid off the keg quickly and poured in the syrup

• Pressurized the keg up quickly the make it seal well and left the beer out at basement temperatures to ferment off the sugar.  I'll give it a week at basement temps
• 12/5/21 - Moved the beer onto tap.  It was already carbonated - a bit over carbonated initially
• 12/29/21 - Tasting Notes - It's a pretty nice drinking beer with a nice hop focused flavor.  It isn't the most complex beer I've made and the hop character is fairly mild as far as these beers go.  Only going by my imperfect memory I'd say this beer isn't quite as hoppy as some of my other recent examples.  I also think a slightly higher staring gravity could be helpful as think it could have done with just a bit more balance to the malt.  Still, I'm happy to drink every drop of this keg.  As for the citrus, I'd say it certainly doesn't overwhelm the beer used at these levels - I think I'll try this approach again at some point using a bit more.
• 2/6/22 - Kicked the keg today.  Hop/Citrus character was still plenty strong at the end.