Brewers Best Summer Ale

[Woodland]

I went to my LHBS today and browsed the selection of ale kits. I ended up coming home with the Brewers Best Summer Ale kit. It contains dried orange and lemon peel. The directions are always generic with those kits and this kit is no different, no instructions as to the how and when to add the dried peel. The person at the store suggested washing the mesh grain bag and reusing it for the peel and adding it at the last 15 minutes of the boil. I've also heard of people adding it to the secondary. Thoughts anyone? For the record I'll be using the White Labs California Ale yeast I harvested from the last batch. This will be my third Brewers Best kit with great results from the first two. Someday I'll grow up and start working with different recipes, but the kits are fine for now until I'm comfortable with the mechanics of brewing.

 

[Stuntman]

You are on the right path, slow and easy. Get the mechanics down, build up a pipeline so that your brews can stay in fermenters for a month, and a month in the bottles before consuming. You will be so much happier when they are conditioned.

Orange peel can be done both ways. Killer Bee Wit calls for it last two minutes.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f71/killer-bee-belgian-wit-73278/

I have a LOT of terrible habits, one of which is, not taking notes/labeling bottles or kegs so that I know what I did different the times that I have an awesomely great brew. Half of the fun with HBing is that you can experiment with different additions/times of additions.

 

[msa8967]

The peel can be added the last 10 minutes of the boil. I used to put the peel pieces in a hop bag but now I jst throw everything in. The orange pieces will end up in the trub of your fermentor, not in your beer unless you shake your primary too much prior to bottling. Unless you plan on dry hopping this beer I would not use a secondary.

 

[PHillBrewCo]

The directions tell you exacly what to do and when to do it. After you've steeped the grains you get your boil going. Once your boiling, stir in all of the DME and LME. Bring to a boil again. Once boiling again, add your bittering hops. Boil for 40 minutes. When 40 minutes is up, drop in your flavoring hops and the spice pack. Boil that for 15 minutes. Terminate boil after 15 minutes and add the aroma hops.

That's what the directions say to do. Hope it helps!

 

[Woodland]

I see it now in the instructions, duh. Lumped in with schedule for adding hops.

 

[Woodland]

So then it isn't necessary that the spices be in the primary? They're going to be strained out with the hops when I add the wort to the carboy.

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah,those instructions make you jump all over the page! My wife did that one as her first on National Home Brewer's day back in May. We just drank a 6'r of them last night. They're just about gone. I think the zest/spice pack should be re-hydrated in a cup of tea temp water before adding to the boil. Much of that 15 minutes seems to be wasted hydrating it before flavors are extracted. Took a long time in the bottles before that part of the flavor was good.

 

[Stuntman]

So then it isn't necessary that the spices be in the primary? They're going to be strained out with the hops when I add the wort to the carboy.

I have a hop bag, that catches most of the hops. When doing the orange peel, I will not put in the bag, but let it go into the kettle then into the fermenter. They are pretty large, and will stay in the trub when settling out. Next time I am going to try the tea method, like Unionrdr said. Sounds like a good plan to get the most flavor.

On a second note, if you are bottling I would not go as far as a month in the fermenters. Yeast will probably go dormant or die. I posted earlier that is how I do it, but I use gas instead of natural carbing almost every time. When naturally carbing I bottle when FG for three straight days.

 

[unionrdr]

Nope,wrong. They don't die,else folks wouldn't be washing the yeast at the bottom. And dormant isn't a bad thing,they just know when to quit. So don't worry about that,we've proven a lot of that wrong.

 

[BOTUS]

I have brewed quite a few of the brewer best kits. I like to change them up a bit and add different flavors to make them a bit more interesting. I was wondering has anybody else played around with this brewer and found anything good to add. I brewed it straight forward last year and it turned out well. Was looking to shake up a bit for this summer.