Blauer Mond

Tonight, 10 December, I brewed a 1-gallon batch of a beer that I am calling Blauer Mond, which is inspired by Wayne1's recipe for the original Blue Moon, which he helped create in 1995.

Since Wayne has generously shared his recipe, I will post my 1-gallon adaptation here:

Blauer Mond
Inspired by Wayne1's Original 1995 Recipe for Blue Moon

1 gallon

OG - 1.053
FG - 1.012
ABV - 5.43%
IBUs - 14.16
SRM - 4.17


Fermentables

American Pale 2-Row Malt - 1 lb.
American White Wheat - 0.8 lb.
Flaked Oats - 0.2 lb.

Rice Hulls - 0.1 lb. (optional)

Mash @ 154 degrees for 60 minutes


60-Minute Boil

Hallertau Mittelfruh (2.6 AA) - 0.3 oz. at 40 minutes
Ground Coriander - 0.14 oz. @ 10 minutes
Ground, Dried Valencia Orange Peel - 0.2 oz. @ 5 minutes


Yeast - S-05

Click to expand...

The important thing to remember about this beer is that it is not a Belgian wit, nor is it intended to be; rather, it is an American take on that beer, made with American ingredients. These points were stressed by Wayne, and I believe that it is an important aspect to making this beer.

This brew went off very well, I think, and I truly enjoyed the aromas that I was getting throughout the mash and then the boil. I used Rahr malted barley and white wheat for the mash, along with flaked oats. Several have suggested the addition of rice hulls as well, in order to help with the sparge, so I added 1/10 of a pound of those.

My only difficulty was in keeping with the specified mash temperature of 154 degrees. I am used to staying within a range of 144-152, rather than trying to hold a specific temperature; however, I succeeded pretty well in this, and am sure that the finished beer will not have suffered.

I followed the schedule for the hops, coriander and Valencia orange peel as described above; the chill-down went very well and I had no trouble transferring to the fermenter or pitching the yeast.

Time will tell, of course, but I think it's going to be a good one!

More as it happens, etc. & c....

Ron

I checked on this today, and fermentation is starting. Krausen is beginning to form and it's looking beautiful. Success, I think!

A few notes to add to the above, for those who might be interested in trying this:

The main takeaway that I got from Wayne was that this is the recipe. Resist the temptation to mess with it or "improve" it and simply try it as is. I took that advice to heart and am glad that I did; the only real variable is my water, which is from a spring here in Montana that I use, un-modified, for all of my brewing.

The ratios for the grains are exactly as stated by Wayne. Rice hulls are optional and completely neutral; they will not affect the characteristics of the finished beer in any way. American grains are essential to the spirit of the original recipe.

Valencia orange peel is also essential - McCormick is probably best source, unless you have a specialty spice shop nearby...but it has to be Valencia, not some other variety. It also needs to be dried and ground, per Wayne's notes. As for the coriander, Wayne, who created the recipe, stressed that it was also ground, so if you use fresh coriander, make sure you measure it after it is ground. The amounts of the orange peel and coriander that I listed above are an "educated guess" based on scaling down the recipe from 5 gallons; the brew smelled perfect in the boil kettle, but of course I will have to wait and sample the finished beer before I know if I got it right the first time. If I need to adjust for future brews, I will note the development on this thread.

The hops are also perfect for this, in my opinion. You want to add them all @ 40 minutes left in the boil. Check your AAs on the hops in order to hit about 14-ish IBUs. For the ones I had, the amount in the recipe above was just right.

If anyone is motivated to try this, I hope you like it; so far, I am loving it! If you give it a go, post a report and a photo or two! Post any questions if you have them, and I will try to answer.

More as it happens, etc. & c....

Ron

Fermentation is proceeding. It is a little slower than expected but is definitely happening.

I will check it in the morning and see how things are.

Fermentation is proceeding, slow and steady. I thought that S05 was a little more active than this, but I could easily be wrong. There isn't as much Krausen as expected, but temperatures are fine and we're definitely making beer, and it looks nice, too!

Here is the label that I came up with for this beer:

I checked this when I got home from work tonight and I am happy to say that it looks as though fermentation is picking up pretty well. The "pace" of the "blip blip blips" coming out of the blow-off tube is quicker, and there is also a noticeable Krausen that is forming. The brew is smelling very nice, as well.

I am a week into fermentation with this, and everything looks normal and well. The beer is smelling wonderful, and the colour is looking amazing - exactly as I guessed it would look.

At the two-week mark - or maybe a little after that, considering the holiday - I will bottle this and we'll see what we end up with.

I'll be putting this in my refrigerator tonight in order to cold-crash over the weekend.

I plan to bottle it Monday, but it might be a day or three after that.

:fro: Any Updates? Pictures? Feedback?

Long story, but I bottled this tonight (8 February 2017). I had put it in to cold crash right before New Years, and it froze in my mini fridge. It eventually thawed, and I was finally able to bottle it this evening.

Note to self: I used the "gold" caps for this batch.

I was able to get 9 bottles from this batch; unfortunately, I somehow snagged one when I was finished, and it tipped over and broke, leaving only 8! Due to the extended cold crashing, this beer was exceptionally clear, and looked wonderful. Colour was a darkish orange, and it smelled incredible, with a hint of both the orange and coriander.

I had enough left over for a small bottling sample; it isn't carbonated yet, of course, but first impressions are that I have a winner here. Malts and hops came through well, with a good wheat character and a nice smoothness, presumably from the flaked oats. There was just a touch of spice from the coriander and the orange peel; enough to announce their presence without taking over. It seemed just slightly more bitter-tasting than I expected it to be, but I'll reserve judgement until it is finished and bottle conditioned for a couple weeks or more. It certainly tasted great all-around, and I really, really liked the aroma.

I'm pretty sure this will be one that I brew again and often, exactly as written above, but we'll see how it ends up!

I should add: due to the unintended extended time cold-crashing, and the fact that it ended up being frozen for a time, I thought it might be a good idea to add just a bit of yeast when bottling. I mixed a half-packet of a generic brewing yeast in a bottle of bottled water, then added a couple of tablespoons of the result to the (1-gallon) batch in the bottling bucket. I have no idea if this was a good or bad idea; successful or unsuccessful; necessary or unnecessary, but we'll find out in a couple of weeks, I guess.

Also, I used 1 "carbonation drop" per bottle, composed of corn sugar.

TasunkaWitko said:

I should add: due to the unintended extended time cold-crashing, and the fact that it ended up being frozen for a time, I thought it might be a good idea to add just a bit of yeast when bottling. I mixed a half-packet of a generic brewing yeast in a bottle of bottled water, then added a couple of tablespoons of the result to the (1-gallon) batch in the bottling bucket. I have no idea if this was a good or bad idea; successful or unsuccessful; necessary or unnecessary, but we'll find out in a couple of weeks, I guess.

Also, I used 1 "carbonation drop" per bottle, composed of corn sugar.

Click to expand...

This was probably necessary because yeast doesn't like to be frozen without some serious precautions and you may have killed what was suspended in your beer. I'm looking forward to how this turns out.

Hi, RM, and thanks for the info. I suspected as much, so I "feel" as though it was a good decision. Now, I hope that it was enough! I figured that two tablespoons of the "yeast water" swirled into the bottling bucket would be enough - we'll see how it goes.

Great news -

As mentioned above, I had some concerns about whether my Blauer Mond was carbonating. I'm happy to report that I cracked one open last night and gratefully heard the satisfying hiss of carbonation.

I was going to just re-cap the bottle, but then figured, why not? and poured a few drops into a cup to sample...just enough to get a taste.

Well, there were definitely carbonation bubbles dancing on my tongue, which was good; however, the really awesome thing was...it tasted great! I'll hold judgment until I'm drinking a full glass of it, but I think this may be one of my best.

Ron, do you feel the cold crashing was needed? Seems to me blue moon is kind of on the hazy side to begin with. Would you cold crash again, or no?

Hi, Mike - I definitely would cold-crash again, but only in order to pack the trub down in order to get the most beer possible in the bottles. But I certainly wouldn't let it go as long as I did this time...2 or 3 days would surely be enough!

PS - saw your post at "the other place" will try to reply this weekend!

I sampled the finished beer for the first time on Saturday, 25 February 2017. I will have more to post on this later, but here are some very brief "first impressions."

The beer had a great colour that seemed a small bit darker than predicted by Brewer's Friend. I could be wrong about this, as I accidentally deleted the photo that I took of it. Carbonation was good to possibly a bit too high, in spite of my earlier worries about it. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no head and of course no head retention. This is NOT the recipe's fault. It was my fault for at least two, possibly three reasons. The first is that my temperature control was very erratic during fermentation; the wort spent time being both way too warm, and way too cold when it was inadvertently cold-crashed and even frozen for about a month. The second reason is that I bottled this at the same time as I was bottling a Peanut Butter Porter that turned out to be suffering from excess oil issues, and I am pretty certain that some of those oil issues transferred over to my bottling of this batch. The third reason? Probably something I haven't yet considered; but given that this recipe has both wheat and oats in it, there should have been a great head. Whatever happened, it was my fault, I am certain of that.

The beer smelled absolutely perfect. The malts, hops and the spices (Valencia orange peel and coriander) made such a wonderful combination that I could find no fault at all. This aroma carried into the taste - It was malty enough, bitter enough and "spicy" enough that everything seemed, to me, to be as close to perfect as I could imagine. The orange and coriander were in amazing proportion - I was concerned about having too much or not enough, but it was just right. My dad, who is a committed Bud Light disciple, raved about it and said that he would like to brew it.

In short, I am going to cautiously say that I nailed it the first time (most likely due to luck and good guidance, certainly not due to skill), and that anyone wanting to brew a 1-gallon batch of this should follow the amounts and numbers in my original post.

The next time I try one of these, I intend to have a Blue Moon for a side-by-side comparison, as well as a bottle of "Beltian White," which is brewed not too far from me, and practically just over the hill from the hamlet where The Beautiful Mrs. Tas spent her childhood and teenage years:

http://www.harvestmoonbrew.com/beltian-white-belgian-style-wheat-beer/

We'll see which of the three wins out, but I can honestly say that this Blauer Mond is a serious contender; based on memory alone, it is tied for 1st place, if not the actual winner. This judgment of course excludes the problems with the head and head retention described above; I will fix those next time.

More as it happens - I will do my best to provide a photo next time, but be warned: that wonderful, beautiful head that is to expected probably won't be there, unless something extraordinary and fortunate happens with some bottle conditioning.

Ron

Here's a photo from 11 March 2017:



One thing to note - because of the very-much extended cold-crashing time, this came out clearer than I think it is probably meant to be. because of that, I think that the look is not quite what it "should" be, but it is still a beautiful beer as far as I am concerned.

I compared this side-by-side to the current Blue Moon, as well as to Beltian White, from Harvest Moon Brewing Company in Belt Montana. I found it to be better - in my opinion - than the current Blue Moon, and at least as good - in my opinion - as Beltian White.

Over-all, the Beltian White edged out the Blauer Mond as the winner, because a couple of mistakes I made resulted in a lesser-quality colour and head; but other than that, I think that I did a very good job with this, and I will absolutely be making this again, looking for improvement in my methods to result in a winner.

Here is a photo from 10 April 2017 -



This photo was taken about 10 seconds after pouring, and you can see how quickly the head disappeared; other than that, it is a pretty nice-looking beer, in my opinion, and it tasted incredible.

I am guessing that my next batch will not have the head problem, but the only way to know, of course, is to brew one - hopefully soon!

Well, it looks as though all this needed was a little time in the bottle to condition. Check this out:



The label slipped off, but no big deal....

I don't remember exactly when I took that photo, but it was after the photo above it. Maybe the first bottles weren't properly cleaned (which would affect the head), but I am very sure they were.

I will be brewing this again - it was easily one of the best beers I've brewed, with very big dividends for such a simple recipe...there is a good lesson there.

If anyone else tries this, please feel free to post any questions, comments or feedback - and, as always, please share your results and post a photo, if possible!

Conditioning in bottles for me was always very sketchy. Some bottles were perfectly carbed, others under carbed.. the second pic looks perfect.