Agent Orange - A Mr. Beer Experiment

[Scot_chale]

this is my 2nd brew and i'm all ready bored. I purchased the Mr Beer set up after seeing my cousin brew a Northern Brewer Lefse Blonde. It came with the West Coast Pale Ale set up, and i followed the directions. A month later my girlfriend's mother gets me a 2nd kit, with the same recipe. Having a second 2-gallon keg is interesting, but the recipe is not. With the homework I've been doing, I think I've come up with a recipe and procedure, but I figured I'd share it and see what the internets has to say.


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"Agent Orange" West Coast Pale Ale
2 Gal
Abv-4.1%
7 Weeks

Ingredients:
1 West Coast Pale Ale HME
1 Booster
1/2 cup honey (local)
2 oranges
1/2 oz Cascade Hops
1/4 cup priming sugar

Schedule:
2 Weeks of Primary Fermentation
2 Weeks of Secondary Fermentation
2 Weeks of Carbonation
1 Week Cold Conditioning


Instructions:

Sanitize everything, including hop sack.

Prep the oranges. One will be used now, one will be used at 2nd fermentation. Strip off the peel, cut into strips, and remove all white with a paring knife. put the other orange in the fridge. or don't buy one yet. you won't need it for 2 weeks.

Tie off the hops and trim excess cloth. Add hop sack to 4 cups of water and bring to a boil. Remove heat. Let sit with a cover for 5 minutes. Add booster and return to boil. Meanwhile, have the HME and honey sitting in separate hot water pot to help it pour more easily. Remove heat, and add your orange rind, stir. Add HME, stir. Add honey, stir. When everything is dissolved and a nice fluid consistency, add it to your Mr Beer Keg. Follow the rest of the instructions as they read.

2nd Fermentation

sanitize your hose, nozzle, and other Mr Beer keg. attach the hose to the nozzle of the first keg and allow the hose to enter the bottom of your second keg. release the valve and allow the beer to fill the 2nd keg. before you cap, take one orange, cut in half, remove visible seeds, and squeeze it directly into the 2nd keg. cap it.

Bottling

boil your priming sugar with 2 cups of water and watch it closly. don't it get over done and make a mess. when the heat is steady and the sugar is dissolved, add it directly to your 2nd keg by removing the cap. stir lightly. use the nozzle on the 2nd keg to fill your bottle within 2 inches from the top. cap, and store at the same temperature as your kegs have been at.

Conditioning

move bottles to a cooler and let sit for 1 week.

Drinking

open the cap, using a state-of-the-art bottle opener, and pour into a liquid retainer. glass works best. open your lips to reveal the teeth. open the teeth and the mouth is ready for your beer. allow fluid to flow into the stomach. repeat as necessary.

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what do you think guys? I'm looking for feedback. I have not yet made this beer, I'm just planning it as much as possible before I do it. Cheers!

 

[Colorowdy]

Looks good I have been using Mr. Beer for a few months producing pretty drinkable beer. DO NOT use the other keg as a secondary it's not air tight. If you can find some light dry malt extact use that in stead of boooster. You might find it at a kitchen shop if you don't have a local home brew store. I boil a little more water than recomended with the HME with the honey for 20 minutes. Then i would add the orange peels with 10 minutes left in the boil. Have you thought about adding a little clove and corriander too. If you add them put them in with five minutes left in the boil. Also if you use these and they are powdered like Mcormicks less then a quarter teaspoon of each should add some nice flavor.

 

[BrewinHooligan]

It looks like a good recipe, but I would definitely either sub a pound of DME for the Booster, or use it with and you will get a much tastier beer and it will be stronger too!

 

[rodwha]

I got a Mr Beer kit with the West Coast Pale Ale and attempted to turn it into an IPA.
I would look into getting a UME or 2. 1 to replace the booster with and another to bring up the ABV.

 

[Scot_chale]

i'm comfortable with the ABV. I decided to use pellet Willamette hops instead of Cascade. they were cheap on ebay. blame the economy. they showed up today so brew day is sunday. if i were to hot glue the rivets in the lid of the 2nd keg, could i 2nd ferment in that then? i've thought about doing this to both and modifying it to have a bubbler on top. from brew day, i have 2 weeks to decide if I'm going to transfer it or not. let's make a decision citizens!

 

[Scot_chale]

oh, and i'm extending the boil to 45 minutes. i just started reading "the complete joy of home brewing" and though "mr beer" says i don't have to boil hardly at all, and their customer service reps told me the HME is "pre-boiled", i'm going to do it. the book says to boil for at least 45 minutes weather they suggest to or not.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

A 60 minute boil is customary to isomerize the bittering hops. If If you are using pre hopped extract you merely need to pastureize the extract. Boiling extract will darken the wort and the resultant product. Neither good nor bad, just a consideration. Mr. Beer is designed to be an easy process. The expectation is that you will continue to buy more kits from them, since few retailers other than Mr Beer provide pre-made kits for 2.5 gallon batches. Have you considered stepping up to a 5 gallon batch and using a Brewer's best kit? That's where I started. Still the convenience of having all the ingredients prepackaged for you, and you can begin assembling the additional equipment such as a larger brew pot, etc.

 

[ludomonster]

I think Northern Brewer's starter kit is slightly better than the Brewer's Best Kit. There are a couple of items that aren't in the Brewer's Best Kit.

If your Willamettes are around 4% AA, you'll probably miss the IBU target for an American Pale Ale.

You might want to blanch the orange when you add it to secondary. Fruit is covered with yeast and bacteria.

You probably only need a week in secondary.

However, you probably need 2 weeks to carbonate. After that, you shouldn't drink it all as soon as that two week period is over. Many beers benefit from aging a few more weeks.

 

[Scot_chale]

thanks for the advice. i am planning on graduating to the Northern Brewer Deluxe Kit when the funds are available. I got the Mr Beer because I was present for my cousin's brew of a Lefse Blonde using the Nothern Brewer Kit and Mr Beer was available to me the very next day. I recently acquired a large bag of local wheat. being that I'm adding orange, and basically trying to make a blue moonish clone, would adding wheat to this brew be a good idea. if so, how much, and at what point during the boil should i steep and remove? brew day is sunday - 4/22/12. it's crunch time.

 

[Scot_chale]

also, i ordered Willamette hops and Galena hops at the same time, so i have both available. which one is going to help me balance out the sweetness and neutralize the flavor?

 

[Scot_chale]

just sealed the cap. it was a hectic boil. we prepped the oranges. i tried to crush the wheat with a rolling pin and a hammer. some of it got crushed, but most didn't. i used 1/2 cup. i started the boil with the hops in it. added the booster and the wheat. then HME and honey. i was ready to chill the wort, and saw this blue bowl on the table with the orange peel. i kinda freaked out. i added the peel, and zested another orange and squeezed it in the boil, so i extended the boil from 45 min to 60 min. i also squeezed an orange into the fermentation chamber that had some cold water waiting for the wort. i got some munton's yeast from the same friend that gave me the wheat. i added that to some hot water, then added sugar water and waited for it to start moving around. before i added the yeast, i tasted it with all the water added to it and it tasted pretty damn good. the cap is sealed. i'm doing 2 weeks in primary fermentation. i'm going to attach a hose to the nozzle and transfer it into a 2nd fermentation chamber. sit for 2 weeks. then bottle, with some priming sugar instead of granulated like the instructions say. two weeks of carbonating. then two weeks of cold conditioning in the fridge. god i hope this works. Agent Orange is a total mystery at this point.

 

[ludomonster]

Your beer isn't going to be sweet. Also, I don't know if steeping wheat is going to do anything. Generally, wheat is malted and then mashed. You should be able to tell if the wheat did anything because wheat proteins makes beer cloudy.

Also, Blue Moon is a Belgian Style Witbier.

You don't need to have a violent boil. It should just be a rolling boil.

 

[Scot_chale]

we're almost done with 1st fermentation. it tastes nice, the orange is present but not overwhelming. it's overall very balanced. i'm planning on transferring to 2nd fermentation sunday. i got some tubing, and after chatting with the northern brewer guys, i'm going to soak the peel of another orange in 2 TBSP of vodka overnight, then add it to the 2nd fermentation chamber after the transfer. then two weeks of secondary, 2 weeks of carbonating, and 2 weeks of cold conditioning. what do we think about a little dry hopping with either galena or willamette?

 

[ludomonster]

Dry hopping this beer may be doing too much. But if you want to do it, I suggest using a citrusy hop.

You should dry hop with high alpha acid hops. You get more oil for the vegetative mass. (You don't want it to come out grassy)

 

[Scot_chale]

i think adding the vodka soaked orange peel is going to end my experiment with this beer. transfer tomorrow, 2 weeks 2nd fermentation, 2 weeks carbonating, 2 weeks cold condition. i'll post a photo and a review when she's done. thanks for your advice everyone!