Moving Forward

Now that I have bottled the Hefe, I have an empty fermenter. And having an empty fermenter means I can brew another beer.

Between the Hefe brew day and the bottling, I have been reading up quite a bit with regards to what my next beer should be and a lot of other things. One thing that caught my attention was dry hopping, which is to add hops to the fermenter after fermentation was complete to extract delicate hop oils that would add a whole lot of flavour and aroma to the beer.  I decided that this should be something I should try.

I have been trying to work out a way to make a light coloured beer somewhere in the range of 4-6 SRM. I spoke to fellow brewers and I was informed that adding rice might help, but if I were to go down that path, I should use only about 20% of rice in my grain bill. And if I were to use rice, I was informed to use cooked Sona Masoori rice and that it should be cooked in a lot of water. This water would contain quite a bit of starch from the rice and this could be added to the mash. The grains in the mash would have enough and more alpha-amylase and beta-amylase enzymes to convert the rice starches into fermentable sugars.

I am currently tweaking a recipe for this Pale Ale and hopefully will brew it in a week or two.