Adjunct Brewing.

So what is so wrong with brewing beer with rice? I thought to myself as I finished my spider roll and then washed it down with a crisp delicious Sopporo. I was inspired.
Adjuncts always get a bad rap from beer snobs. It is a common practice to use rice and or corn among the big North American breweries. Barley is a magical grain. When malted it has the power to convert its own grain starches to maltose. If you add an additional form of grain like rice or corn you get the same result minus some of the body and dextrin from the barley that can make it heavier. The result is a lighter, drier beer.
So what about Rheinheitsgebot (a German purity law that only allows barley, hops, and water as ingredients)? Just as early American brewers did, I think you should make the best beer you can with what you have. Today I have a five pound bag of rice from Shop and Save. The rest will be Rahr 2 row barley along with Hallertau and Tettnanger hops.
I cooked the rice in a separate pot until it broke down into a slurry. The cooked rice is then added to the mash and left at 149 degrees for 90 minutes. The result is 1.050 on the money. The goal is to produce a clean light lager beer. It will be in the BJCP style of an American Premium Lager. Brewing is science and science is fun.

Belgian Style Witbier

A friend gave me a recipe for a Belgian Style Wit. A recipe that has won awards. It had been on my list for some time. Although the weather has been pretty kind thus far and being that it is June I must devote my refrigeration space back to the ale family of our yeast friends.
I started with pilsner malt, unmalted wheat grown in Alhambra Illinois, oats from Shop and Save, and oh yeah rice hulls. I try to keep ingredients true to style but when it comes to adjuncts I love to get them from the grocery store. Give me a 99 cent sack of rice or a tin of corn grits and I will make beer.
I decocted this mash which means that I removed a portion of the grains from the mash and boiled them, then added them back to the mash to raise the temperature of mash. This is done at different intervals to achieve a certain style of beer.
My recipe source schooled me on the use of bitter orange peel. She was emphatic that I not use fresh orange peel, not sweet orange peel, only bitter orange peel. I crushed the coriander and combined the bitter orange peel. Once you put your nose up to it and you realize why men traveled the world and fought wars to acquire stuff like this.
I dropped them in ten minutes before the end of the boil and the aroma of hops, grains, and spices filled the air. This was one of those brews that after it was all done I felt like I got it.

Update: this brew placed 3rd in the Catagory of Belgian and French Ales at the 2012 Music City Brew Off in Nashville Tennessee.