Begin Brewing!

Last year, I created a blonde ale recipe intended to showcase Mandarina Bavaria hops and Orange Blossom Honey. To my surprise, the finished beer took second place (silver medal) at the 2017 Ohio State Fair's homebrewing competition.  When I tried to re-brew that beer using the Picobrew Zymatic, despite their software claiming it would have a fairly low bitterness level, it actually came out so bitter that I entered it this year as a Pale Ale rather than a Blonde Ale. I decided to try again today, scaling the bitterness back to what I hope will match the original 1.0 brew, but using the Zymatic instead of The Grainfather. Ingredients 3 pounds 2-row Pale Ale Malt 1.25 pounds Munich Malt 3 ounces Carapils/Dextrine Malt 1 ounce Caramel 60L Malt 0.10 ounces Mandarina Bavaria hops @ 9.2% AA (60 min.) 0.20 ounces Mandarina Bavaria hops @ 9.2% AA (15 min.) 0.50 ounces Sweet Orange Peel (10 min.) 1/2 tsp. Irish Moss (10 min.) 1/4 tsp. White Labs Yeast Nutrient (10 min.) 0.35 o...

The beer prior to cold conditioning A while ago, I read something about Mandarina Bavaria hops. One of the brewing sites had them on sale at the time. They said the hops can impart a mandarin orange aroma and flavor to a beer. I had no idea what I would do with them, but I bought some anyway. After doing some thinking about it, I thought they sounded like they might go well in a blonde ale. I thought a nice malty blonde ale with some added bitter orange peel and sweet orange peel, combined with a couple of healthy later additions of Mandarina Bavaria hops would create a very nice spring or summer beer. Not having a ton of faith in my recipe creation skills, I decided to do a 3-gallon batch for this one (or 3.9 gallons before shrinkage, trub, and other losses). I also wanted to see if The Grainfather boiled a batch any harder if it was a smaller size, and if this impacted chill haze. Update 06/04/2017:  This beer took second place in the fruit beer category at the Ohio St...