Chamomile Wheat Ale..

I've always been a big fan of Chamomile tea..so I suppose it was inevitable that I end up brewing a beer with this tasty, yet subtle, little flower...

Really straight forward brew here..an even mix of Belgian Pilsner malt and Wheat malt (5 lbs/5 lbs) and about 1/2 lbs of rice hulls to avoid the probable clogging of my mash tun had I not added them..

For hops I thought I would mix it up a little by using some Amarillo for flavoring, and a small mix of Magnum and Cascade for bittering

Note on the use of Cascade for bittering..if your savvy about the hop game right now you know this *should be considered a sin..using Cascade in this manor. Allow me to explain, I was using the last of my magnum (about 1/8 oz) for bittering and needed just a little bit more Alpha Acid to get my IBU's to where I wanted 'em...and knowing I would use the rest of the Cascade to dry hop..well there ya go :). Also please note that you will not see the cascade addition in the recipe below...I forgot.

Onward to the yeast..I really wanted to do something with a more clove/banana taste to go along with the chamomile and slightly fruity flavor put off by the Amarillo so I settled on White Labs Hefe yeast IV..which should (or "is") do the trick.

Chamomile was ala Trader Joes Chamomile Tea..which is delicious and actually manages to pull off a very present chamomile taste after using just one tea bag per cup o'tea. I had shopped around trying to find the "best" tea to use and I ran the gamete from loose chamomile flowers (whole foods), to their "yogi" tea..both of which were tasty..but on the same time extremely subtle and I needed some more chamomile (I need more cowbell!). Final addition was 12 tea bags of TJ's chamomile tea steeped at flame out and remaining through chilling to 68 degrees (about 20 minutes).

She's (just seems like you should call a chamomile wheat beer "she") has been in primary for a week and will remain there for one more at which time I will bottle.

..speaking of which I'm about to go into the brave new land of kegging...enough of this bottling bs :). Stay tuned for my conversion post, turning my Sanyo 4912 into a kegerator...

Cheers!