Blood Orange Hefeweizen

Origins:
Blood oranges are a small reddish orange whose fruit is almost blood colored.  They have a distinct flavor that is similar to a standard orange with a slight raspberry taste. Whitney wanted to brew a Hefewiezen that had a slight hint of blood oranges so I helped her do an extract brew of Blood Orange Hefeweizen

Recipe Specifications:

• Batch Size: 5.00 gal
• Boil Size: 4.25  gal
• Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:

• 7.0 lb 60% Wheat 40% Barley Malt Extract
• 0.5 lb Crystal 10 °L
• 0.5 lb Vienna 3 °L
• 2.0 oz Cascade, US [9.1%] Hops
• WLP008 East Coast Ale Yeast

Starter Procedure:
Since this was a last minute brew we didn't have time to do a starter.

Brew Procedure:
      My fiancee Whitney had seen a blood orange hefeweizen in Sam Calagione's book Extreme Brewing and wanted to try it. So on  January 21st 2012 we went to main street home brew and gathered our ingredients. The first step was steeping the specialty grains in a nylon brew bag after the water had reached 155 °F for 30 minutes.  After the 30 minutes was up we turned the heat up and began brought it to a boil.
 While the water was coming to a boil Whitney prepared the blood oranges.  First zesting four medium blood oranges, then peeling two and chopping them into small pieces.

Steeping Orange Bits 

Zesting the Oranges

Result

     This concoction was poured into a pot and brought up to 160 °F and Then allowed to steep while it was cooled.  Usually I put the zests into the boil and leave out the fruit but the book said this was their method and I decided to try it. After this we returned to the kettle and completed the brew.

Hops/Ingredients Schedule:

Quantity	Ingredient	Boiled For
1/2 oz.	Cascade	Entire 60 Min. boil
1/2 oz.	Cascade	Last 45 min of boil
1/2 oz.	Cascade	Last 30 min of boil
1/2 oz.	Cascade	Last 15 min of boil
1/2 tsp.	Yeast Nutrient	Last 15 min of boil
1 tsp.	Gypsum	Last 15 min of boil

I cooled the wort using an immersion chiller and poured into a 6.5 gallon carboy.  After this I added the yeast and oxygenated the wort for 20 seconds with the oxygen stone.  Then using a funnel I poured the blood orange zests and fruit pieces into the primary fermenter.

INITIAL WORT GRAVITY: 1.070

I forgot to take a gravity reading at transfer


UPDATE 2/10/12:
After quite some time in the secondary fermenter (we got really busy with other things), I finally was able to take a gravity reading and transfer the beer to a keg.


GRAVITY AT KEGGING:  1.018
131.25*(1.070-1.018)=6.825%

Wow this really attenuated well.  The only problem I could see with the beer is there was not a very strong blood orange flavor to the beer.  It was noticeable if you knew you were looking for it but hard to distinguish from a regular hefeweizen.  This is fine because Whitney did not want a really fruity beer and that was her biggest concern is that it would be too fruity.  All around it was a good brew the color came out a little darker than I was expecting but this may be due to the dark fruit added during fermentation.