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Belgian Wit v2
Kegged on June 8, 2010.
I had two Brewcraft kits for the Belgian Wit. I started this version just like the first one, but after the primary fermentation I transferred the beer into two smaller carboys. I added one cinnamon stick to one of the carboys and the zest from three large oranges to the other. I sterilized each additional ingredient by placing it in the microwave for a short amount of time. I placed each in a fine mesh bag and put them in the carboys. The image below shows the two carboys.
The original gravity was 1.050. The beer was in the primary for seven days, followed by 26 days in the secondary containers, for a total of 33 days. The final gravity was 1.011; the alcohol content was 5.2%.
Both of these beers turned out pretty good. The additions added a decent amount of flavor, but not enough to overpower the beer, although I probably could have used a little less orange zest. One interesting thing was that the day after kegging the beers I tried both of them and the cinnamon version had a weird taste that wasn't very good. I tried it again a few days later, and it was much better, the weird taste was gone and the cinnamon stood out a little more. In the future I don't think I would try to keep the mesh bag string outside of the carboy as is shown above; I don't know how well it sealed with the string coming out.