Ginger Peach Beer

Another weekend, another batch of beer.  This one I'm excited about because it uses some new flavors.  I wanted to make a beer with lots of ginger for a spicy kick and a refreshing summer flavor. While looking for recipes on homebrewtalk I found this recipe for a Ginger Peach Wheat, which is the base for our batch.  I'm not that into wheat beers and decided to make an neutral American Pale Ale with the ginger and peach flavoring of the wheat recipe.

The two unusual ingredients are fresh ginger and whole package of Republic of Tea Ginger-Peach Tea.

Bust most exciting of all we got to play with some new brewing tools, including our new high-output Blichmanm propane burner. It makes good fire.

Ready to  brew! The actual grated ginger doesn't go in until secondary fermentation, but it should keep until then.

Like a brew dog, Buddy guards the equipment when I'm not around.  This is right after assembling our new burner.

Ooooooooh.........Ahhhhhhhh..........

Brewing in the jungle. I put pot right on that crazy flame from above before turning it down to a reasonable temperature.  It did that to the pot in seconds. Ooops.

While the wort was boiling we took the opportunity to bottle our baby sour. Sofia and Stella helped (more Sofia than Stella, actually—she mostly tried to lick the bottles before we could cap them).

I decided to just throw the tea packets in there for the few minutes of boiling rather than put them in a grain bag or something. No big deal because they float, right? Wrong.  All but a few sank to the bottom.  I had to make a cyclone to get them in the middle of the pot and then pull them blindly from the center.  It worked really well.

For the grains I did use a grain bag. I'm excited about this beer. It smells great!