Simple grain bill with some interesting ingredients.

I wanted to brew a lighter beer with the calming effects of Kava Kava. The simplest way I know how to do this is just put a bunch of the Kava tea in the boil.

I made a belgian candi sugar by bringing water and sugar up to temp with a bit of yeast energizer with the key ingredient being DiAmoniumPhosphate otherwise knows as DAP. This causes maillard reactions in the sugar (like toasting bread) which will not happen if you just caramelize the sugar, although it is a very similar process otherwise. You develope the cherry/plum/toasty flavours whereas with caramelizing sugar you get a bit more of a burnt taste especially the darker/hotter you let it get. I only used half of the sugar on this beer and did a few more heat cycles for my other brew which I wanted a darker candi sugar for.

Yeast was a high gravity belgian strain saved from a previous fermentation, grain bill was 3lbs wheat, 5 lbs pils, and half a lb of rice hulls. Doing it again I would probably add a few lbs to both of these. Hops I did 1 oz at 60min boil. For mashing in the grain I know a bottling bucket isn’t very fancy, but I loose under 5 degrees over the hour mash. There is a simple pvc pipe at the bottom with slots cut in it to drain.