This week’s video gives you a very fast overview of how to make a special kind of weed beer: a Tangerine High PA (a citrusy India Pale Ale brewed with Tangerine strain marijuana).
This video is really more of a 1-minute “teaser video” for the recipe** itself and for the longer and more detailed video that I released via Slate for 4/20: “High-PA – A detailed recipe for a delicious cannabis-infused IPA from a Colorado brewmaster”.
Please keep in mind that making such a beer with its marijuana ingredient may not be legal where you live. So please check your local laws before trying this out. However, I can attest to how delicious this same recipe is without the weed element. So it’s definitely worth brewing “just” as a marijuana-free IPA.
A big huge thank you to GJ and Philip, the makers of this beer, for letting me film their whole process and answering all my questions during production and post-production. I learned a lot!
Some of the things I learned:
Hops and cannabis are related plants and therefore compliment each other well. Trying to create a hoppy beer with a cannabis addition is therefore a rather logical conclusion.
But you can’t just drop some hash oil into a store-bought beer and expect the same results. There are different recipes out there for infusing or brewing beer with marijuana. This particular recipe was tinkered with to perfection to create the right balance between certain hops with a citrus flavor and the Tangerine strain, which has a citrus aroma. Tangerine is a sativa-dominant hybrid, which has an uplifting cerebral effect.
Thank you also to Ayana Morali from Slate Magazine for picking up the video and all the creative input during post-production.
And as so often, thank you to Jason Matherne for the music used in this video: “Bloody Hell”
Tangerine High-PA Weed Beer Recipe:
Batch size (fermenter): 10 gal
Boil size: 13.14 gal
Boil time: 90 min
Final bottling volume: 9.25 gal
STEP 1: Mash Grains
– Add 165 F water (38.83 qt) to ground-up grains (22 lbs 16 oz Pale Malt, 2 lbs Caramel Malt, 1 lbs 8 oz Carapils, 1 lbs 8 oz Munich 20L, 8 oz Torrified Wheat).
– Soak at 154 F for 60 minutes (to extract sugar from grains).
– Drain the liquid, which is called “the wort”.
– Batch sparge (rinse) with 4 steps (drain mash tun, 2.55 gal, 2.55 gal, 2.55 gal) of 168 F water.
STEP 2: Boil Wort With Hops
– Add water (to the wort) to achieve boil volume of 13.14 gal.
– Boil for 30 minutes.
– Add these hops: Cascade, Chinook and Simcoe.
– Boil for another 30 minutes.
– Add the following hops: Willamette, Simcoe, Citra, Cascade and Chinook.
– Steep for 30 minutes.
– Add Irish Moss to make beer clear and avoid chill haze.
STEP 3: Cool Wort And Prep Fermentation
– Cool the wort to fermentation temperature of 67 F.
– Transfer wort to fermenter.
– Add water to achieve final volume of 10 gal.
– Add yeast.
– Close fermenter with airlock that allows CO2 to expel during fermentation.
STEP 4: Fermentation
– 4 days of primary fermentation at 67 F.
– Siphon off only the liquid (not bottom particles) into second fermenter.
– 10 days of secondary fermentation at 67 F.
STEP 5: Bottling And Adding Fifth Element
– Transfer fermented liquid out of fermenter into bucket with spout.
– Add sugar water (as food for yeast to create carbonation).
– Make hash tincture by dissolving Tangerine strain hash oil in ethanol (100 mg hash oil per 1 ml ethanol).
– Add tincture to bottles (0.5 ml per 12 oz bottle).
– Add your homebrewed IPA to the bottles.
– Seal bottles.
– Store beer for 30 days at 65 F, allowing yeast to create carbonation.
STEP 6: Enjoy Responsibly (where it’s legal)!
Here is a good list of all the equipment needed from the website Serious Eats.
