Blue Moon Clone

I brewed the latest and greatest Nilo version of Blue Moon only I did NOT use the corn starch but instead went with the oats. I also could not find the Valencia orange so instead went with another type of “dried orange peel”. After the beer was done I put it on my stout faucet. All I can say is WOW. This is what I spent the five previous batches trying to achieve. If you have not done so, put this sucker on nitrogen. It is magical. Thanks again to all the great contributions.

I saw in another thread based off the austin homebrew recipe that they are using a 30 minute boil. Could this possibly help address the body and color issues. I have been under the impression that the longer the boil, the thinner the body, lighter color, and dryer your beer will be.

caioz1jp said:

I saw in another thread based off the austin homebrew recipe that they are using a 30 minute boil. Could this possibly help address the body and color issues. I have been under the impression that the longer the boil, the thinner the body, lighter color, and dryer your beer will be.

Click to expand...

I'm not quite sure what you may be referring to. The 90 minute boil is to get full utilization from the hops, and evaporate the correct amount of water to hit the correct OG.

If anything, a longer boil will darken the color, increase the body and increase the unfermentable content causing it to be sweeter.

Wayne1 said:

I'm not quite sure what you may be referring to. The 90 minute boil is to get full utilization from the hops, and evaporate the correct amount of water to hit the correct OG.

If anything, a longer boil will darken the color, increase the body and increase the unfermentable content causing it to be sweeter.

Click to expand...

Well it comes from my extract brewing that the less time you boil the malt extract, late addition, the lighter the beer is.

As for body and dryness i got that from the cream of three crops recipe by biermuncher.

caioz1jp said:

I saw in another thread based off the austin homebrew recipe that they are using a 30 minute boil. Could this possibly help address the body and color issues. I have been under the impression that the longer the boil, the thinner the body, lighter color, and dryer your beer will be.

Click to expand...

I believe that color and body issues has been addressed and mostly resolved (all grain) within the many recipes that we have tested since this thread started. There has been blind tests done by some where no distiction could be made between the comercial and clone.

Sounds good to me. I just want to make sure i get as close to the current available product as possible. I think im going with nilo's number 7.

caioz1jp said:

Sounds good to me. I just want to make sure i get as close to the current available product as possible. I think im going with nilo's number 7.

Click to expand...

Just wondering how may attempts you are willing to do before you get to something you like. Don't count on getting there the first time. Each brewer has a different system, use different products that always require some adjustments

How did you come up with cornstarch instead of Oats - and the amount ?

I brewed #4. It came pretty close - a bit less body, more bitterness (added little too much hops) and more orange flavor.

adam01 said:

How did you come up with cornstarch instead of Oats - and the amount ?

I brewed #4. It came pretty close - a bit less body, more bitterness (added little too much hops) and more orange flavor.

Click to expand...

In cooking, starch is used to thicken sauces without adding any flavor so I thought it would do the same if cooked (boiled) with the wort (and it did). Also, starch increases chill haze. Amount? Just a guess.

nilo said:

Just wondering how may attempts you are willing to do before you get to something you like. Don't count on getting there the first time. Each brewer has a different system, use different products that always require some adjustments

Click to expand...

If i had the time i would probably give this 3 tries. Unfortunatly i only have until December 18th to get this right lol. I have been agonizing over this recipe as I want it to be as close as possible to the real thing. I would hate to have a dud for her birthday.

The one thing i was wondering though is why no one has tried cascade hops in this recipe. I brewed a cream ale with cascade hops and all i could think about is how much it tasted like oberon/blue moon in the orange citrus department.

Like i said, it seems your #6 and #7 have really hit the mark and alot of people have been having success so that is what I am going with.

caioz1jp said:

I have been agonizing over this recipe as I want it to be as close as possible to the real thing.

Click to expand...

Follow the suggestions in this thread, and you'll make a beer better than the real thing, IMO.

Ok so today is brew day. Im going with nilo's #6. Im just undecided on whether to use S-04, S-05, or 1056. Also I am boiling my oats. Should I put them in a musling bag or directly in the wort?

caioz1jp said:

Ok so today is brew day. Im going with nilo's #6. Im just undecided on whether to use S-04, S-05, or 1056. Also I am boiling my oats. Should I put them in a musling bag or directly in the wort?

Click to expand...

Add the oats in a muslin bag. S04 will be faster and clean up really good. For this beer, clarity is not required so you can go with S05 or 1056 if you want.

nilo said:

Add the oats in a muslin bag. S04 will be faster and clean up really good. For this beer, clarity is not required so you can go with S05 or 1056 if you want.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Im going with S05. Really excited to do this today. Ill post my notes after

So i brewed this in doors on friday. Mashed at 152 for 1 hour. Missed my temp oh well. After sparging i was at 5.5 gallons so i missed my volumes. After an hour boil i was at 4.5 so i topped it off to 5 gallons and pitched my S-05 at 75F. Its happily perking hand smells great. I think i may try the cornstarch next time because boiling the oats ina bag seems to have absorbed alot of wort. My other idea is maybe steap the oats in my sparge water while mashing since i batch sparge i could just dump them in that way and not worry about the mess and the odd protien/starch floaties.

When I decided to use corn starch, I had in mind it would thicken the beer and increase chill haze. I think it did work for increasing thickness but not chill haze since protein is the key for that and corn starch doesn't have any of it.
So my next batch will get one or two TBS of Wheat Gluten (75% of protein by weight).
Another way to get the same results could be a shorter boil time and removing the Irish moss from the recipe, which I current use.
Would a 30min boil have any other impact to the beer, other than reducing the hop extraction ( that could be compensated with more hops) ?

When i brew this again i will try a 30 minute boil.and just mash my oats. At 30 min it should deffinatly have more body and a lighter color.

What has been the general consensus for carb levels? I'm assuming somewhere in the 2.5-2.8 range?

I would like to brew an AG, 3 gallon batch of this (BIAB)but my head is spinning reading all the posts on this excellent thread. I also do not have any software to scale it with confidence even if I knew which recipe to scale.
Would some kind soul post a link to the recommended recipe or even better scale it to 3 gallons and post it. Sorry to be a PITA but get confused easily if a thread goes on too long.

Cheers

El caro, I can help to scale down the recipe that you decide to use. The attempts I made are listed on the link below. I recommend #6 (for my taste). Take a look at other recipes here from Wayne and other great contributors.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxL7TXS8tHPsNWM2YmQ1YTYtMGY1YS00YjJjLWE5ZDktMmQ2ODdmMzljNDUz

Are you leaving the coriander and Valencia peels in the fermenting pale? Or are they added in a boil bag for the last 10 min/ possibly strained out?

I am brewing #7 this weekend. At this point nilo what would you suggest? the corn starch method or oats in the boil. Or both?

Also are quick oats ok to put in the boil? or do I need to buy flaked oats from a brew supply?

Thanks

Add the coriander and peels in a muslin bag for last 10min of boil, then remove.
Regarding the corn starch vs oat flakes, it is up to you. Quick oats should be ok, also in a muslin bag. I didn't get the chill haze that I was looking for with the corn starch. I'll replace it with or just add gluten flour on my next attempt. Also, I will remove the irish moss from the recipe.

Hey gang...I love blue moon...going to try #7 soon, question, seeing as I always use a secondary fermentor would you suggest the coriander seed and orange peel in my secondary?...sorry if this has been covered b4 but I dont have the time to go thru 660 plus posts...thankx....Tom

nilo said:

El caro, I can help to scale down the recipe that you decide to use. The attempts I made are listed on the link below. I recommend #6 (for my taste). Take a look at other recipes here from Wayne and other great contributors.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxL7TXS8tHPsNWM2YmQ1YTYtMGY1YS00YjJjLWE5ZDktMmQ2ODdmMzljNDUz

Click to expand...

Thanks Nilo. Great work.
I would like to try your number 6 version. Do I just multiply your spreadsheet quantities by 0.6 to get the 3 gallon (into the fermenter) volume I am seeking?

tnsen said:

Hey gang...I love blue moon...going to try #7 soon, question, seeing as I always use a secondary fermentor would you suggest the coriander seed and orange peel in my secondary?...sorry if this has been covered b4 but I dont have the time to go thru 660 plus posts...thankx....Tom

Click to expand...

Sorry for your time crunch. I do suggest if you get the chance to read the whole thread. There is a lot of useful information.

Spices should be added free into the kettle. It is suggested that you add one spice at 10 mins before the end of the boil and one at 5 mins. Which one and how much of each is determined by your system and exactly what you use. I do not believe anyone has used the exact same ingredients and process.

I would suggest dried ground coriander for 10 in the kettle and dried ground Valencia orange peel for 5. The amounts are up to you. I highly suggest you plan on making this recipe 3-4 time varying the amount of spices to suit your taste. A starting point might be 1 tsp of each. In the second batch you can vary the amounts up or down depending on what exactly you use and your taste.

Once again, I suggest using the first recipe to establish a base. Use the grain, wheat and oat in the mash tun. No need for boiling oats or cornstarch.

DO NOT use any kettle coagulant or finings. The beer should be slightly hazy all by it self. Brew it at least once as I have suggested and then start making changes to get it closer to your ideal flavors.

Cheers,
Wayne

So my post was contradicted within 3 posts

Should I add all spices directly to the boil or not? Do I strain the wort or not? Should I just use a boil bag?

Corn starch or no corn starch?

Here's what I was thinking:
1lb quick oats in mach
1TBSP Corn starch in boil
Or am I way off base here. If so what amounts?

I'm looking for suggestions based on who had the best results

If you would read at least the first few pages of this thread you would see that Wayne freaking brewed Blue Moon commercially when it was first developed. I can't imagine why you wouldn't at least start from there and listen to his great advice. I brewed it exactly as he recommends a starting point and it was pretty darn close and my best brew yet. Everyone loved it. As he says, start there and adjust. My attempt #2 will be this weekend, I'm going to up the coriander a smidge, or get a better crush on it. Still deciding that. I'm going to stay with the recommended amount of orange peel, that was close, just changing brands to experiment. Body and color were perfect. Not much tweaking needed on my setup. Give it a try and play, that's what home brew is all about. Don't expect to nail it on your first attempt.

jrb03 said:

If you would read at least the first few pages of this thread you would see that Wayne freaking brewed Blue Moon commercially when it was first developed. I can't imagine why you wouldn't at least start from there and listen to his great advice. I brewed it exactly as he recommends a starting point and it was pretty darn close and my best brew yet. Everyone loved it. As he says, start there and adjust. My attempt #2 will be this weekend, I'm going to up the coriander a smidge, or get a better crush on it. Still deciding that. I'm going to stay with the recommended amount of orange peel, that was close, just changing brands to experiment. Body and color were perfect. Not much tweaking needed on my setup. Give it a try and play, that's what home brew is all about. Don't expect to nail it on your first attempt.

Click to expand...

I hear you. I plan on brewing it a few times. It never hurts to aim high on try 1 haha. There is also such a big difference between nilos and wayne's coriander and Valencia peel amounts.

Wayne you suggest:
0.33tsp of ground Valencia peels and 1.25 tsp corriander

Nilo suggests :
1.5oz of Valencia peels (which is about 9tsp) and 2.25 tsp of crushed coriander

No disrespect to either of you. Just trying to find out which will yield a better result based on other forum members past batches. I'm brewing this on Saturday. So again any suggestions are appreciated.

I brewed version #6 and kegged it last week.

I poured one glass of my own next to a glass of blue moon. Results were very good, but not perfect.
I used the 0.375 ounces of coriander and 1.5 ounces of Penzey brand orange peels.

By aroma and taste, I felt my brew was missing 25-35% of the necessary coriander and about 5-10% short on orange.

I will be adding more coriander to my next batch.

I would also like to try and use real oranges versus spices bought in the store. If anyone has a good recommendation there, I would love to hear it.

I am kegging and bottling my first attempt today. I used Nilo #6. My next attempt will be off waynes suggestions. I think that should give me something easier to minkey with. Also boiling the oats was a bit of a pain. My muskin bag was holding alot of wort. Deffinatly mashing next time.

kkimmes said:

I brewed version #6 and kegged it last week.

I poured one glass of my own next to a glass of blue moon. Results were very good, but not perfect.
I used the 0.375 ounces of coriander and 1.5 ounces of Penzey brand orange peels.

By aroma and taste, I felt my brew was missing 25-35% of the necessary coriander and about 5-10% short on orange.

I will be adding more coriander to my next batch.

I would also like to try and use real oranges versus spices bought in the store. If anyone has a good recommendation there, I would love to hear it.

Click to expand...

Did you add spice directly to the boil? If so did you strain them out when transferring to the fermenting pale? Secondary?

Thanks for the info I will def be upping the coriander when I give it a try saturday. I will be brewing #6 as well

jrb03 said:

If you would read at least the first few pages of this thread you would see that Wayne freaking brewed Blue Moon commercially when it was first developed. I can't imagine why you wouldn't at least start from there and listen to his great advice. I brewed it exactly as he recommends a starting point and it was pretty darn close and my best brew yet. Everyone loved it. As he says, start there and adjust. My attempt #2 will be this weekend, I'm going to up the coriander a smidge, or get a better crush on it. Still deciding that. I'm going to stay with the recommended amount of orange peel, that was close, just changing brands to experiment. Body and color were perfect. Not much tweaking needed on my setup. Give it a try and play, that's what home brew is all about. Don't expect to nail it on your first attempt.

Click to expand...

I understand the point of people getting scared with the amount of posts and information on this thread.
From the time Wayne posted his recipe, almost 5 years ago, and over 660 posts later, I'm sure that someone planning its first attempt would be better of starting with a recipe already twicked to better represent the "current" comercial BM. I didn't taste the original BM launched in 1995 by Blue Moon Brewnig CO in Golden,CO (Wayne, correct me if I'm saying anything wrong here), but that beer could have been very different that what we drink today.
My major issues with this clone was the thickness of the beer. Can't achieve anything close to comercial BM by mashing the oats. But that may be just me.
It would be much easier if we had all recipes proposed here with comments/score from everyone that brewed it in an easy format, perhaps a webpage?

nilo said:

I understand the point of people getting scared with the amount of posts and information on this thread.
From the time Wayne posted his recipe, almost 5 years ago, and over 660 posts later, I'm sure that someone planning its first attempt would be better of starting with a recipe already twicked to better represent the "current" comercial BM. I didn't taste the original BM launched in 1995 by Blue Moon Brewnig CO in Golden,CO (Wayne, correct me if I'm saying anything wrong here), but that beer could have been very different that what we drink today.
My major issues with this clone was the thickness of the beer. Can't achieve anything close to comercial BM by mashing the oats. But that may be just me.
It would be much easier if we had all recipes proposed here with comments/score from everyone that brewed it in an easy format, perhaps a webpage?

Click to expand...

You see I don't agree with that at all. I mashed the oats and followed Wayne's recipe exactly. The body is spot on. No need at all for tweaking, other than the coriander and orange peel, which I can see varying by brand of peel and how fine you crush the spices etc. Maybe the type of oats used makes a difference. I got mine from brew masters warehouse. The grains from my next batch all came from northern brewer, we'll see if I can replicate.

This makes me question the boil time. Protiens play a huge part in body and mouth feel. The longer you boil the thinner your beer will be. Heat is a protien's worst nightmere.

http://byo.com/stories/article/indices/12-body/89-add-body-to-your-beer

I think this would be a good refresher article. I can deffinatly see how clarifying agents could cause weak mouth feel.

caioz1jp said:

This makes me question the boil time. Protiens play a huge part in body and mouth feel. The longer you boil the thinner your beer will be. Heat is a protien's worst nightmere.

http://byo.com/stories/article/indices/12-body/89-add-body-to-your-beer

I think this would be a good refresher article. I can deffinatly see how clarifying agents could cause weak mouth feel.

Click to expand...

That's great info thanks. Fwiw I boil 60 minutes. My setup is 2.5 gallon e-biab on a 110v element. I don't get a raging boil, more like steady, and boil off less than .5 gallon an hour.

I understand the point of people getting scared with the amount of posts and information on this thread.
From the time Wayne posted his recipe, almost 5 years ago, and over 660 posts later, I'm sure that someone planning its first attempt would be better of starting with a recipe already twicked to better represent the "current" comercial BM. I didn't taste the original BM launched in 1995 by Blue Moon Brewnig CO in Golden,CO (Wayne, correct me if I'm saying anything wrong here), but that beer could have been very different that what we drink today.
My major issues with this clone was the thickness of the beer. Can't achieve anything close to comercial BM by mashing the oats. But that may be just me.
It would be much easier if we had all recipes proposed here with comments/score from everyone that brewed it in an easy format, perhaps a webpage?

Click to expand...

Nilo,

I greatly respect the work you have put into refining the recipe to suit your perceptions and your system. I do however have to disagree with your comments about mashing the oats. I read your earlier comments about thin body and light color. I attempted to vary the recipe to increase the perceived body by changing the base malt to Vienna and to add a small amount of crystal malt. This turned out WAY off. It ended up TOO dark and the body was way too big.

The next time I brewed it I went back to the original recipe and the color and body were dead on. I am not sure if your perceptions of body and color have to do with your brewing system and/or process or ingredient selection or water profile. All I can say is I have brewed the recipe in downtown Denver, Lake Havasu City, AZ, Castle Rock, CO and Littleton, CO on different sized breweries and all have turned out relatively close.

For brewers attempting this recipe for the first time, I would strongly suggest you plan to brew it at least three times before you decide on a recipe. Try it once with my suggestions, Try it once with Nilo's suggestions. Taste both of the finished products and decide which one of them tastes closer to what you want your beer to be. THEN tweak the third one to try to arrive at the best compromise for your system and tastes.

Again, Nilo, thank you for your contributions to this thread. Please keep tweaking until it works for you and your system. If you make it to CO, please let me know. I will do the same when I get up to Seattle. I do like your idea of a thread or website where people can post their comments on which recipe they have brewed and how close it comes to the original.

A slightly off topic note, I am getting back into pro-brewing. I am presently consulting with two start-ups. One in WY and one in SD. The brewery in WY has ordered their system and is expected to open around May 2013. The SD brewery just received approval for their funding and hopes to be open sometime next summer.

I am also doing recipe consulting for a recently opened micro in IA. A couple of my recipes should be available by spring. Perhaps by the fall of 2013 there might be a few places to try some other commercial variants of this "American White Ale"

Wayne, I completely understand what you are saying and my statements about the thin body are purely based on my perception. I think this is one thing very hard to understand in my opinion, not like bitterness, sweetness or color.
A question regarding the oats, how does mashing oats increase body? My thoughts were that it will provide starch and some flavor. The starch will be converted into sugars by the enzymes from the 2row and wheat malt. Will it yeld longer chain sugars after convertion than sugars from the malts, resulting in higher FG? Or does it add something else that I'm not aware of?
I think I'll do some simple tests with water and dextrin powder with different concentrations to measure my hability to detect "body" changes

nilo said:

Wayne, I completely understand what you are saying and my statements about the thin body are purely based on my perception. I think this is one thing very hard to understand in my opinion, not like bitterness, sweetness or color.
A question regarding the oats, how does mashing oats increase body? My thoughts were that it will provide starch and some flavor. The starch will be converted into sugars by the enzymes from the 2row and wheat malt. Will it yeld longer chain sugars after convertion than sugars from the malts, resulting in higher FG? Or does it add something else that I'm not aware of?
I think I'll do some simple tests with water and dextrin powder with different concentrations to measure my hability to detect "body" changes

Click to expand...

I know this wasnt directed at me but starch is not the only thing extracted from the oats.

"Unmalted, flaked grains, especially barley and oats, are rich in large beta-glucan gums from undegraded cell walls and contain a lot of undegraded proteins. Both classes of compounds are associated with mouthfeel, especially undegraded beta-glucans. In fact much of the protein contributed by these products never makes it into the wort because it is lost during mashing and boiling. This is not the same with polypeptides from malted grains. The beta-glucans, however, do survive and give wort and beer added viscosity. It is for this reason that lautering and filtration can be significantly affected by unmalted and undermodified grains. In practice these products should not exceed 15 percent of the total grist bill."

Congratulations Wayne! Please let us know when the breweries are open, can't wait to try out the new "variations" on my favorite beer. Thanks again for your time and efforts in this thread, and look forward to supporting your efforts!

I have to say, this is one of the more interesting threads on HBT. And I like the idea of some sort of website or database that tracks versions and results.

My $0.02 for someone trying this for the first time: start with the original recipe. If that doesn't get you what you're looking for, Nilo and others have offered all sorts of possibilities for branching out.

The first couple times I tried to clone BM I tried to tweak 'this' and add a little extra of 'that' because I figured there had to be some secret process or hidden ingredient. It's very tempting to do, especially when the grain bill of the original is so simple. But what I've found, at least on my system and to my taste, is that the 50/40/10 ratio of 2-row, wheat and flaked oats mashed at 154 pretty much nails it in terms of body, color and taste. YMMV.