Caramel cream ale?

mcgeebc said:

I just read all 40 pages of this post. Do I get some kind of award for that?

I am looking forward to brewing this tomorrow.

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No this is only the first step you now have to move onto the apfelwein thread, which is over the 100 now, i think (actually 126).
Its a cracking drink, but a very simple one and i still can't understand why there is over 125 pages on how to throw apple juice, sugar and yeast into a container and ferment .

There is another apfelwein thread just counting the gallons made that is 183 posts.
That's some good reading.

i still haven't been able to brew this beauty.

brewing temporarily suspended due to purchase of new house.

i find myself crying to sleep at night and getting shakes that won't go away while staring at pictures of boils and malted barley for hours on end.

is this normal?

BTW olllllo, how was it on nitro?

i'm actually thinking of seeking out a nitro system just for this. i can live with so so stouts, but if this is dynomite on nitro i'm definitely committed to putting together a nitro system! :rockin:

drouillp said:

BTW olllllo, how was it on nitro?

i'm actually thinking of seeking out a nitro system just for this. i can live with so so stouts, but if this is dynomite on nitro i'm definitely committed to putting together a nitro system! :rockin:

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I thought it was outstanding this way. It's definately a luxury, though.

I've soooo wanted to make this for a few months now, but I don't think I've got the equipment to make it - I'm not sure how big my largest pot would b, but probably only big enough to hold 4L (maybe I have a bigger one), but I think the biggest problem for me is the crappy electric elements that we have... It was struggling to keep 3 and a bit litres of water boiling, and that's at full tit. *sigh* Don't have the money to get a burner... I guess I'll just have to keep dreaming.

JeanLucD said:

that's at full tit. *sigh*

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Does anyone else think it is just cool that he can say "tit" and get away with it 'cause he is from the underworld?

Kayos said:

Does anyone else think it is just cool that he can say "tit" and get away with it 'cause he is from the underworld?

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Lol, underworld?? and yes I can say tit and get away with it, hehe.

I now wonder if I maybe could do this... I realised that I've got a big pot, that we use for steaming, it's quite tall, so I rekon I could get 5L in there... All I need to do now, is convert to metric (or actually measure in and use imperial ) and hope that one of the HBS around me has the ingredients. I have a feeling it might be a struggle.

I just brewed up this recipe V1 yesterday. I used a partial boil with 3 gallons, and used Penzeys natural vanilla extract (which the bottle claims is 40% stronger in flavor). I wonder how this is going to come out and if i should adjust the vanilla in the recipe.

I have it in the primary now with a blow-off tube rigged up. I figured with all of the "raging" fermentations i've read about it's a good idea. I used a 2L soda bottle with water in it for the other end of the blow-off tube. I figure that should suffice.

I tried it yesterday after i took the SG (1.056), but after straining the pelleted hops there was still too much hop material in the brew. It tasted like a sour ball with vanilla (only 1/4 cup so far!) and sweetness. Now, 19 hours later the soda bottle is bubbling about once/second and there's a thick layer of trub material. I love it that even if you didn't strain the hops, all that just falls right out of the beer.

Oh, and BTW i used Wheat DME instead of light wheat. That's all that AHB had in stock. I can't wait to try this with all of the comments on this thread.

Ok, I am trying not to say anything too blasphemous. Or be at risk of rioting crazed brewers at my doorm, for tampering with this reciple. With that said…I have a question…. I was hoping to brew a light wheat “ish” fruit-beer this summer (possibly blueberries). Now that I have read this thread I am hearing voices in my head saying “put the fruit in the Vanilla Caramel beer”. Are these voices that of the devil….or have I finally heard the fabled call of the beer angels?

mdf191 said:

Ok, I am trying not to say anything too blasphemous. Or be at risk of rioting crazed brewers at my doorm, for tampering with this reciple. With that said…I have a question…. I was hoping to brew a light wheat “ish” fruit-beer this summer (possibly blueberries). Now that I have read this thread I am hearing voices in my head saying “put the fruit in the Vanilla Caramel beer”. Are these voices that of the devil….or have I finally heard the fabled call of the beer angels?

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If you want a super-sweet dessert beer, I'd say through some blueberry honey and honey malt and a little biscuit malt into it and stop there. Maybe, if you're REAL nutty, use Wy3068 yeast or WL400. You can try fruit. My next few batches are going to play with malt combinations and varying hoppiness. Having tried a HOPPY AG CCA,I'm interested in seeing where this can go. My quest to create an award winning recipe out of this is within my reach.

i was thinking more along the lines of fresh fruit in primary or secondary. Do you think that will take away from the CCA as it is?

I guess I will forever go down in history as the one who killed the CCA thread...

You didn't really kill it, I feel like it was sorta me...

Anywho, I'm making this RIGHT NOW! I'm hoping that I can fudge through it a little bit, cos I've had to convert everything into metric, and I don't quite have anything to measure 28.35g (1oz), lol, and I'm too stuborn to use imperial... I've just got a little question, though it won't really matter much cos I'm doing it now and I won't really wait for the answer... When I'm putting the hops and malts it should be at a boil right? and then I would let it cool down to 150'-165' when I put the caramel in 15 mins later?

I'm also doing this with a vanilla bean in the boil, hopefully 1 and a half will be enough - I might also make some extract, since I have heaps of vanilla beans, cos we have a friend that lives in Tahiti and he gave us quite a few fresh vanilla beans a little while ago. So all my vanilla is free , I'm also gonna use rum instead of vodka, mum said that it's what they do in Tahiti to make vanilla extract, so I'll see how that goes.

Edit: Everything went okish, but now that I've done it, I wonder if I should have filtered the wort somehow - I got a ton of stuff at the bottom of my fermentor, so much that it goes over the spigot, so went I went to take my OG reading (which I almost forgot to do) there was stuff floating around in my cylinder that probably mucked up my reading ~ 1.060?!?. Should I worry about this at all, or will it compact down a bit more as it settles down? and it won't effect the taste will it? I'm such a n00b at this partial stuff, sooo new to me.

Let me start by stating congratulations to Cheesefood who obviously created a very special recipe. I did read almost the entire thread. Cheese, did you prefer version one or two. Your writing leads me to believe version two. It would be great to sticky all success stories and track modifications, lessons learned, and finally new ideas to great recipes. I wish you luck in any contest or marketability that could be derived from this recipe. I have yet to pull the trigger on my home set-up but lurking around here and reading threads like this makes some decision making easier.

Thanks again

bpcsatx said:

...Cheese, did you prefer version one or two. Your writing leads me to believe version two. ...

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Well, I had his latest version at his house last Friday night and let me tell ya - it is really, really good! Super smooth and, IMHO, just the right combo of vanilla. It finishes with a vanilla flavor that isn't overpowering. And the color is a nice toffee/caramel color. I plan to brew it myself in another month or so.

(BTW, thanks for the beer and pizza, Cheese!)

Rhoobarb said:

Well, I had his latest version at his house last Friday night and let me tell ya - it is really, really good! Super smooth and, IMHO, just the right combo of vanilla. It finishes with a vanilla flavor that isn't overpowering. And the color is a nice toffee/caramel color. I plan to brew it myself in another month or so.

(BTW, thanks for the beer and pizza, Cheese!)

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Good luck with v3. The secret is the boil-over which spills hops and about a half-gallon or more of water, then the pinch of Perle added to compensate.
I cut down the vanilla to about 1 shot, and the lactose to about 2 ounces.

It really did come out nice. I'm disappointed by the overall yield though, so I'll already have to make another batch soon.

It was last month since the last post on this thread, just wanted to give it a little bump because I just put this into primary a few minutes ago. Still wavering on how I want to prime, but I have a while to think about it. Hope it turns out as great as everyone makes it sound.

ilikestuff said:

It was last month since the last post on this thread, just wanted to give it a little bump because I just put this into primary a few minutes ago. Still wavering on how I want to prime, but I have a while to think about it. Hope it turns out as great as everyone makes it sound.

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i just brewed this yesterday, it is happily percolating in the basement!

Well my first attempt is done and has been in the bottle for about 6 weeks.

I taste a HUGE amount of vanilla. So much that it makes it more bitter, but not a good bitter. And it tastes super sweet, overly so.

Next go around I think I'll half all the additives.

Glad to hear your other revisions are moving along nicely (boilovers and all)

I did the first version, it's been bottled/kegged for over a month now. Though I like it, I would cut the vanilla by half. It's just a little to much for me.

I brewed this very vanilla cream ale recipe a week and a half ago. Now today I am tranfering to my secondary and my question is this. I am going to keg this beer so when and how do I add the lactose that this recipe calls for at priming? I am going to force carbonate in the keg thus no priming. I would really appretiate some help..

Yellow70cooper..

Cheese can answer as well. I would think since the Lactose is non-fermenting you could simply add it when filling the corny and ensure it is properly mixed.

Add it at anytime.

Let's say I added too much vanilla. Let's just pretend. How long will it take to mellow down a bit? I've seen post saying it took a few weeks for their's to mellow to where it was great, but how long will it continue to mellow? If I drink it in 6 weeks and its still too vanilla'y will waiting longer help?
Its @ 3 weeks now, and the over vanilla-ing was my fault not cheese's recipe.

landhoney said:

Let's say I added too much vanilla. Let's just pretend. How long will it take to mellow down a bit? I've seen post saying it took a few weeks for their's to mellow to where it was great, but how long will it continue to mellow? If I drink it in 6 weeks and its still too vanilla'y will waiting longer help?
Its @ 3 weeks now, and the over vanilla-ing was my fault not cheese's recipe.

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If it's good vanilla... never.

Yep, it was Costco real vanilla extract. It's good, but I think I can tell its extract. I'm going to try real vanilla beans in an upcoming batch and see if I like it better. I use 'real' eveything else, might as well try.

landhoney said:

Yep, it was Costco real vanilla extract. It's good, but I think I can tell its extract. I'm going to try real vanilla beans in an upcoming batch and see if I like it better. I use 'real' eveything else, might as well try.

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As you go through the batch, the vanilla will lighten up.

Cheesefood said:

As you go through the batch, the vanilla will lighten up.

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You mean as time goes by right? Not 'as you become accustomed to it'? I feel pretty sorry bastardizing your great brew, Cheese. Like I've defiled something sacred. I really couldn't taste the vanilla hardly at all at bottling time so I added more than I should have - other flavors have given way to the vanilla now. Bright side? I am beggining to discern what changes will happen to a beer's flavor from bottling day to being bottled and carb'ed. I hope it turns out well. If not I'll just call it, "Bastardized Caramel Cream Ale" and let it sit for a year.

Cheers Cheesefood. I'm going to make this as soon as my primary is free. It has a lager in it now so sadly I'll have to be patient.

Muss said:

Cheers Cheesefood. I'm going to make this as soon as my primary is free. It has a lager in it now so sadly I'll have to be patient.

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Or you can just buy another primary.

Cheesefood said:

Or you can just buy another primary.

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That's the best idea I've heard anyone say ever!

I'm off to the LHBS now

HELP!!!
I can't find Caramel 60L at the HBS.
These are the choices I have. Can you suggest a suitable alternative?
http://haurakihomebrew.co.nz/brew/index.php?cPath=32_89


Cheers

You need a new HBS.

Cheesefood said:

You need a new HBS.

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I do I do, but I'll have to make do with what's already in the country. I'll google around and see if there is a shop somewhere else in the country which sells that grain and see if I can get it mail ordered. In case I have no luck can you recommend a reasonable substiute at that link I posted? I'm new to grains so I don't know what I'm looking for other than grains that say Caramel 60L.

Sometimes they'll say "medium" instead of 60L. As long as you're in the ballpark you'll get a beer that's close, and if it turns out way different then you can claim it as your own variation on the recipe.

Hopefully this hasn't been mentioned in the rediculous 44 pages of this forum, but if you ever want to enter this into a competition, be sure to enter this as a spice beer, not a cream ale. The creame ale style has absolutley nothing to do with cream soda...at all. When the judges taste vanilla in a creame ale, they will really ding you for it.

thebikingengineer said:

Sometimes they'll say "medium" instead of 60L. As long as you're in the ballpark you'll get a beer that's close, and if it turns out way different then you can claim it as your own variation on the recipe.

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Thanks heaps. I'll pick up some medium grain and hope for the best. They must use a different naming convention here as none of the products are described using 40, 60L etc, but instead are called, light medium and dark.

I talked to the LHBS guy and he said they don't sell any caramel grain. I have purchased 'Brown malted grain'.
Does the caramel grain actually give caramel falvours? If so could I just use caramel flavouring? I've heard people don't have too much luck with the artificial vanilla flavouring, so should I even make some caramel out of sugar?

I've also purchased vanilla extract in metric! It's a 50ml bottle and it says it's concentrated so you'd use half of what recipies require.
I think 50millilitres converts to 2 fluid ounces.

Sorry for asking everything. I want to make sure I can make it really nice.

Caramel malt is also called Crystal malt. See if they have any of that.

I can't imagine someone not having any caramel malts, my LHBS has over 15 different types!

steve