Blonde Ale Centennial Blonde (Simple 4% All Grain, 5 & 10 Gall)

Brewed 10 more gallons of this today.. First 10 gallon batch Cherry Popped! This is a great beer, but goes to fast..

Made a 5 gallon batch today and added .25 lb each of biscuit and honey malt. Looking forward to see how it affects the taste

I brought mine to a bbq yesterday. The guys really liked it. Thank you Biermuncher!

Working on my last case . Will be making more after I finish up a few batches of cream of three crops that I have going right now .

Xtant said:

Just learned an important lesson, today: never brew when my three year old is home, but my wife isn't.

With all the distractions, my boil has gone like this:

2 lbs DME @ 60 min
1/4 oz Centennial @ 45 min
Reset timer @ 25 min
3lbs DME @ 10 min
1/4 oz Cascade @10 min
Oh **** why do I have leftover hops @ 10 min
1/4 oz Centennial @ 20 min
1/2 oz year-old Cascade @ 10 min
1/4 oz Cascade @ 5 min

Ummm... it'll be beer, but what kind and how good, I'm not sure.

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Tapped this keg over the weekend. Took it to an annual guy's weekend at The Red River Gorge. It wasn't to bad. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

I knew it wasn't as tasty as my other blond batches. It was slightly hoppier and a bit more bitter. I was also getting some extract twang that I don't usually get.

The maiden voyage of my keg cooler went well. 44lbs of ice kept the keg cold for over 48 hours of sitting outside. Still had about 15 lbs of ice left when I broke the cooler down.

And, of course, there's my assistant... in her princess night gown and monkey back pack...

Sweet setup with the corny cooler. Update on my batch. It's getting better but I think since I had to hand crush my steeping grains that may have been some of my issue. First time I've had to do it and knowing better now without having a mill I won't be doing that again. It's amazing that one of the LHBS that's been around the longest doesn't crush grains. WTF

Brewtopia in Port Jeff and Karp's in Northport both crush. I have crushed my own in the blender.
And I'll be making 5 gallons of CB on my next AG brewday. (Not until I'm stuck inside though!)

Thanks. Mark at brewtopia is great. I'll check with him tomorrow.

And here's my take.

Very light in alcohol and color but long in flavor. Not very malty, just flavor...y...

I would kick up the hopping next time and try Citra, as well.

This was the first time I used gelatin as a fining agent...mostly because I forgot to add Whirfloc...but I am impressed. Crystal clear beer.

I brought a bottle to a homebrew meeting tonight. The sage liked it, but thought some dry or flame out hopping would improve it. But I believe it works very well as is, especially for commercial beer drinkers.

Hi, I made this on Saturday and everything went well, although the OG was a bit high at 1052 (so maybe it could have stood a bit more hops to balance the malt?).
One thing : I'm stlll getting used to my Johnson controller and within the first couple days I had fluctuations in temp between 60-66 in the fermentation chamber (temp probe in bottle of water in chamber, not in fermenter). I know that this means my beer could have been as much as 10°F hotter (although I tend to believe the 5ish estimate). I had a fairly vigorous fermentation that came on quickly using Nottingham (resuspended, no starter).
Three days into it the krausen has mostly fallen. I'm wondering if I can expect any of those fruity esters I always hear about (or if I'll even recognize them!).
I'm planning to transfer to 2° after day 7 (depending on gravity, 'natch) and add about 1/4 oz cascade dry hop and also probably cold crash(50°F?) for about 5 days before bottling.
I can't wait to drink this beer and brew it again in a few weeks!!! Yay for 50lb grains of pale malt~!!!!

<blockquote>Just learned an important lesson, today: never brew when my three year old is home, but my wife isn't.</blockquote>
Thats awesome, my wife always takes our 3 year old out somewhere when I brew (she doesn't like the smell) and I keep telling her that I can take care of him AND brew, "no problem honey! take a day for yourself". She doesn't believe me and is probably right (as usual).

Hey Xtant, I'm digging the Snap-on Tap handle.
Oh, and very cute brew assistant you have there.

Is the recipe in the OP still the current one? Also, on the water amounts, is that the total used or do they account for mash tun and boil kettle losses? I want to replicate this as close as possible to check efficiencies on my system.

Inkleg said:

Hey Xtant, I'm digging the Snap-on Tap handle.
Oh, and very cute brew assistant you have there.

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Thanks and thanks...

n240sxguy said:

Is the recipe in the OP still the current one? Also, on the water amounts, is that the total used or do they account for mash tun and boil kettle losses? I want to replicate this as close as possible to check efficiencies on my system.

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I've read through this whole thread at some point. I don't believe BM had changed a thing. Try it like that. It's a great beer.

That said, a lot of people seem to use it to experiment with. Different hops. Different yeasts. Dry hopping. Whatever.

It's such a light, easy beer, that it takes to experimentation very well...

Ok. Cool. I'm gonna brew it just like it is. Ingredients are on the way.

I believe the recipe as is accounts for leaving 1/4 gallon in the kettle, and leaving 1/4 gallon in the fermentor.

I always just plug the recipe in as is to my system and adjust if the gravity and ibu don't match.

Beersmith calculates all losses, and I have values and such for all the volumes I batch sparge so my efficiency is usually a bit lower than 75% once I account for all losses along the way. I end up adding a some more base malt to make it come out correct. I am usually dead on my OG and volumes.

If you don't have beersmith, there are several online calculators that work well.

I'll be making my first batch of this tomorrow. I needed to get something kegged for for football season coming up. Minor adjustments, using US-05 instead of the Nottingham, and going straight centennial hops since that's what I got on hand.

Poured this for a beer festival this afternoon, was the 2nd out of 10 kegs to kick. 1st one I have had multiple folks come up and say "somebody told me to come try your beer because its awesome." Good stuff. Overshot the OG and came in at about 6%, but still good, smooth and citrusy.

Well, my keg kicked of this yesterday.. Which is fine, I have a backlog of beers I need to get moving into the kegs and into the keezer, but...

Look like I need to rebrew.. Gonna change it up a little though. Too plain for my liking, but others like it that drink BMC.

My friend asked me to brew something to their wedding party, something not too "difficult" and I ended up brewing Centennial blonde. Doing it for very first time and using 5L minikegs for first time also, so I am a bit nervous. Carbonation will be on low side (3.5g/L) since people kept telling me that I can't put normal amount of sugar to minikegs. Lets hope it will still work as an "real ale"...

Proudfoot said:

My friend asked me to brew something to their wedding party, something not too "difficult" and I ended up brewing Centennial blonde. Doing it for very first time and using 5L minikegs for first time also, so I am a bit nervous. Carbonation will be on low side (3.5g/L) since people kept telling me that I can't put normal amount of sugar to minikegs. Lets hope it will still work as an "real ale"...

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This is a very good Wedding Beer...I know I'm not the only that's taken a couple kegs of this stuff to a reception...

I want to do the extract version of this but I cannot do a 6.5 gal. boil. Am I ok doing a 3.5 - 4 gallon boil and topping off?

Sorry this was ask before, I could not find it in this thread.

Unfortunately, I'm still doing partial boils. You'll be fine....

Xtant said:

Unfortunately, I'm still doing partial boils. You'll be fine....

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thank you

I am going to be brewing this for the first time tomarrow. I recieved my grains yesterday and was hoping to use hops from my own plants. I don't have them dried yet, how should I measure the amount of hops to use? I also have no idea of the IBU's of my home grown hops, does anyone have any advise?

Just as an FYI for anyone wanting to turn this into a Strawberry Blonde, I took 5 gallons of this recipe and put it over 6lbs of thawed frozen strawberries (from Costco) into a strainer bag and racked my blonde onto it for a week. After the week I pulled the bag out and put in 1/2 lb of lactose to add a tad bit of sweetness back in.

This beer turned out great so I wanted to share my great experience with this for anyone else in the future. Enjoy

Kirkwooder said:

I am going to be brewing this for the first time tomarrow. I recieved my grains yesterday and was hoping to use hops from my own plants. I don't have them dried yet, how should I measure the amount of hops to use? I also have no idea of the IBU's of my home grown hops, does anyone have any advise?

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I think the general rule of thumb is 4-5 times the amount of wet to dry, and if you have any at all that are storebought with a known AA, would use that for bittering and use the homegrown for flavor/aroma charge.

Kirkwooder said:

I am going to be brewing this for the first time tomarrow. I recieved my grains yesterday and was hoping to use hops from my own plants. I don't have them dried yet, how should I measure the amount of hops to use? I also have no idea of the IBU's of my home grown hops, does anyone have any advise?

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You'll need about 4-5 times the weight of hops that you'd normally use.

The AA's would unknown. Worst case, you could take the lowest AA you can find for the hop online, and use that.

However, it's probably safer to use some known AA hops for the bittering, and then use your hops for the flavor and aroma. Do a hopstand at the end to get some in there.

I just pitched my rehydrqated Notty into 5.5 gallons of this.:rockin: I used pellets for the first 3 hop additions and used 0.1 Lb of my own cascade hops for the final hop addition. Hope all turns out well. I'll let you all know in a month or so! Thanks

Man...I brewed this about 8 weeks ago and it was my first AG. (BIAB method) I thought I must have screwed it up because it had this sharp aftertaste...almost like plastic. I got nervous as I dunk sparged in my bottling bucket(safe I checked). Just opened one that has been in the fridge for a week and the splastic taste is gone and drinking beautifully. Well done Biermuncher.

Another 'thumbs up' for this recipe, not that one is needed. Neighbors, friends and I killed a 5g keg of this in exactly two weeks. I think that's a record with my brewery. Note to self: never brew less than 10 gallons of this.

Thanks for the recipe. Where do I give all the thumbs up, 5 stars, and a bag of chocolates??? Cheers...

Thanks for the recipe, I brewed this up a couple weeks ago and was just waiting for an open keg to put it in. Tastes great, however I was a little shocked to see my FG hit 1.002! Needless to say this is very light, not complaining, just more alcohol than expected

I'm enjoying a few bottles of this right now. This was my first 5 gallon all grain brew (couple of one gallon all grain brews under my belt). Tastes really nice.

Thanks for the recipe BierMuncher.

re: racking onto fruit, was going to do a couple of experiments.. anyone racked onto diced fresh mango before?

I have been wanting to brew a beer, and looks like this is going to my first!!
:cheers:

daggers_nz said:

re: racking onto fruit, was going to do a couple of experiments.. anyone racked onto diced fresh mango before?

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Sure have. Turns out wonderful. 10 primary, 6 day in Secondary for me. Good Aroma and nice mango aftertaste. Used 4 lbs of fresh diced mangos.

I'm brewing this in the morning. If it turns out as good as everybody else's has, I'm gonna want to do a bigger batch next time. Here's my dilemma. I have a keggle to boil in, and my fermenter will hold 17-18 gallons. How would I scale this up to do a more concentrated batch then dilute it in the fermenter to get a full 15 gallons? Any suggestions?

I think my scale F'd me on this one. Anyone know how much space the roughly 17 lbs of grain for this recipe takes up? I had it in 1 and a half 5 gallon buckets. Actually a full bottling bucket, 6 gallons?, an half a 5 gallon bucket. I'm at 17 brix, and not half way through the boil. Stupid scale! No idea how much grain is in this damn beer! I thought the mash tun looked pretty full.