California Common California Common (Anchor Steam Clone) Extract and AG

Spitfire6 said:

Hello All! My first post to this board.

Brewed a 10 gallon batch of this yesterday. My starter was too small at about 1 quart but it's looking good. Krausen is about one inch at 20 hours after pitching. Just came alive in last hour or two.

My first time to use anything other than an ale yeast. I'm used to pitching in the evening and waking up to a full rockin' ferment. I was a little concerned earlier today.

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Good luck!!!

Long legs means more room for beer!

On my list of 'to-do's'!!!!

brewed this up yesterday with a slight modification on the Crystal additions - added some cara-amber and crystal 40 in place of some of the crystal 60

did a 1L starter with wyaeast 2112 the weekend before hoping to brew then but ended up not being able to so I put it in the fridge after 60hours and decanted the liquid off and warmed to room temp before pitching - was concerned the starter may be too small but already had the blowoff tube bubbling away within 4 hours!

i pitched at 66deg but then put it in my water bath/swamp cooler at 62deg to let it cool the last few deg - planning maintaining around 61-62deg for a couple weeks

Just picked up my supplies for this!!! It's getting mashed tomorrow!!! I'm psyched!!!!

Long legs means more room for beer!

terrapinj said:

did a 1L starter with wyaeast 2112 the weekend before hoping to brew then but ended up not being able to so I put it in the fridge after 60hours and decanted the liquid off and warmed to room temp before pitching - was concerned the starter may be too small but already had the blowoff tube bubbling away within 4 hours!

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Same thing happened to me this past weekend. Two staged a 3 Qt starter for a batch of American IPA then could not brew. In the fridge now. I think I will pitch it into another starter wort though.

At seven days @60F my California Common is still bubbling merrily along through the blow off tube. Almost too much for an air lock, and certainly still too active to rack to five gallon carboys.

Could you use a dry yeast with this?

Hey Jinkle, You could use a dry yeast with this and you would make beer. I doubt that it would have the characteristics of a California Common though, unless there is a dry yeast for that style that I do not know about. You would likely just make a dark amber American ale. In the case of California Common the yeast is what makes the beer what it is.

When I look back on the the things that I have done that have improved my brews culturing up a good yeast starter is at the top of the list.

Noob question for those who have brewed this: when you list your fermentation temperatures, are you talking about the ambient temperature or the temperature of the fermenter itself?

Fermentation temperature refers to the temperature of the wort being fermented.

Spitfire6 said:

Fermentation temperature refers to the temperature of the wort being fermented.

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What's the best way to monitor the temperature of the wort itself?

hess said:

What's the best way to monitor the temperature of the wort itself?

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most use some form of fermentation temperature control; water bath, ferm chamber, swamp cooler etc and go off of that temperature since the wort temperature will pretty much be the same

you can also buy stick on thermometers for carboys/ale pails

in general during active fermentation you can expect the wort to be 5°-10° warmer than ambient room temp

hess said:

What's the best way to monitor the temperature of the wort itself?

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Get one of those sticky temp strips @ your local. They are flexable and stick well, even when washed, to carboys and plastic buckets. They are pretty good on volumes larger than 3 gallons.

Long legs means more room for beer!

I was having trouble getting too much yeast flavor with the white labs strain. Don't have the greatest control on ferm temps, and was often in the 70s. Decided to use white labs Kolsch yeast instead. Worked out great! Still has that lager feel to it for sure.

My first version had 0.7 lbs 60L crystal and had way too much caramel flavor to even be close. My last version had .75 lbs victory and .33 lbs 20L crystal. Still a little too much sweetness. The whitelabs Kolsch is supposed to attenuate extremely well so I don't want to blame it for the sweetness, and these batches have all been partial mashes, so it's not my mash temps. I'm thinking of dropping the crystal all together and throwing in a few ounces of special b?

What do you guys think?

I am crossing my fingers... This is my 3rd AG batch and racked this one to a secondary a bit too early. Fermented 7 days at 157deg and racked before checking the gravity. Still at 1.034- not even close. I added back the yeast cake as cleanly as I could.

Do most brewers check gravity before transferring? I have been testing the first few ounces off the racking cane. This time I just didn't check until the transfer was complete.

irwinben said:

I am crossing my fingers... This is my 3rd AG batch and racked this one to a secondary a bit too early. Fermented 7 days at 157deg and racked before checking the gravity. Still at 1.034- not even close. I added back the yeast cake as cleanly as I could.

Do most brewers check gravity before transferring? I have been testing the first few ounces off the racking cane. This time I just didn't check until the transfer was complete.

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Always. I never move the beer without checking the gravity first.

The only time I check the SG is when I'm going to do something to the beer. Either package it, or rack it, etc. So before I go to do that, I check the SG and make sure it's ready for whatever I"m planning to do.

irwinben --
My batch has just finished fermenting after 5 weeks @ 60F. One thing I noticed is that unlike ale yeasts, this yeast ferments very gradually. I racked at ten days and SG was 1.022 in one carboy, and 1.026 in the other (ten gallon batch split). 3 weeks later one was 1.012 and the other was 1.018. The 1.012 half was done. Took another week for the 1.018 batch to finish (strange, all conditions identical, perhaps uneven dump from the yeast starter).

Spitfire6 said:

irwinben --
My batch has just finished fermenting after 5 weeks @ 60F. One thing I noticed is that unlike ale yeasts, this yeast ferments very gradually. I racked at ten days and SG was 1.022 in one carboy, and 1.026 in the other (ten gallon batch split). 3 weeks later one was 1.012 and the other was 1.018. The 1.012 half was done. Took another week for the 1.018 batch to finish (strange, all conditions identical, perhaps uneven dump from the yeast starter).

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Thats a crazy long time right? I saw almost no air lock activity after 24 hours after pitching a wyeast pack without a starter. I got worried that I'd get an infection if there wasn't more activity so I threw a packet of nottingham on top. Then I had to add a blow of tube! I have no control of ferm temp, and was around 78 (or more) degrees for that 24 hour period. I'm used to useing ale yeast and seeing NO activity on top kinda freaked me out too. I know this is based on a lager yeast. I probably should have had more patients.

I think I posted earlier in this thread that it was more than 24 hours before my yeast took off, and I, like you was concerned. When it took off it blew the airlocks off and I had to go to blow off tubes. This is with a healthy starter. So this yeast seems a little slow to start as well.

As for this being a "crazy long time" I don't know. Right now I just think that lager yeasts act differently than ale yeasts, and this may be the norm. Realizing of course that this is not a true lager yeast.

Time to keg and lager these babies. I know one half will be sipped on while lagering!

Thanks for the info. I should have said fermenting at 57 deg, not 157 deg... Safe to say there would be no activity at all at 157! I re-introduced the yeast I reserved for a future batch and activity started within an hour or so. Now I have to hope all of the messing around didn't introduce any contamination.

Will be brewing this tomorrow, can't wait! There are at least a couple of success stories in this thread regarding higher fermentation temperatures. For primary and secondary mine will be between 63 - 72, depending on the weather (no T control). I do have a mini fridge I can ferment in, but only at temps lower than 50F. Any thoughts?

Wyeast says 56-68, goin under 50 sounds like a stretch.

then specifically says, "This strain is not recommended for cold temperature fermentation. "

http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=131

Do a good starter, and be patient at room temp is my advice.

I was thinking the fridge for a lagering stage. It would be nice to result in some lager characteristics. So here's kind of a noob question: After I ferment in the primary for a week (~63F) and rack to a secondary for two weeks (~63F), can I lager the without a keg set up? Can you lager in the bottle or the secondary carboy? Will I have to change the fermenting schedule if I plan to lager?

sundell said:

I was thinking the fridge for a lagering stage. It would be nice to result in some lager characteristics. So here's kind of a noob question: After I ferment in the primary for a week (~63F) and rack to a secondary for two weeks (~63F), can I lager the without a keg set up? Can you lager in the bottle or the secondary carboy? Will I have to change the fermenting schedule if I plan to lager?

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Sure, you can lager in the carboy or in the bottle. If you're doing it in the bottle, though, I'd wait until the beer is carbed up and then stick it in the fridge for a few weeks.

Just finished a new batch of this, extract style! SG was at 1.048 and keeping it at 68 F, hopefully I'll keep it in the primary for 8-10 days and secondary for 2.5 weeks before keg. Besides a few floaties from SG reading, the beer tastes interesting. We'll see the outcome soon enough and compare to the original.

Good stuff. Brewed AG version yesterday, OG = 1.050. The mash schedule is spot on, I didn't have to tweak anything regarding H2O temp. I saved 1.2 quarts for kraeusening (first attempt at both spelling and technique). I will probably lager in the bottle cause I only have one carboy, and lots of beers to make! Can't wait. Thanks for the recipe and advice!

has anyone tried using 34/70 or any other dry lager yeast be used in this recipe?

I tried a kolsch yeast with excellent results. Really brought out the hop aroma and was a lot cleaner tasting and less finicky at the mid 70s without temp control.

Well, couldn't resist tasting, tasting some more, oh what the heck... let's drink the first keg before lagering! Lucky I made ten gallons! Excellent beer. One of my best, if not the best ever. The second keg will only be lagered a month or so before I take it to an outing where it will be consumed, but I'll bet it will be spectacular.

I think this is very close to Anchor Steam. I'm going to buy a six pack to compare tonight. I think the color is dead on. My version might be a little less hoppy.

Putting this back on the "To Brew List" near the top.

just had anchor for 1st time today and i gotta brew it. thanks

terrapinj said:

brewed this up yesterday with a slight modification on the Crystal additions - added some cara-amber and crystal 40 in place of some of the crystal 60

did a 1L starter with wyaeast 2112 the weekend before hoping to brew then but ended up not being able to so I put it in the fridge after 60hours and decanted the liquid off and warmed to room temp before pitching - was concerned the starter may be too small but already had the blowoff tube bubbling away within 4 hours!

i pitched at 66deg but then put it in my water bath/swamp cooler at 62deg to let it cool the last few deg - planning maintaining around 61-62deg for a couple weeks

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really been enjoying this one, as have my friends - need to pick up an anchor steam to try side by side but regardless this is a really smooth balanced beer with great flavor

thanks for the recipe

I did a very similar recipe but it called for a 2 week 62˚F fermentation, using San Francisco Lager. It's been 2 1/2 weeks in the primary and I tasted it last night for the first time.

No off flavors, very tasty. Honestly I could force carb and drink it now but I'll drop the temp and lager it for a couple of weeks.

I am wondering why the difference in fermentation temp and what difference it makes with the San Francisco Lager yeast. I get no diacetyl at all but I guess it's from the higher fermentation temp.

Thoughts?

KingBrian- I really want to try your recipe out but I'm having trouble calculating to 40 IBU. I'm getting something closer to 47 using the Tinseth formula. Here's what I understand as your recipe

10lb 2 Row
.5lb C60
2oz Chocolate Malt

1oz NB @60
.5oz NB @30
1oz NB @15
1oz NB @1

Can you help me figure it out if this isnt it?

Also, would you dry hop this if you had another chance?

Yooper's recipe kicks butt.

The last couple times I made it I substituted Simcoe hops. Holy cow! What a great result.

for 5 gal
1/2 oz @ 60m
1/2 oz @ 45
1/2 oz @ 15
1/2 oz @ 10
1/2 oz @ flameout
1 oz dry

arturo7 said:

Yooper's recipe kicks butt.

The last couple times I made it I substituted Simcoe hops. Holy cow! What a great result.

for 5 gal
1/2 oz @ 60m
1/2 oz @ 45
1/2 oz @ 15
1/2 oz @ 10
1/2 oz @ flameout
1 oz dry

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I love, love, love simcoe! That sounds really good. I still have some NB hops needing a home, so I think the next batch will be with those, but then maybe a batch with simcoe!

Hey Yoop my bil has requested this for his wedding rehearsal dinner party, I only have 6 weeks. I have made this recipe a number of times but never "rushed" it. If I'm force carbing in a keg, is 6 weeks enough time for this beer?

bad67z said:

Hey Yoop my bil has requested this for his wedding rehearsal dinner party, I only have 6 weeks. I have made this recipe a number of times but never "rushed" it. If I'm force carbing in a keg, is 6 weeks enough time for this beer?

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Oh, yes, that should be fine. You can lager it in the keg while it's carbing up so that should work out great.

Yooper said:

Oh, yes, that should be fine. You can lager it in the keg while it's carbing up so that should work out great.

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That never occurred to me, thanks Yoop!

Just a note for anyone not set up for lagering... I brewed a 10g batch of a recipe very similar to this one recently, the only difference in the grain bill being 80L crystal instead of 60.

For fermentation I used WL cream ale yeast with a healthy starter and let it go for about 30 days @ around 68 degrees F. It turned out excellent to say the least, just like the original only crisper and smoother.

I did find that it benefits greatly from aging a week or two before drinking though.

I had a question about your mash and boil volumes, but you answered it elsewhere in this thread.

Brewing up this weekend, thanks for posting!

Right, so brewed this up. I went ahead and subbed 1 pound of Victory for 1 pound of Pale.

My gravity was higher, 1.06. I ended up with 5 gallons, not 5.5. It took a long time to get the 7 gallons up to a boil, so I'm guessing that this extra time is what caused a bit more evaporation and therefore the higher gravity.

The color is beautiful. Can't wait.