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

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So I tried to brew this yesterday (the 5 gallon version). My first AG after three extracts and two partials (all of them wheat by the way). Seemed like a good recipe to start AG, as OP said "hard to screw recipe" but I guess I managed to screw it up anyway.

I can't do full volume boils yet so I went with Maxi-BIAB in an 18 liter pot. Adjusted recipe with the Maxi-BIAB calculator from biabrewer.info. Brew day went pretty good, or at least so I felt. I mashed in the pot at 65.5C (more like 66), insulated with a sleeping bag, after 70 minutes it was at 65C, so I really haven't lost temperature. I had a post-mash gravity of 1.082 and was pretty certain I'm on track.

It seems I made a few key mistakes:
1. Left too much wort in the pot after the boil, I should have continued straining it into the fermenter even though it had a lot of trub in it.
2. Didn't take a post boil gravity reading, which would have helped me calculate how much water to add (with Maxi-BIAB you have to do post-boil dilution).
3. Diluted too much. Went according to target volume instead of target OG.

So I ended with an OG of 1.032 where I expected 1.042-1.046. That's a very big difference. I wonder if my mash wasn't very efficient too.

Live and learn I guess, I'm hopeful it will still turn out a good beer, even if on the weak side.

Attached is a picture of the beer 12 hours after pitching the yeast.

IMG_1531.jpg
 
Just finished this one up. Hit 72% efficiency double batch sparging. Cooled my wort from 212 to 67 in under 15 minutes with my homemade wort chiller! (It's 27° outside today). Pitched rehydrated S-04. I'll report the results in a few weeks. Thanks for the recipe BM!
 
Brewed extract yesterday but found out I got chinook instead of cascade hops. Ended up using centennial only. Hopefully it won't affect the taste too bad.

ForumRunner_20120124_091152.jpg
 
Brewed this beer 3 times and I'm lookin forward to the next batch. I call it my "lawn mower brew" because it's great for cooling off after/during some yard work. My first batch I fermented 5 gallons as is and 5 gallons with strawberries. I used 6 pounds of fresh picked (took the wife and kids picking) and did not use a blow off tube:( Well you know how bad that can get. I might use fruit on this again but with less fruit and a blow off. Thanks BM for a great brew.
 
Drank my first Citra last night, all I can say is very nice. Bought the bill the other week for this again and will make starter tonight and brew on Thursday. Might add just a little more DME and just a little bit of honey. This is a fun brew to play with.
 
S-04 ripped through this in no time. Only took about 1 1/2 days to do it's thing and drop out. I'll give it a week on the yeast cake and keg/force carb. This will be my quickest grain-to-glass so I am very interested to taste the results.
 
Do you think this would work well as a brew in a bag? Would I have to add some grain to make up for lower effeciency?
 
Boek said:
Do you think this would work well as a brew in a bag? Would I have to add some grain to make up for lower effeciency?
Click to expand...

I've make this in a bag and it turned out fine. The best bet is to use Beersmith to determine the grain amounts according to your setup. I generally get 68%-72% conversion efficiency with my setup so I adjust accordingly.
 
Boek said:
Do you think this would work well as a brew in a bag? Would I have to add some grain to make up for lower effeciency?
Click to expand...

I just did this using Biab method. I took the original recipe and scaled down to a 2.5 gal batch. It is now drinkable and have to say probably my best batch yet. Was also first AG I have done. I would have to look at my notes but I seemed to remember hitting my numbers pretty well.
 
So what is the fastest turnaround time anyone has done with this recipe? I plan to cold crash with gelatin on Thursday (day 11) for a few days and rack straight to the keg and force carb. I used S-04 so I shouldn't have to worry about yeast still being in suspension.
 
I made it for a BBQ in 10 days, grain to glass.

But having made probably 50 gallons of the stuff.. it' so much better at about 5-6 weeks. A bit harsh when it's young.
 
Yep, it will be ready.

I just think it's so much better at even 4 weeks. Keep the temp a bit lower if you are using S-04.. you really want this beer clean.
 
Just brewed this yesterday as my first all grain brew. And I'm happy to report I hit all my numbers.

I'm looking forward to drinking this!
 
I brewed this one this weekend. I bumped up the 2-row a pound and used All citra in this brew(it was all I had on hand). I pitched US-05 that I washed from a pale ale. This was my 1st time washing and reusing yeast and this Blonde is going crazy. I needed a blow off tube with this one. Anyone else use all citra?
 
I brewed the exact 5 gallon recipe with no modifications. Ended up with 1.042 og. Looks like it should turn out good. Thanks BM.
 
Just bottled 5 gallons of this that has been sitting in secondary for almost 2 months.....eeek. Didn't mean to leave it that long but its been a busy couple of months. 1.044 down to 1.012. Can't wait to try it in a week or so. The sample tasted like.......beer.
 
I found the extract version of this very popular centennial ale. Since I am a noob, I need a little more direction. When do I add the carapils dextrine? Do I just throw them in the boil whole? For the adding the hops I'm assuming I can just follow the ag recipe times?


Heres the recipe

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.57 gal
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 3.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 83.3 %
1.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 16.7 %
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (45 min) Hops 7.8 IBU
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (20 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (10 min) Hops 2.5 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (5 min) Hops 1.4 IBU
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale
 
Just wanted to post another positive review--gave an assortment of six homebrewed beers to a colleague recently, and the CB was his favorite, hands down. He said there was.a perfect level of hoppiness and the flavor was lightly malty and super clean. Cheers!
 
Brewcrew86 said:
I found the extract version of this very popular centennial ale. Since I am a noob, I need a little more direction. When do I add the carapils dextrine? Do I just throw them in the boil whole? For the adding the hops I'm assuming I can just follow the ag recipe times?


Heres the recipe

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.57 gal
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 3.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 83.3 %
1.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 16.7 %
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (45 min) Hops 7.8 IBU
0.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (20 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (10 min) Hops 2.5 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [7.80%] (5 min) Hops 1.4 IBU
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale
Click to expand...

The carapils will need to be crushed and steeped. Do a search for "steeping grains" and you'll learn a lot. Most recipes advise steeping between 150-160 degrees for 20-30 minutes.
 
Took a hydrometer reading last night (day 11) and it's at 1.010. Looks like S04 did it's job. It has dropped completely and the beer is crystal clear! Sample tasted very promising for a young uncarbed beer. Time to crash cool with gelatin for a few days and its going straight to the keg. Can't wait!
 
made some more of this the other day, next time thinking about dropping some strawberries into some. Really like this beer.
 
Was kind of incredulous about making this beer with it being such a session-able beer. I usually like things with more flavor like porter/stouts and IPA's. Made this anyways, just to give my friends a taste of homebrew without blowing their minds with flavor. I love it! I'm brewing another batch this week. I've now made it both extract and All-grain. It really is able to be grain to glass in 10 days, incredible. Thanks for this recipe. I even bought some raspberry flavoring (extremely concentrated off of ebay) and I dip a toothpick in the flavoring then drop it in a pint and have raspberry-blonde ale!
 
How do you think this recipe would be using centennial hops only. I hate to open up two packages only to throw half of each away.
 
Boek said:
How do you think this recipe would be using centennial hops only. I hate to open up two packages only to throw half of each away.
Click to expand...

Throw them away? :drunk: Dear God, man! Put 'em in a ziploc bag in the freezer! Pellet hops will keep for a while!
 
O. Thanks. Even so, would it be okay wih just cenntenial?
 
cruizer8 said:
I decided to brew the extract version of this and made 5 1-gallon batches using different yeasts. The yeasts I used were Munich, Nottingham, Safale US-05, Safbrew S-33, and S-04. For my tastes I liked the S-33 and S-04, but I am not a fan of using the Munich. At least now I know how different yeasts affect the beer now.
Click to expand...

Do you mind giving a little more insight on this, e.g. what made you like the yeasts better? Also, how would you compare to the us-05 you made? I don't know the differences of the yeast well enough so I'd be curious to what they taste like.

Also, for the extract brewers who have brewed this. And there appears to be a lot of you. How did it turn out. I did this once last summer and it didn't turn out well but I'm 99% sure it was because my keg orings weren't replaced. I'm thinking about giving it another go but wouldn't mind some feedback on the extract version.
 
cincybrewer said:
Also, for the extract brewers who have brewed this. And there appears to be a lot of you. How did it turn out. I did this once last summer and it didn't turn out well but I'm 99% sure it was because my keg orings weren't replaced. I'm thinking about giving it another go but wouldn't mind some feedback on the extract version.
Click to expand...

I brewed extract and left it in the primary for two weeks. kegged it yesterday and tasted pretty good. I used centennial only.
 

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