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

jfrizzell said:

Damn! I have got to get me a Better Bottle! Who knew!?

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they are not better just because they are plastic ya know..

Third week in bottles today. This has got to be one of the best beers I've ever tasted. Though, my last citrus hef was extremely good at about 4 weeks in the bottles. But, now it's starting to loose it's aroma at about 2 months... Centennial blonde is extremely tasty I based my last recipe off this and ended up bumping the gravity up a little and switched the centennials for chinooks. Pretty excited.

what is the BJCP Style for this? ( best guess )

All of the parameters fit a Blonde Ale, but the slight hop aroma from the later additions makes this kind of an Americanized Blonde Ale.

so we'll call it a Blonde Ale

do we need to start a how many gallons thread ?

10 gallons for me! (w/ hop substitutions)

see https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=73501 for the count thread

Thanks for the recipe, made a batch yesterday. Was looking for something light and crisp and ready quickly and this fit the bill perfectly.

I might have to make this next. I just did a wheat for a party in a month and maybe crank this one out as well..Blond ales are good quick. I would love to use my home grow hops that I am about to pick but man the IBUs could be anything..(heavy handed cent blond)


might be a nice combo of kegs for the party..American wheat, lake walk pale(my version ), and blond ale..hits all types of beer drinkers..a good triple threat keg party..

Jay

11 gal. extract batch planned for this weekend:
BeerAlchemy recipe sheet

Will be using Willamette instead of Cascade (because that's what I have on hand )

Just got a keggle to use as my BK, so I'm anxious to try it out.

Steeped grains in 2 gal at ~153 for 45 minutes, got 1.5 gal wort from that. Added it to 12 gal in BK for 13.5 gal total (here was my mistake). When that came to a boil, I added DME which brought total to almost 14.5 gal! After one minor boilover, the rest of the boil went smooth. Had 12 gal after cooling (was shooting for 11g).

I siphoned 3 gal into first carboy (on right), then 6 gal into second carboy (on left), then remaining 3 gal (including cold break, no hops - used a hop bag) into first carboy.

Within a couple hours in the ferment box the cold break carboy was as clear as the second one (it just had a thick layer of cold break on the bottom).
I used US-05 on the first carboy and Nottingham on the second (just to see what difference it made).
(Note this picture was after siphoning and before yeast was added after carboys cooled to pitching temp. They DO have blow-off tubes now!)

OG was 1.039 and the sample was exceptionally clear.


Click any image for a full size version.

What liquid yeast would you recommend for this? Think a Cali would work?

I would use the Wyeast 1272 - American Ale II™
I'm getting ready to make some of this myself and I'm debating if I want to use that yeast or just go ahead and use the 1056 that I already have. I guess if I go and buy the 1272 it gives me an excuse to find something else to make with the 1056

I used the Cali wlp001. It was delicious. I'm brewing another batch of it sometime this weekend. The only problem is that My HBS is out of centennials for the year. So I've been using Chinooks. Which are also very delicious.

Once I go AG, I think this should be my first brew.

shoebag22 said:

What liquid yeast would you recommend for this? Think a Cali would work?

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I just started drinking a 11 gallon batch of this that I made back in June and bottle conditioned. I split it into 2 5.5 gallon batches and threw notty on one and wlp001 on the other. Both finished at exactly the same FG and the only difference I could detect is just a touch more malty flavor in the notty batch.. but not enough to make much difference.. I'd say wlp001 will work just fine in this...

In the extract version you posted the IBU's are 16.8 as opposed to 21.5 in the AG recipe. Should I bump up the hops to get closer to 21.5 or do you think it will be fine with the amounts you specified? I'm also not doing a full 5 gallon boil so I may need to account for that too.

Thanks

cushdan said:

In the extract version you posted the IBU's are 16.8 as opposed to 21.5 in the AG recipe. Should I bump up the hops to get closer to 21.5 or do you think it will be fine with the amounts you specified? I'm also not doing a full 5 gallon boil so I may need to account for that too.

Thanks

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Either IBU level will be very drinkable...but adjust for yourself or your audience. At around 16, it will still be balanced...but closer to a BMC flavor. It depends on your audience.

shoebag22 said:

What liquid yeast would you recommend for this? Think a Cali would work?

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Any clean fermenting yeast should work pretty well (Cali, American, Amer. II). I used 1056 last time and worked out great! I'll be using Nottingham next weekend just for comparison's sake.
Edit: I'm also a big fan of dry hopping this beer; I used 0.5 oz of both hops for 3 days. Might go for 7 days this time.

I have a batch fermenting with the 1056 now.

when I tried this after 2.5/3 weeks in bottle, it was a little bitter for my taste.. It's mellowed out a little after a few more weeks. I think I'll try this again, put a little more grains in to get the OG up to 1.045/ 1.050 ish . Looking for a little sweeter

thoughts?

Sounds good to me. I actually did that with mine.
Here is the recipe I used. Mine ended up a little too dark on the color scale though. Not sure why, may have gotten the wrong crystal malt or something.

[size=+2]Centennial Blonde[/size]
[size=+1]6-B Blonde Ale[/size]



Size: 10.33 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 161.71 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.049 (1.038 - 1.054)
|==================#=============|
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.008 - 1.013)
|=====================#==========|
Color: 4.6 (3.0 - 6.0)
|================#===============|
Alcohol: 4.78% (3.8% - 5.5%)
|=================#==============|
Bitterness: 20.25 (15.0 - 28.0)
|==============#=================|

[size=+1]Ingredients:[/size]
16.0 lbs Cargill Two-Row Pale
1.5 lbs 2-Row Carapils® Malt
1 lbs Crystal Malt 10°L
1 lbs Vienna Malt
0.5 oz Centennial (9.5%) - added during boil, boiled 55 min
0.5 oz Centennial (9.5%) - added during boil, boiled 35 min
0.6 oz Cascade (6.3%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
0.7 oz Cascade (6.3%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
1.0 ea WYeast 1056 American Ale

[size=+1]Schedule:[/size]
Ambient Air: 90.0 °F
Source Water: 70.0 °F
Elevation: 900 ft

00:05:00 Mash In - Liquor: 6.09 gal; Strike: 163.1 °F; Target: 152 °F
01:05:00 Saccharification Rest - Rest: 60.0 min; Final: 152.0 °F
01:25:00 Batch Sparge - Sparge #1: 6.35 gal sparge @ 195 °F, 6.27 gal collected, 10 min; Sparge #2: 6.35 gal sparge @ 185 °F, 6.23 gal collected, 10 min; Total Runoff: 12.82 gal

[size=+1]Notes:[/size]
Brewed 08-09-08
OG-1.050

Kegged 08-24-08
FG-1.004

Since I only have a 3Gal brewpot I put the recipe into Beer Smith and Scaled it down to a 3 gal boil with a 5.5gal batch size. It upped the hops, would that be correct?

All the hops went to .36 oz

That sounds about right. What is the total bitterness rating for the batch?

I gotta try this one again. My first one came out a 6.5 out of 10 due to it being my first attempt at all grain. I also substituted the wrong hops. Cascades from Argentina are no substitutes for the US version. The beer I had was drinkable, and everyone liked it, so.... it was a success? I know the real thing will be better though.

truckmann said:

That sounds about right. What is the total bitterness rating for the batch?

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Thanks

I should mention this is the extract version

When I first entered it into BS it came up with 17.0

that was with a boil volume of 6.57 and a final of 5.50

after I scaled it to a 3 gal boil with a 5.50 batch size it stayed at 17.0

I'm planning to brew this beer this weekend while my 999 is on it's Efin 4 hour boil.

Had to scale back the grain a bit to get the OG you are calling for and I'm planning to use all homegrown hops that I picked and dried last week. :rockin:

Just brewed this one Sat night. I hit my numbers but only ended up with 5gal in the carboy, probably gonna loose a little bit during transfer to the keg but oh well. I just wish I was sober enough to have tasted the hydro sample

blacklab said:

The glass is a little scratched because it's kinda old-I stole it from Rennie's in Eugene on my 21er in 1991. But the beer cleared very nicely after a week or so in the keg.

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I love Rennie's! nice looking beer, btw.

Muncher.

I brewed this 11 days ago (only change was Pils vs pale - due to that fact I got a lot it at the moment and I thought this light beer it would be ok)

Well I Kegged it on Sat. and I dropped the temp to 35 and set the PSI to 20 and boom I tasted it tonight. I need to take pic. It was very fine.

I am on the hook for 10 gallons of beer for the Texas/Arkansas game this week-end and I needed a quick turn time.

Would an extra week help this beer out>? Sure.. but for a 11 day old beer... it is very drinkable.
It is a little cloudy still... but I think that will clear by the week-end in the keg.

I used 05 and it dropped to 1.008
nice...

Thanks for the Recipe.

I brewed this last weekend and ended up with a OG of 1.040. A little low but it sure tasted good. Using malt from a local group buy program, notty yeast and hops from Williams Brewing ($2/per oz!), I can brew 5 gals of this for $8.61! At that rate I'be able to pay for my brew/keg equip. in about 10-15 years!

I brewed the extract version of this last night. The only issue was my LHBS only had a half pound of Carapils left (his order did not come in as expected). He recomended that I substitute the half pound of Carapils with biscuit malt. So, my grain bill was .5# carapils; .5# biscuit. How much do you think it will change the recipe?

I brewed a batch of this a couple weeks ago, and we're really tearing through the keg now - it really is a great quaffer! If I wasn't in dire need of getting some other beers brewed to have some more variety in the house, I'd be doing another batch of this immediately!

Thanks for the recipe, BM, it's a great one as always!

My batch of this did not workout so well. I used all home grown hops so I had no idea how it would be. I pulled the first pint last night and it taste like sweet-tarts. So it seems my hops were really low on the AAU's. I ordered some AI oil extract today so I can bitter it up and make it better.
I'll brew it again but I'll use the store bought hops this time.

just kegged this after a 10 day stay in the fermenter, awesome stuff I think I am going to make another batch just to bottle

I did the extract version and boiled 2lbs of the DME for an hour and added the other 3lbs at flameout and I ended up with a very very nice pale color. But I did come up low on the OG at 1.042 at only 5 gallons. Also I did not transfer to secondary and it still came out great.

Thanks!

jcdillin said:

just kegged this after a 10 day stay in the fermenter, awesome stuff I think I am going to make another batch just to bottle

I did the extract version and boiled 2lbs of the DME for an hour and added the other 3lbs at flameout and I ended up with a very very nice pale color. But I did come up low on the OG at 1.042 at only 5 gallons. Also I did not transfer to secondary and it still came out great.

Thanks!

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I brewed a batch using the method above on 10/4 (2lbs in 3.5 gallon boil, 3 lbs at flame-out). Used WLP001 with a 500ml starter. Bubbling away nicely.

What OG did you end up with?

I am not sure b/c I didn't get a good OG reading due to trying a new technique for drawing a sample (turkey baster instead of auto-siphon). I didn't get my top-off water mixed well enough in the glass carboy, and the sample I took was from the very top.

Not too worried about it since I used the extract method, though.