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

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I adjusted the hop schedule from the original post as I will be doing a 3.25 boil versus the original 6.5. One of the subsequent posts showed an extract/smaller boil version that used this schedule (or something very similar). If I used the original schedule, I think the IBU's came in the 13-14 range. Increasing the time for some of the hops (as listed in my schedule) got me up to 16.4, which is close to the original, but still short.

I'm not sure how big on an impact going from 21 to 16 in IBU will really have on the perceived flavor of the bear.
 
I just bottled another batch of this yesterday. I can't believe how fast this beer matures. I had it in primary for a week and secondary a week. When I put it into secondary, it tasted very green (no surprise) but at bottling it was delicious. I was tempted to drink a pint flat... I will be doing a double batch of this in the next month (20 gallons) and will be making this a house brew... PROST!
 
Had a rough day at work. Had to make pizza sauce for my pizzas for tomorrows dinner, bottle my Best Bitter and do some work (this didnt happen). Sat down and I am enjoying one of my remaining bottles of this beer, man did it hit the spot!
 
jarod7736 said:
I brewed the AG version of this (first time with all grain). It's been in the keg for about a week & a half. Is it supposed to have a strong "bread" smell & taste to it? I don't get much of any hoppyness, but I believe that's to be expected, but the bread bit throws me off some. Does it just need to age & will it mellow a bit?
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I took a hydro last night after 12 days of fermentation and I'm at about 1.011. I'll check the gravity again tomorrow but I think its done. I get a lot of bread as well in the aroma and taste. I'm hoping cold crashing and a week or two of maturing will take care of it.
 
I just brewed my first batch of this yesterday to have some training wheel beer on hand for summer visitors. I used it as an opportunity to clean out leftovers from previous batches that are starting to overwhelm the storage space. The recipe was mostly intact, but I used up some C20, Pils, biscuit, etc and filled in with the 2-row, carapils, and vienna. For hops I needed to get rid of some sterling and cascades that are getting old. For yeast, I had an old vial of WLP080 cream ale blend from which to build a starter. I got my best ever efficiency at just under 83% and this must have been the smoothest batch I've ever made. This may become a regular. Now, I just need to make a bastardized porter or stout to get rid of all of the dark grains and the willamettes that I swear are reproducing in my freezer.
 
Well yesterday was brew day. I screwed this up big time. my SG is only 1.020 and it looks like a light beer. I am thinking of adding DME but i am on sure of how much to add. Any ideas?
 
shadows69 said:
Well yesterday was brew day. I screwed this up big time. my SG is only 1.020 and it looks like a light beer. I am thinking of adding DME but i am on sure of how much to add. Any ideas?
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What temperature did you take your gravity reading at?
 
Brewed this last week as my first AG batch (quite a ghetto process with some grain bags and multiple kettles- but need to try AG to taste difference). Very psyched to bottle for SWMBO next week. Anyone try re-using dry Notty yeast cake? I want to just brew another batch and replace in the fermenter.
 
Well I'm just going to experiment with this batch. I didn't have any DME or an LBS to goto. I added dark and light corn syrup, some honey (boiled of course). I also added flaked oaks that i toasted in the oven, some black patent (only a little to get the color a little darker), and some rice just for kicks. I'm guessing the gain bill on this is to hight to do a 5 gal batch in 5 gal pots. I may have to do half and half next time as I have all the ingredients for another 5 gal batch. Sometimes you never know by experimenting something good could become of it. If nothing else I know the 1056 washed works good as it's now bubbling away.
 
BierMuncher said:
This should get you a very similar beer:

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...


So my beer has been stopped for a week now. its stuck at 1.016 which seems high for this beer. Color is great, but it tastes very very sweet. Like to the point its almost undrinkable.

unfortunately i dont know what my OG was.

Only things i did different was 3 lbs of the DME I added as a late addition (about 10 minutes left) and it was a partial boil. 3.5 gallon boil. which of those would be the cause?

and what does the boil size have to do with anything?
 
add some sugar to thin it out, make it a 5% abv instead of 4% . you could also add a little water after adding the sugar to get it back down to 4%, which would also lower fg
 
Melcher said:
isnt the sweetness from unfermented sugars? or what causes the sweetness?
Click to expand...

Same thing happened to me. there isa bunch of factors that could of caused it.

Sent from my DROIDX using Home Brew Talk
 
Melcher said:
Only things i did different was 3 lbs of the DME I added as a late addition (about 10 minutes left) and it was a partial boil. 3.5 gallon boil. which of those would be the cause?
Click to expand...

Just to be sure: you added 3lb DME in addition to the 5lb that were called for? That would certainly explain the sweetness. Extracts have a certain amount of unfermentable sugars (as well as some components from specialty grains such as crystal/caramel) that will contribute to a sweeter end-product. Adding that much to the recipe makes it something completely different; a weakly-hopped amber would be my best guess.

and what does the boil size have to do with anything?
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The boil size (and timing of extract additions) impacts overall hop extraction. The acids and resins from hops extract more efficiently as gravity reduces; hence, if you add hops to 2.5 gallons with 3lb of extract, you'll get less "hop" (including both flavor and bitterness) than that same amount of hops to 5 gallons with 3lb of extract.
 
smagee said:
Just to be sure: you added 3lb DME in addition to the 5lb that were called for? That would certainly explain the sweetness. Extracts have a certain amount of unfermentable sugars (as well as some components from specialty grains such as crystal/caramel) that will contribute to a sweeter end-product. Adding that much to the recipe makes it something completely different; a weakly-hopped amber would be my best guess.

The boil size (and timing of extract additions) impacts overall hop extraction. The acids and resins from hops extract more efficiently as gravity reduces; hence, if you add hops to 2.5 gallons with 3lb of extract, you'll get less "hop" (including both flavor and bitterness) than that same amount of hops to 5 gallons with 3lb of extract.
Click to expand...


NOpe I added 2 lb right away and 3 lbs as a late addition

So a late extract addition will give it more "hopiness"?
 
Melcher said:
NOpe I added 2 lb right away and 3 lbs as a late addition

So a late extract addition will give it more "hopiness"?
Click to expand...

Ah, my mistake then. Moving extract to later in the recipe will result in increased bitterness; basically, it will up the impact of the hops you have added prior to the extract. With my IPAs, I often push a portion or all of the extract to flameout specifically to increase the utilization from the hops.

As for your sweetness issue, I'm at something of a loss. I can't see any reason (at least none in your control) for it to have finished oddly high. For factors beyond your control, your yeast could've been a particularly low-attenuating packet, your DME may be a less-than-ideal batch, etc. A lot of flukes can come into play sometimes.

I've got a partial mash batch of this in the fermenter right now; it'll be ready for its first gravity check today or tomorrow, so if mine has the same issue, I'll post a follow-up as well :).
 
smagee said:
I've got a partial mash batch of this in the fermenter right now; it'll be ready for its first gravity check today or tomorrow, so if mine has the same issue, I'll post a follow-up as well :).
Click to expand...

Gravity after 5 days is at 1.012, and the sample's tasting good so far; has a flavor I tend to associate with lagers, but I can't quite place it. Very beer-flavored, I guess. I'll let it primary for another week and then dry hop a bit to tailor it to my own tastes. I love its simplicity; makes a great foundation for tweaking!
 
Just got done brewin 10 gal of this. Only difference is I'm using US-05. Hit all of my numbers and volumes with 70% eff.
 
If I was to FWH this recipe, would it resemble something along the lines of this:

.25 oz. Centennial FWH
.25 oz. Centennial 10 min.
.25 oz. Cascade 5 min.
.25 oz. Cascade flame out

Would I need to increase any of the amounts?
 
I did a FWH version a week ago in which I didn't tweak any of the timings. However, my Centennials were a bit lower AA than the ones used in the original recipe, so I felt it balanced out.

I would say leave well enough alone unless you really want to instill some hoppiness to it; your posted schedule will give you some good hop character as-is, and may require a bit more time before that fades into the recipe's original intended flavor.
 
I have a friend who's brewed this (extract) recipe more than any other style of beer in the past two years. He's stepped up the hops just a little (adding in an ounce of centennial and cascade) so it's a little more bitter.

However, just recently he added the zest from four Meyers Lemons into the boil at 3 minutes and it turned out better than any I had tasted before.
 
Has anyone made this with Wyeast 1272? I have some on hand and am wondering if it would work well with this recipe. What do you guys think? Thanks.
 
Not to be another me too, but...

I want to add my voice to the growing chorus of satisfied people that have brewed this recipe. As I write this I'm enjoying the first glass of it, a 10-day in the bottle, nicely carbonated, malty AND crispy bit of, as someone else put it, "liquid sunshine".

I paired this recipe, which I followed pretty much to the "t", with soft water per the Water Chemistry Primer, having added to the recipe 4.3 oz of acidulated malt to lower the pH of the mash, plus the calcium chloride to the water (I adjusted all the water, mash + sparge). Soft water definitely works for this beer.

Also, I temp controlled it from pitching through bottling, including a cold crashing.

Thanks BM for posting the recipe and BM and everyone else for all the comments, etc. Very helpful. I was concerned I had selected a "too naked" beer for my first AG adventure, but it worked out quite well, far beyond my expectations.
 
just got done with my first AG batch (BIAB method) (7th total batch) and figured this would be the perfect recipe for 1st AG attempt

i upped the 2 row and vienna a little and adjusted the hops accordingly expecting lower efficiency but ended up hitting 1.047 with 5.4 gallons in the bucket - which beer smith shows as 70% efficiency

the mash was reading at 149+° most of the 75min mash but after i removed the grain sections of the runnings were reading 154ish - i had mashed inside the oven and am thinking it may have heated up the bottom of the pot when it kicked on towards the end of the mash - i guess i'll see how much it affected the body when its done

really excited to see how this comes out - thanks for sharing the recipe
 
this thread is massive, anyone have recommended priming sugar amounts for 5.5 gal? (WLP005 yeast used here, its what i had on hand). thanks for the awesome recipe!!
 
The photo makes this more amber than it is in real life, but it sure is a purdy glass of beer :)

centennial.jpg

-Joe
 
I brewed this today and just got it buttoned up and pitched with 05. I'm wondering if LHBS might have given me something other than crystal 10, it looks BROWN. Nothing even resembling a blonde. I should have watched them pull the grain. Anyway, should be tasty even if it's brown.
 
What type of modifications should I make to the 5 gallon recipe if I were to use the Brew In A Bag method? Would the grain bill stay the same?
 
Wow!

Brewed a slightly modified recipe (subbed Weyermann Munich for Vienna) on April 4th, it's kegged, carbed and tasted fantastic as of the 17th, used US-05 in lieu of Nottingham.

Very impressed with the turnaround time on this beer, ended up so crazy busy with work that I let the pipeline sit too long and was down to 2 gallons of drinkable beer, and nothing fermenting. So I brewed up a batch, was shocked how drinkable this is under 2 weeks.

Will definitely brew again
 

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