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

I let a new guy who's wanting to brew make this with me the other day. He milled and got all the grain together. Wanted to sub out some crystal for a wee bit of honey malt, which was okay.

He grabbed and milled victory instead of the Vienna though! Came out darker from the Victory, but otherwise smelled good.

He used Cascade and Amarillo late in the boil for some citrusy and peachy notes. I let him use some Conan ( Alchemist's house strain ) on it to give it a nice dry finish with a peachy note.

Should be pretty good I think, maybe the Victory will be good in there, especially since we ended up around 30 IBU's to balance the added malty side.

Brewed a batch of this on Saturday. Finished perfect with a 1.040 og and yielded 5 gallons. Apparently the yeast were very hungry and happy with my wort. The yeast went on on ferment frenzy and blew the lid off the bucket and decided the floor was a supple environment for krausen to relax. Sunday morning was a bummer! Gonna try again next weekend. This time with a bigger primary and blowoff. Ugh.

I haven't read every single post, but a large percentage of them. My question is: my house yeast is ESB London 1968, would this be completely the wrong yeast character wise? Any and all suggestions welcome.

MindenMan said:

I haven't read every single post, but a large percentage of them. My question is: my house yeast is ESB London 1968, would this be completely the wrong yeast character wise? Any and all suggestions welcome.

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I'd just use it even though I haven't used the strain myself. If it's your house yeast then you like it, so why not use it? The point of this beer is a simple drinker that is quite good and if you like a particular strain i'm sure it will also turn out well.

Just report back and let us know how the strain change turned out.

I am thinking about a quick batch of beer and this would fit the bill. The problem is that I don't have any Cara-pils on hand. I know Cara-pils adds body so what would be a good sub for this?

pikeman94 said:

I am thinking about a quick batch of beer and this would fit the bill. The problem is that I don't have any Cara-pils on hand. I know Cara-pils adds body so what would be a good sub for this?

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I would use light crystal or some flaked wheat. Personally I would use the flaked wheat since there's already light crystal in the recipe. But as always YMMV.

Wow, too much thread to go through but thanks Biermuncher. I am kind of spur-of-the-moment planning this for my first small-batch AG BIAB this coming Friday. This looks pretty straightforward and clearly is a winner. I know its not much and will be gone in a weekend or two, but I want to get my feet wet with this technique. For a 3 gallon batch does this look right:

4.2 lbs Pale Malt (80%)
0.45 lbs Cara Pils (8.5%)
0.3 lbs Crystal 10L (5.7%)
0.3 lbs Vienna (5.7%)
0.15 Centennial @55
0.15 Centennial @35
0.15 Cascade @20
0.15 Cascade @5
1pkg Nottingham dry yeast

Thanks for any feedback!

Malty_Dog said:

Wow, too much thread to go through but thanks Biermuncher. I am kind of spur-of-the-moment planning this for my first small-batch AG BIAB this coming Friday. This looks pretty straightforward and clearly is a winner. I know its not much and will be gone in a weekend or two, but I want to get my feet wet with this technique. For a 3 gallon batch does this look right:

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Yes. Here is what I got when I scaled it in iBrewmaster:
BM's CENTENNIAL BLONDE

Style: Blonde Ale OG: 1.040
Type: All Grain FG: 1.010
Rating: 0.0 ABV: 3.93 %
Calories: 131 IBU's: 21.96
Efficiency: 75 % Boil Size: 3.75 Gal
Color: 4.2 SRM Batch Size: 3.00 Gal
Preboil OG: 1.038 Boil Time: 60 minutes

Fermentation Steps
Name Days / Temp
Primary 12 days @ 68.0°F
Bottle/Keg 14 days @ 74.0°F

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Time Gravity
4.20 lbs 80.00 % Pale Malt (2 Row) US 75 mins 1.036
0.45 lbs 8.57 % Cara-Pils/Dextrine 75 mins 1.033
0.30 lbs 5.71 % Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L 75 mins 1.035
0.30 lbs 5.71 % Vienna Malt 75 mins 1.036

Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
0.15 ozs 9.67 Centennial 60 mins 10.00
0.15 ozs 8.01 Centennial 35 mins 10.00
0.15 ozs 3.22 Cascade 20 mins 5.50
0.15 ozs 1.06 Cascade 5 mins 5.50

Yeasts
Amount Name Laboratory / ID
1.00 pkg Nottingham Danstar

Additions
(none)

Mash Profile
BIAB No Sparge 60 min @ 150.0°F
Add 19.71 qt water @ 158.8°F
Mashout 10 min @ 168.0°F
Heat to 168.0°F over 2 mins

Carbonation
Amount Type Beer Temp CO2 Vols
2.91 oz Corn Sugar - Bottle Carbonation 74.0°F 2.60

Notes

www.iBrewMaster.com Version: 2.834



Sent from my iPhone

Thanks man! Stopped in the LHBS and my whopping grain bill expense: $9.03 Hops added a bit more beyond that, but I could use the extra for another BIAB I have planned in a couple weeks.

brewed this one this past Saturday. It was only my 3rd AG BIAB. I scaled the grains up because my first 2 batches I had only gotten 60% efficiency. Well this time, I milled my own grain and got 76%. So I had an OG of 1.048. I increased all the hops aditions to .33oz.

Malty_Dog said:

Thanks man! Stopped in the LHBS and my whopping grain bill expense: $9.03 Hops added a bit more beyond that, but I could use the extra for another BIAB I have planned in a couple weeks.

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Gotta love the price of All Grain brewing!

justkev52 said:

Gotta love the price of All Grain brewing!

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Brewed this twice as 5 gallon extract batches and just bought the ingredients for my first BIAB today. I never believed the theory that grain was all that less expensive than extract but the first two batches cost me $45.00 and $35.00 respectively (bought 1 oz packets of hops so I didn’t need to get them for the second batch and I washed the yeast from the first). My grain bill today cost me $22.00. I’m confident that I will be brewing this back to back many times in the future.

I beefed up the base malt to 8 lbs and the specialty grains were 2 lbs for the carpils and 1 lb each for the others. I don't like having grain left over. I'm moving to a secondary today for a 1 week rest before bottling. I'm incredibly excited to get this one chilled and in ma belly!

nasty_rabbit said:

Brewed this twice as 5 gallon extract batches and just bought the ingredients for my first BIAB today. I never believed the theory that grain was all that less expensive than extract but the first two batches cost me $45.00 and $35.00 respectively (bought 1 oz packets of hops so I didn’t need to get them for the second batch and I washed the yeast from the first). My grain bill today cost me $22.00. I’m confident that I will be brewing this back to back many times in the future.

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I brewed this the other week for 9$ total.

Where do you think the $13.00 savings came from? i did have to get the grain by the pound at the LHBS and I did have to buy yeast but that didn't cost that much.

I cranked a 10 gallon session of this recipe in 8 days g to g. Figured I'd try it during the secondary crash 24 hrs in. It is so well balanced and delicious I'm going to keep drinking it without any further adieu.... This is fun.

nasty_rabbit said:

Where do you think the $13.00 savings came from? i did have to get the grain by the pound at the LHBS and I did have to buy yeast but that didn't cost that much.

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Last time I bought yeast was around 6 months ago. Still using washed or cultured. Bulk 2-row @ $0.63/lb. Cheap hops from farmhouse brewing and regular price specialty grains.

BruinBear said:

I cranked a 10 gallon session of this recipe in 8 days g to g. Figured I'd try it during the secondary crash 24 hrs in. It is so well balanced and delicious I'm going to keep drinking it without any further adieu.... This is fun.

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First post? Welcome!

Just racked my second batch of this over 6 cut up mangos into the secondary.. also threw some citra in at flame out.. cant wait to try it.. SWMBO wanted the mangos in there.. should be great.

Just keg'd this on Tuesday and tonight I had one and its the best beer I have made to date! First time BIAB and love this recipe! Definitely getting more Grain to make this again!

Thanks for the recipe!

I just taped another keg of this and I will be making a bigger batch next time. It is always the first to kick. I have 4 kegs and usually have 3 different brews but this will now occupy two kegs at all times.

I'm looking to do an extract version. I've done AG to extract conversion before but I'm surprised by the steeping grains in extract version of this recipe.

AG
7.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
0.75 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM)

Extract
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 %

Extra Light DME makes sense to keep the color as light as possible

The Carapils was increased, Why? I thought that extract already has carapils in it so I usually omit when I convert AG to Extract.

The Crystal was removed. Why? I would have left that. Is this a color thing? I know the extract will typically be a bit darker than AG. Do you think the crystal adds to the flavor? I would rather match the AG recipe in terms of flavor rather than color.

Dropping the Vienna makes sense. This has to be mashed. I guess you could add in a little munich DME but probably not worth the trouble.

Thanks for the help

Tom

What are people getting for an FG on this? I just brewed my second batch and it got down to 1.004. OG was 1.042. 90% attenuation? Wow. First batch was something like 1.008. And yes, hydrometer is calibrated.

Edit : used notty

Notty always finishes lower for me then us-05. This batch I split in two separate buckets since my conical was in use. The one with notty was 1.004 and the us-05 was 1.007. OG was 1.043. I like the taste of the US-05 a little better.

Glad I'm not the only one. Come to think of it, I think I used S-05 on my first one. That may be the difference. Still, 90% attenuation is pretty nuts!

Edit: Based on the attenuation, I'm gonna have about a 5% rather than 4%. I think next time, I'm going to mash higher to get the FG up and add a little more body

My batch (in secondary as we speak) started at 1.046 (+1# of the base malt) and it ended around 1.010-1.008. That was with Nottingham.

Made this 4 weeks ago. My first attempt at all-grain/BIAB. In copying the recipe, I missed the Crystal 10L. I also ended up with Simcoe instead of Centennial hops. I messed up the volumes a bit, mash temp was on the low side (but still where BM recommended) and was off on the OG and FG.

After two weeks in the bottles, I cracked one last night. This was outstanding! Holy cow! I have to run to the LHBS and get the ingredients and do this right! If it's this good with all my screw ups, I can only imagine what the real beer tastes like!

-Dan

Dan - that's encouraging to me! My OG was on the low side 1.036 (with a lot of cold break in hydro), first AG BIAB also. If its beer and it tastes good I could care less about the details though .

I see Biermuncher recommends time in secondary in OP. How necessary is this? Considering skipping secondary, especially since I currently do not have a 3 gal vessel.

Malty Dog,

I didn't secondary. 2 weeks in primary, then bottled. I think the time in secondary is really for keg clearing/conditioning. I could be wrong though....don't keg (yet).

As you say, it's beer, so it's all good!

-Dan

Malty_Dog said:

I see Biermuncher recommends time in secondary in OP. How necessary is this? Considering skipping secondary, especially since I currently do not have a 3 gal vessel.

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Secondary isn't necessary per se, but the flavors clear up quite a bit after a little conditioning—which could be in the bottle, in the keg, or in a secondary vessel.

I kegged mine after 10 days in the primary. Never did a secondary.. I usually brew higher O.G. beers and lots of dry hopping etc, so I normally put all my beers through a secondary. This was my first beer that I didn't rack to a secondary (done about 35 batches so far), so it was a bit out of the norm for me.

All that said, this beer should ferment quickly, and certainly does not need a secondary. But you wouldn't hurt anything if you wanted to go with a secondary.

It is good. I brewed the second batch last week and its very happy in the beer closet right now. Will keg it on Wednesday if fermentation is all done. I added another 1/2 oz of Cascades at flame out... Can't wait to see the difference!

I just got done brewing this yet again. This time I wanted to get 15g in my conical. Used 20g of water and only had about 17g in the two boil pots. I only had 14g go into the conical but the og was 1.050 so I added two gallons of water and it the og is now 1.045 so should still be good.

Brewing this next week, can't wait to have another chugger in the keg.

She's a beauty gaylord

I love this beer, thanks BierMuncher. I did alter it very lightly, I increased the aroma hops slightly and used BRY-97 yeast because I had it on hand. At a 65F Fermentation I don't think the BRY should have much difference to the Notty. Next time I brew this, probably in 2 weeks it will be with your exact amounts of hops and Notty yeast. It does have enough hopnose and flavor. I found mine too be slightly high for the style. So back to your original it is.

I made a centennial IPA too about a week ago, still in primary. What is your go to IPA to brew BierMuncher?

Does anybody else get a bready flavor from this? I compared it to a brew I made with Maris Otter and the two were very similar. Thoughts? I get more of that flavor in my nose than mouthfeel. Maybe I should stop burying my nose in my beers.

we have a very similar recipes, but substitute 1 lb of honey malt for the caramel.. LOVE, the Notty yeast in ours as well, we just went through 12 gallons of that like lightning. Tapped the last 3 gallon keg 7 days ago. We do a lot of IPAs, red ales.. but this centennial blonde/golden ale.. I can't stop drinking it.

Dang, 1 packet of Notty chewed through this real fast if airlock is any indication. Dry pitched Friday pm, no airlock by this afternoon. And yes, I know airlock is not the final word on ferm. Popped the top for a peek and krausen gone. 3 gallon BIAB, slightly on the low side OG. Its all good though. I'll wait it out for at least another week, take a reading, and go from there.

Just racked my strawberry version of this to a tertiary for clearing. It sat on berries for 7 days. FG was 1.008. Sample tasted good. Strong berry flavor. Plan to leave it for 7-10 days then keg.

15 days from kettle to glass. Still not 100% clear, but pretty tasty even this early on!