Cream Ale Cream of Three Crops (Cream Ale)

Brewed 38 liters today. Hoping for the best. So far so good, I like the wort! Feedback in 2-4 weeks...

Awesome beer! First taste today, carbed up quick since it is only 1 week in the bottle. Crystal clear. Will be on regular rotation. Thanks BM!

Just bottled it after 2 months of waiting.

After a month in Primary I transferred it to a secondary for it to clear more and took an OG reading of 1.008 and it tasted a bit sweeter than I wanted it to be. I wanted it to finish at or below 1.005.

Popped it into secondary on top of crushed beano (against all the advice on here because I honestly wanted this to finish as dry as possible and didn't care about residual sugars.)

After waiting 5 weeks it is crystal clear and it finished right at 1.000 with just a tiny hint of sweetness and a light peppery/clove smell that I didn't expect or want. But after drinking the hydro the clove/pepper taste is phenomenal, even though not for style.

1.046 > 1.000

PS. I did a single addition of Spalt as a FWH at 15IBU.

Daddymem said:

Awesome beer! First taste today, carbed up quick since it is only 1 week in the bottle. Crystal clear. Will be on regular rotation. Thanks BM!

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Great first post to this website man.

Not my first post by a longshot, but I'll take the kudos.

philrose said:

Great first post to this website man.

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You're reading blog postings.

uhhh oh,,,
well i brewed a 10 gallon batch today and i just realize i only used 10 pounds of 2 row, what do you think will happen. came in at 1.040, what do yuo think?/ also i only used one packet of -05 split between two 5 gallon carboys. i hope that is enough...

eastendershomebrew said:

uhhh oh,,,
well i brewed a 10 gallon batch today and i just realize i only used 10 pounds of 2 row, what do you think will happen. came in at 1.040, what do yuo think?/ also i only used one packet of -05 split between two 5 gallon carboys. i hope that is enough...

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Should be fine. a 1040 start is in good range for this beer. The lower amount of dry yeast to start with will take a little time and the slight strain on the yeast may impart some pleasant esters.

Should be just fine.

Jdecarol said:

You're reading blog postings.

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Damn really? My mistake!


Still a good post. Damn if I don't Love this beer and the folks who brew it. A TOAST TO YOUR GOOD FRIENDS.

Seems like a great recipe! This is now on deck.

I brewed 5 gallons of this less than three weeks ago and I just poured a crystal clear pint. I used grits instead of flaked maize and had a slightly higher ratio of rice. Hopped with Mt. Hood and only boiled for 60 minutes. The wort tasted like sugar water.

As expected, it's very lightly colored and doesn't taste like much I wish I would have hopped it a bit more. I brewed this for a PBR drinker who's staying with me this weekend and I'm sure it won't disappoint!

Thanks for sharing!

Using the 5 gallon carboy as a clearing tank made this thing come out like crystal.

Yeah, this beer was a total hit. Maybe got a convert or two. Brewed and consumed in 20 days. Crazy.

ok, just transferred to my secondaries. I am using 2 corney kegs as secondaries. Gravity came in at about 1.008 after 12 days in the primary, down from 1.040... really alot of sediment still, hoping the secondary will clarify some more. cant wait to sample.

I was thinking of trying a noble hopped PM version of this brew. What do you guys think:

Fermentables
2lbs Briess Golden Light DME
2lbs Pale Two-Row malt
2lbs Flaked Corn
.5lb Minute Rice

Hops
1oz Saaz (60 min)
1oz Saaz (30 min)
1oz Saaz (15min)
1oz Hallertau (5 min)

Nottingham Yeast

Chalk another convert up to this one. Got a comment from someone who didn't like my APA very much, loved this one.

The carbonation came out a bit wierd for me on this one though. Very, very fine bubbles. Almost looks like champagne in the glass. Anyone seen that before?

I made another 10 gallons of this and split it in two buckets. One I used nottingham which fermented out in about 4 days the second I used 05 which is still bubbling away 12 days later and blowing the air lock off three times! I hope it’s just that my basement is a little cool and not a bug in that bucket. Man I miss having my conical free but its enjoying the DFH 120 which is almost done.

Brewed this on Sunday. It was my maiden attempt on my new herms. I bought the grain 4 months ago but got caught up buying a car/house and only recently was able to brew. I am not too worried about all the mistakes I made but I do expect this batch to not be top notch so I won't judge until my next batch, here are a list of the imperfections with the 5 gallon batch:

1. ) Four month old crushed grain, hops, and yeast. All ingredients were in their sealed containers stored at about 75 for the entire time. Wouldn't really think twice about this if the grain wasn't crushed and the hops were in the fridge, but may be iffy otherwise.

2. ) Brewday was going fine till I got to dough in. Don't really have a good feel for appropriate stike temperature with my system so I set the HLT in temp to 160 assuming the grain would bring it down. Well problem was that as soon as I doughed in my falsebottom got stuck and it remained stuck for the entire duration.

3. ) I played around with the false bottom for about 20 minutes before I gave up on it while the mash temp was dropping and rising between 145-150 the whole time, I finally got the temp to about 150 and just left it alone single infusion style. After about an hour I went to start the sparge (which I knew was going to be stuck), so I pumped in about 8 gallons of water on top of it and waited 5-6 hours for the wort to drain through the grainbed, the grain started at about 165 degrees and dropped across the span of the sparge.

4. ) For the entire process I had no reliable method of measuring volume. Kind of just eyeballing everything. After boil I left the entire brewpot covered in the garage. next day I aerated and took a measurement. Got about 1.057 for what looked like 4.5-5 gallons. I topped it up to where the the better bottle started to narrow and pitched. It was chugging away this morning.

So anyways plenty of imperfections that I really am not too worried about. Tasted it and it seems pretty typical, sweet and a little bitter. I won't be surprised if the beer is off but either way I'll be making this one again, though next time with better volume control and especially RICE HULLS.

Happy brewing.

I'm almost at the end of the first of two keg now and I love it! I also received good comments at the last home brew club meeting. Most people that come by the house and try it like it a lot as well and that include the American light lager beer drinker. I will brew it again!

Thanks a bunch for the great recipe BierMuncher!

Paco said:

...I will brew it again!

Thanks a bunch for the great recipe BierMuncher!

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My pleasure. Anything to further the homebrewing crusade.

I'm doing the 11.5 gallon batch this week. I have a bag of rice hulls but have never used them before. How much should I use for this recipe?

I did a noble hop version using lots of saaz and a bit of other hops (were left over from something else). Very nice! I upped the grain bill for an "imperial" version. I have it posted here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/cream-saaz-175167/

CrookedTail said:

I was thinking of trying a noble hopped PM version of this brew. What do you guys think:

Fermentables
2lbs Briess Golden Light DME
2lbs Pale Two-Row malt
2lbs Flaked Corn
.5lb Minute Rice

Hops
1oz Saaz (60 min)
1oz Saaz (30 min)
1oz Saaz (15min)
1oz Hallertau (5 min)

Nottingham Yeast

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I finally tasted this beer and it was a bit lighter than i thought. also there was a bit of a skunky finish to it. not sure what i did wrong, first all grain though. any ideas.

Hmms. How confident are you that it was an authentic skunky taste? I am not a beer expert but my spider senses suspect you are picking up BMC flavors due to the adjunct. But since you know many BMC beers ar skunky you are putting the two together. This is just a guess though.

Is there any chance that you would have any skunkification in this brew?

Just wanted to give a thank you for this recipe. I tend to brew darker beers that mine and my wife's family don't appreciate too much (at least not all of them). My wife's family are all Bud Light or Michelob light dinkers. My family are typically Corona drinkers. I brewed this for my son's first birthday and also had Heineken (both families like Heineken) and only one Heineken went and a full corny keg of this beer was drank in full. The only complaint I got was that it wasn't low enough in calories. My sister's fiancee went so far as to say he liked it better then Bud Light (which is all he drinks). So just wanted to say thanks for a great recipe. This was a hit.

I just tapped my keg of this. I can't believe this is an ale. Came out great. I can see why the BMC crowd likes it, but this should be a homebrewer favorite too. I split the batch 2.5 gallons as is, and 2.5 kegged with lime. Another BierMuncher epic recipe.:rockin:

BierMuncher should put out a recipe book.

BM,

Brewing this again right now, 5 gallon batch. I cut back some on the corn, how much sugar should I add to the boil?

2 row 7 pounds
Flaked Maize 1.5 pounds
Instant Rice 14 ounces

8 gallons pre-boil

Yambor,

What is the goal of adding the sugar? It looks like the recipe you have would be fine for a 5gal batch. Does it make up for the lack of corn? When this one is ready to drink you'll have to trade me one for a centennial blonde, I'd like to try the cream ale.

patrck17 said:

Yambor,

What is the goal of adding the sugar? It looks like the recipe you have would be fine for a 5gal batch. Does it make up for the lack of corn? When this one is ready to drink you'll have to trade me one for a centennial blonde, I'd like to try the cream ale.

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Somewhere prior BM mentioned cutting back 50% on the corn and adding table sugar for a crisper product. T this point, BT Pro has my ABV at 3.59% at 75% efficiency. Maybe I will be higher due to the 90 minute mash though.

Boiling away........

Awsomeness.

Came in at 1.045 without any sugar.

Gravity looks good. I bet itle still come out crisp especially with the 90 minute mash. Did you use the recipe hop schedule and yeast?

patrck17 said:

Gravity looks good. I bet itle still come out crisp especially with the 90 minute mash. Did you use the recipe hop schedule and yeast?

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Yes.

My Willamette was only 4.6% so I used .5 oz for 60 and my Crystal was 3.3% so I used .75 for 60. My IBU's were close to his original at 14.6 or 14.9 if memory serves me correct.

US-05 for the yeast. According to BTP my efficiency was 91% .

I usually batch sparged but my efficiency hasn't been consistent on the new setup so I fly sparged this time. May do that more often!

I brewed this two weeks ago for the first time. Made a couple changes to the hops due to LHBS being out of Crystal and added a hop at 30 min as I am kind of a hop head and it had been in my freezer for about 8 months (I figured it was time to use it!):

.75 oz Liberty @ 60 min
.75 oz Willamette @ 60 min
1 oz Brewers Gold @ 30 min
.25 oz Willamette @ 5 min
.25 Liberty @ 5 min

OG was 1.046 and FG is 1.010. I got 72% effeciency. I started cold crashing it a couple of days ago and plan to bottle it this weekend. The samples were really light and clean. I think this will be a good beer. We'll see if my Miller Lite crowd approves!

Nice Jason. I am curious about your Maris Otter/Cascade SMaSH. Not to derail the thread I will just ask this: have you made it before and how does it taste?

Yambor, how confident are you in your volume and that your sample was well mixed? I didn't run any numbers but when I saw you used 7lbs of two row I was thinking it was high. Original recipe called for 12 for a 10 gallon batch so even backing off the corn 1/2lb I figured your OG was right around where it should be. Either way better to be on the high side than the low side I say.

Patrick, I bottled the SMaSH a little over a week ago. the sample while bottling was more bitter than I thought it would be but I think it will mellow out with time. I am going to try one this weekend becasue I just can't wait any more! ha It should be relatively carbonated but probably not completely ready. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Patrick,

Pulled my sample after recirculating the wort thru my HERMS coil for 30 minutes to chill.

LHBS can't get Crystal hops. Is there a really good substitute or should I just delay until my next web order? Thanks guys.