cream ale First AG

First AG recipe. Looking for direction/critics

I was thinking that I would treat the mash water with the equivalent amount of salts and then add the remainder to the brew kettle as per Jamil and Palmer in the Waterganza podcast.

Cream Ale All Grain
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal Boil Size: 8.22 gal
Boil Time: 75 min
End of Boil Volume 5.98 gal Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage
Equipment: Pot (18.5 Gal/70 L) and Cooler (9.5 Gal/40 L) - All Grain
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68.00 % Est Mash Efficiency 79.2 %
9.40 gal RO water
2.50 g Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)
2.50 g Epsom Salt (MgSO4) (Mash 60.0 mins)
4 lbs 1.8 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
4 lbs 1.8 oz Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM)
13.2 oz Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM)
1.00 oz Liberty [4.30 %] - Boil 60.0 min
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins)
8.0 oz Sugar, Table (Sucrose) [Boil for 15 min](1.0 SRM)
0.50 oz Liberty [4.30 %] - Boil 0 min
1.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 ml]

Measured Original Gravity: Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.7 %
Sparge Water: 6.48 gal
Sparge Temperature: 170.0 F
Total Grain Weight: 9 lbs 8.7 oz
Mash @149 for 60 mins

Mash In Add 11.67 qt of water at 163.7 F 
Batch sparge: Drain mash tun, add 6.48gal of 170.0 F water stir resettle and drain.

Thanks

One more thing. Calculated the salt additions on my own at 1 gram a piece but when i put it into Palmers water spreadsheet. Everything (Ca, mg, so4) came in really low and i had to adjust to 2.5 g??

Eh hem... Bump

My cream ale was an almost identical recipe and came out great... An estimated mash efficiency of 79% is pretty high for your first go around, I think 70% is more realistic. Have some extra-light DME on hand in case you come in low. I can't really comment on the water treatment as I currently just buy spring water from the store. I will start using R/O water and trreating soon though.

Not commenting on the water treatment, that is either exactly or very close to the recipe Jamil Z. gave on his podcast for a cream ale. Seems like a good place to start.

Brew smith set that efficiency... I have no idea what it will be. This is pretty much the same Jamil recipe scaled down to 5 gal

I am a little worried about the water since what i calculated was totally different from what the spread sheet said.

Try the ez water calculator (search the forums). I thing it's simpler and more clear to use than Palmer's spreadsheet.

Ez water is pretty good. Thing that bothers me is that between Palmer, EZ, and saqs the results are quiet different ( palmer 2.5 g CaCl, EZ 7g, saqs 4.5 g)?

I brewed the exact recipe (from Brewing Classic Styles) and it turned out great using spring water. For your first AG I would suggest just buying some spring water and keep things a little simpler. If you are stuck on using the r/o water and playing with the chemistry, I would take the average of the three figures you have found so that you have something in the middle that will probably work very well. That's what I would do at least FWIW.

OClairBrew said:

I brewed the exact recipe (from Brewing Classic Styles) and it turned out great using spring water. For your first AG I would suggest just buying some spring water and keep things a little simpler. If you are stuck on using the r/o water and playing with the chemistry, I would take the average of the three figures you have found so that you have something in the middle that will probably work very well. That's what I would do at least FWIW.

Click to expand...

All systems go so I am going to go with the average. Thanks every one for your help

hulkavitch said:

All systems go so I am going to go with the average. Thanks every one for your help

Click to expand...

We have a Water Primer in the Brew Science forum that can help with beginning water additions.

That said, I'd definitely skip the epsom salts and use 5 g (total) of calcium chloride. That's all you'd need for a cream ale.

I read through that. Just needed to clear up some confusion. Mash went off without a hitch hit my temps. Pre boil gravity just a titch low at 1.027. 1.035 was the target. May make it up with additional table sugar depending on where i am at after adding 8 oz.

Thanks

Had to substitute .33 lbs of flaked corn for flaked rice lhbs only had .5 lb of flaked corn.

Final numbers are in: a couple degrees high on my strike (151 as opposed to 149) but it came down and stayed at 149 for 60 mins

est pre boil gravity 1.035 actual 1.027. OG est. 1.050 actual 1.044. Efficiency total 68% measured 62.5%? Is that crapy? Wonder what
happened.

Another thing, filled the fermenter to 5.25 gal and had 1 gal left over? What the hell brewsmith? Measures my volumes correctly.

Also skipped the epsom and went with yoopers recommendation on water treatement.

Congrats on your first AG. You started with 1 gallon too much water. if you would have boiled down to 5.25 gallons your OG would have been 1.052. Adjust your next brew. Maybe you boiled off less than expected, grain didn't absorb as much as thought, or measured wrong. Should be good though.