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

Subscribed, this is my next beer!

Doing this tomorrow.

3 gallons
Replacing the cara-pils with white wheat malt.
Adding more Vienna and less two row.
All Willamette hops. Same addition schedule for same ibu's.

All the Best,
D. White

dwhite60 said:

Doing this tomorrow.

3 gallons
Replacing the cara-pils with white wheat malt.
Adding more Vienna and less two row.
All Willamette hops. Same addition schedule for same ibu's.

All the Best,
D. White

Click to expand...

Brewed this up yesterday.

~3.5 gallons
2.75# 2 row
1.0 # Vienna
12 oz. White wheat malt
4 oz. Crystal 10

Willamette, 0.5 oz @ 60, 0.25 oz. @ 30, 1.25 oz. @ flameout.

S.G. 1.042. Third consecutive BIAB with 85% plus efficiency.

Pitched S-04 slurry from last blonde ale.

Couldn't get Cara-pils so substituted the wheat.

All the Best,
D. White

dwhite60 said:

Brewed this up yesterday.

~3.5 gallons
2.75# 2 row
1.0 # Vienna
12 oz. White wheat malt
4 oz. Crystal 10

Willamette, 0.5 oz @ 60, 0.25 oz. @ 30, 1.25 oz. @ flameout.

S.G. 1.042. Third consecutive BIAB with 85% plus efficiency.

Pitched S-04 slurry from last blonde ale.

Couldn't get Cara-pils so substituted the wheat.

All the Best,
D. White

Click to expand...

This thing fermented out in less than 48 hours. For real. Was about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of slurry I used.

Just going to let it sit for ten days then bottle. Can't see waiting two weeks.

All the Best,
D. White

dwhite60 said:

Brewed this up yesterday.

~3.5 gallons
2.75# 2 row
1.0 # Vienna
12 oz. White wheat malt
4 oz. Crystal 10

Willamette, 0.5 oz @ 60, 0.25 oz. @ 30, 1.25 oz. @ flameout.

S.G. 1.042. Third consecutive BIAB with 85% plus efficiency.

Pitched S-04 slurry from last blonde ale.

Couldn't get Cara-pils so substituted the wheat.

All the Best,
D. White

Click to expand...

Bottled this today. Fermented out in about three days at 66F. Could not see leaving it another week.

It's nice at this point. FG 1.008. Extra Vienna made it a little dark but it's got good flavor.

All the Best,
D. White

This is the second brew I ever attempt and I think it went quite good considering I scaled it down to a 5L (1,3 gal) batch.
I have some questions though:
- Mashing temperature was 64ºC-ish (~148ºF), I didn't calculate well the strike water temprature. Should it have a noticeable impact in the beer?
- Gravity after boil was 1.050, I added one more liter of water to top up to 5L in the fermenter (I cannot add it to the boil because my pot isn't big enough), so I guess it went down a bit. Again, huge impact?
- The color of the wort before fermentation is quite brown/dark, is it supposed to be like that? I had to use The Swaen malts and I'm not sure I picked the right ones for the recipe since they have their own names.

Thanks in advance, looks like a great recipe!

J.

148F on the mash is where you wanted to be. Looks like you got there.

Extra liter of water should have you about 1.040, where you need to be too.

It will lighten with fermentation and will be lighter is a glass. Got a pic of how dark it is? Swaen makes a variety of different malts. What type exactly did you use?

All the Best,
D. White

dwhite60 said:

148F on the mash is where you wanted to be. Looks like you got there.

Extra liter of water should have you about 1.040, where you need to be too.

It will lighten with fermentation and will be lighter is a glass. Got a pic of how dark it is? Swaen makes a variety of different malts. What type exactly did you use?

All the Best,
D. White

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Well, I used the substitution chart (attached) I found online as a guide to get the malt, and just now I noticed I screwed up.

I used:
- Swaen©Ale as Pale Malt (6-9 EBC vs 2.0 SRM) -- > Not bad
- GoldSwaen©Light as Carapils (10-20 EBC vs 2.0 SRM) -- > Almost ten times darker!
- GoldSwaen©Munich Dark as Crystal Malt (130-160 EBC vs 10 SRM) -- > Ten times darker!
- Swaen©Vienna as Vienna Malt (9-12 EBC vs 3.5 SRM) -- > Good enough I guess.

Let's see what kind of beer I get, I hope taste is not ruined.

Is there any difference between the malts apart from the color? (I guess not everything is about color, that's why I didn't choose only based on that).

I'm gonna pitch later today (I chilled the wort overnight), so I'll edit the post with a picture.

Thanks again!

J.

jpm92 said:

Well, I used the substitution chart (attached) I found online as a guide to get the malt, and just now I noticed I screwed up.

I used:
- Swaen©Ale as Pale Malt (6-9 EBC vs 2.0 SRM) -- > Not bad
- GoldSwaen©Light as Carapils (10-20 EBC vs 2.0 SRM) -- > Almost ten times darker!
- GoldSwaen©Munich Dark as Crystal Malt (130-160 EBC vs 10 SRM) -- > Ten times darker!
- Swaen©Vienna as Vienna Malt (9-12 EBC vs 3.5 SRM) -- > Good enough I guess.

Let's see what kind of beer I get, I hope taste is not ruined.

Is there any difference between the malts apart from the color? (I guess not everything is about color, that's why I didn't choose only based on that).

I'm gonna pitch later today (I chilled the wort overnight), so I'll edit the post with a picture.

Thanks again!

J.

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At this point it will be what it is. Might be a happy accident.

Keep us posted.

All the Best,
D. White

I am new to brewing, and I selected this as my first brew. The Mrs likes lighter crisp blondes, so I thought this would be a good one for her to critique. Amazing the powers of smell and taste that my wife possesses, but I fall short.

Primary fermentation was about a week of CO2 off gassing. I closed the SsB Unitank blow off valve at about day five to hold in some of the natural carbonation. It has been in the unitank for about four weeks now.

After three weeks I crash cooled (lowest I could get with SsB 1/5 hp glycol chiller was about 36.6°F) for several days, and then started force carbonating through the carb stone. Following the SsB unitank instructions, and a carbonation chart, I brought regulator pressure up to 20 psi. The unitank pressure came up pretty quickly to nearly 15 psi (the PRV limit), so I brought regulator back down to 11 PSI. Let it sit overnight.

The next day, we tasted it. Not all that foamy, but the wife said there was a metallic aroma and aftertaste. I sensed something there, but I could not put my finger on it.

Then came a lot of reading/research on this forum and elsewhere on the Internet about metallic aftertastes which led me to the possibility of carbonic acid. I bled off the unitank pressure to 5 psi, waited a day, and we tried it again. Same taste. Then I poured some and placed it in the fridge to de-gas. Odor gone, and aftertaste at least 95% gone if not completely.

Very excited that my first brew turned out “Ok”, and very possibly “Good”. I’m not going to make a claim of “Great”, but my initial goal was better than just “Ok”, and hoping for “Good”. So now I can say that I have actually brewed beer.

Cheers!
Greg

OnTheFlyBrewing said:

View attachment 666490 I am new to brewing, and I selected this as my first brew. The Mrs likes lighter crisp blondes, so I thought this would be a good one for her to critique. Amazing the powers of smell and taste that my wife possesses, but I fall short.

Primary fermentation was about a week of CO2 off gassing. I closed the SsB Unitank blow off valve at about day five to hold in some of the natural carbonation. It has been in the unitank for about four weeks now.

After three weeks I crash cooled (lowest I could get with SsB 1/5 hp glycol chiller was about 36.6°F) for several days, and then started force carbonating through the carb stone. Following the SsB unitank instructions, and a carbonation chart, I brought regulator pressure up to 20 psi. The unitank pressure came up pretty quickly to nearly 15 psi (the PRV limit), so I brought regulator back down to 11 PSI. Let it sit overnight.

The next day, we tasted it. Not all that foamy, but the wife said there was a metallic aroma and aftertaste. I sensed something there, but I could not put my finger on it.

Then came a lot of reading/research on this forum and elsewhere on the Internet about metallic aftertastes which led me to the possibility of carbonic acid. I bled off the unitank pressure to 5 psi, waited a day, and we tried it again. Same taste. Then I poured some and placed it in the fridge to de-gas. Odor gone, and aftertaste at least 95% gone if not completely.

Very excited that my first brew turned out “Ok”, and very possibly “Good”. I’m not going to make a claim of “Great”, but my initial goal was better than just “Ok”, and hoping for “Good”. So now I can say that I have actually brewed beer.

Cheers!
Greg

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Congratulations. I'm sure you've already got something new in the fermenter. No? Why not?

What you have will go faster than you think.

All the Best,
D. White

dwhite60 said:

Congratulations. I'm sure you've already got something new in the fermenter. No? Why not?

Click to expand...

Yes I do. Irish Red Ale, also from this forum.

Cheers!
Greg

If the centennial was your first batch in your new equipment, may have been some leftovers from converting raw metal into something great. Let us know how the Red turns out. Meantimes, I am going to make another batch of CB tomorrow. The original recipe works! Enjoy brewing, and the fruits of your labor, and as dwhite said, keep your fermenter going, fresh delicious beer does not last long. Cheers!

Do keep us posted. Don't hesitate to ask questions! We're happy to help.

All the Best,
D. White

Done, carbed and about a week and a half in the keg, I gotta say, it turned out really nice. I'd still like another opinion on it but it tastes really good. This was also my first beer using a fermentation chamber (small bar fridge with an inkbird temp controller) I'd like to think this made a big difference as well. Thanks again for posting this recipe. I'll be sure to brew it again!

DigB said:

Subscribed, this is my next beer!

Click to expand...

dwhite60 said:

At this point it will be what it is. Might be a happy accident.

Keep us posted.

All the Best,
D. White

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Well, I finished it a couple weeks ago and it indeed went "different" than expected. It has definitely a bigger Stout flavour than anything else. BMC drinkers didn't like it much, and I can't blame them.

Where I live, Covid-19 is screwing things up a bit, so I thought maybe it's a perfect time to brew beer!
Could you guys help me figure out what malts should I use from the The Swaen to get a beer close to this recipe?
Their catalogue can be found here

Apparently I will have plenty of time to brew...

jpm92 said:

Well, I finished it a couple weeks ago and it indeed went "different" than expected. It has definitely a bigger Stout flavour than anything else. BMC drinkers didn't like it much, and I can't blame them.

Where I live, Covid-19 is screwing things up a bit, so I thought maybe it's a perfect time to brew beer!
Could you guys help me figure out what malts should I use from the The Swaen to get a beer close to this recipe?
Their catalogue can be found here

Apparently I will have plenty of time to brew...

Click to expand...

After reading through your substitutions and notes on color differences something to note is that EBC and Lovibond or srm numbers are not the same. For example A 50 ebc crystal malt is close to a 20L crystal.

I am brewing up a bunch of beer now figuring if I were to get quarantined at least I would have liquid bread

Saunassa said:

After reading through your substitutions and notes on color differences something to note is that EBC and Lovibond or srm numbers are not the same. For example A 50 ebc crystal malt is close to a 20L crystal.

Click to expand...

So is it only the colour of the malt what matters? Should I just match EBC's of the grain bill with whatever malt I find on The Swaen?

Anyway Spain has been just shutted down, so I have to stick with the malts I mentioned earlier...

Can I get something with these malts?

Thanks a lot!

J.

I’m taking my third (and fourth!) crack at this one after buying ingredients today. I wanted to get above 4.2% (my last batch) so I added what turns out to be too much grain to the bill. Beersmith says 6.5% but we will see. Maybe I’ll have an imperial blonde at the end of this hehe

Well looks like I may be taking stab 2 at this over the weekend. I tried previously with us-05 but got phenols (ended up being a SHITE bucket fermenter aka infections). I'm going to try this as posted. My question is I see it says you fermented Nottingham at 68F. Is that what you would recommend for this brew? I've never used Nottingham before but I've heard that yeast is a beast lol

rtstrider said:

Well looks like I may be taking stab 2 at this over the weekend. I tried previously with us-05 but got phenols (ended up being a poopyE bucket fermenter aka infections). I'm going to try this as posted. My question is I see it says you fermented Nottingham at 68F. Is that what you would recommend for this brew? I've never used Nottingham before but I've heard that yeast is a beast lol

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Hi. Yes, 66°-68°F is a good temp for Notty. You've heard correctly, it can be a beast and rather vigorous, so make sure you leave yourself some headspace (or have a blow off tube handy!) Good luck on this brew.
Ed

rtstrider said:

Well looks like I may be taking stab 2 at this over the weekend. I tried previously with us-05 but got phenols (ended up being a poopyE bucket fermenter aka infections). I'm going to try this as posted. My question is I see it says you fermented Nottingham at 68F. Is that what you would recommend for this brew? I've never used Nottingham before but I've heard that yeast is a beast lol

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I fermented mine at 66. Got back and my wife said she could hear it blowing bubbles fast from the tube the second day.

I've been putting this brew on the back burner for far too long. I whipped up a 4 gallon batch this morning. Good numbers, mashed a little higher than I had planned, but it'll do. Repitched some slurry from cream ale. Hoping to reharvest again to pitch onto a stout and a small batch porter next month sometime.

RedlegEd said:

Hi. Yes, 66°-68°F is a good temp for Notty. You've heard correctly, it can be a beast and rather vigorous, so make sure you leave yourself some headspace (or have a blow off tube handy!) Good luck on this brew.
Ed

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Well alright! I'll set the ferment fridge to 66f with a 2 degree offset so it'll stay 66-68

I ended up brewing a lite ale when I got off work yesterday. But I put in the grain order for this brew and will be picking it up tomorrow. Can't wait to give this a shot! Hey Biermuncher did you do any water adjustments on this? We have relatively soft water where I'm at (minus tons of chlorine) so I'm thinking it would play nice with this blonde. I have a ton of campden tablets and was thinking about just using filtered water from the fridge (charcoal filter) then tossing a crushed campden tablet in that to fully treat 10 gallons worth.

Brewed it last Saturday on my Anvil foundry 10.5. Cut boil to 50 minutes with extra half pound of 2 row and full pound of carapils since my efficiency is a bit low All .25 oz like the original, did 45, 30, 20, and 5 minute additions and used 05 since I had it on hand. OG 1.043. Slow starter @64 degrees but man did she build a nice tight white krausen about 3 inches thick! Will keg as soon as I have an empty! Thanks everyone especially BM!

Just wrote this brew down in my new leather journal to keep track of this adventure. Already ordered the ingredients. It'll be the first all-grain I do, seems to be pretty well liked

Going to brew the 5 gallon version (5.5 batch) next weekend. I'll try to brew the exact recipe as posted in the first post. My efficiency floats in-between 78 ~ 80 % though.

Hi Jeff,
That is absolutely the very best way to approach this brew. Once you see what the original recipe should taste like, then it's perfectly normal to venture off into your own tweaks. It seems your efficiency is good, so you'll wind up with a slightly stronger brew. I've brewed this recipe many (at least six) times, two as originally posted my Biermuncher, and the others tweaked to accommodate what I had available, or just for giggles to try something new. In every case, the beer came out wonderful. A little different maybe, but always easy to drink. Good luck on your brew. Please let us know how it turns out.
Ed

RedlegEd said:

Hi Jeff,
That is absolutely the very best way to approach this brew. Once you see what the original recipe should taste like, then it's perfectly normal to venture off into your own tweaks. It seems your efficiency is good, so you'll wind up with a slightly stronger brew. I've brewed this recipe many (at least six) times, two as originally posted my Biermuncher, and the others tweaked to accommodate what I had available, or just for giggles to try something new. In every case, the beer came out wonderful. A little different maybe, but always easy to drink. Good luck on your brew. Please let us know how it turns out.
Ed

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Thanks for the reply Ed.

My "city" water is limestone sourced and hard as nails. It works really well, for lighter colored SRM brews and expecially with Nottingham yeast. I have to filter through a charcoal RV filter and add a campden tablet (potassium metabisulfite) to neutralize the chloramine. I'm already expecting this brew will need 2 to 3 weeks in the primary. From all the replies, this looks like one popular brew

Hello guys, third attempt at this recipe and this time I missed the OG big time.

For this batch, I used BeerSmith and changed things a bit to match my malts. I scaled up to a 6.5L batch (1,72gal) which is the maximum I can have in the fermenter. Also I changed the mashing so that I used a thicker infusion (2,61L for 1,32kg) giving me more space for sparging (~4L). Unfortunately my pot is only 5L , so my idea was to have a very concentrated wort after boil and then dilute it to the estimated 1,044 topping up to the 6,5L in the fermenter. I meassured 1,030 instead

Is there any obvious mistake I'm making here? Am I not reading the hydrometer properly? (I shook the fermenter vigorously before drawing the sample taking also a lot of trub, I don't know if that changes anything...).
In the other batches I missed a lot of other stuff, but the OG was kinda right...

Thanks for your time!
J.

Hi J.,
Seems to me your mash was too thick and you didn't get the conversion as you planned. Assuming you have a good crush on your grain, my recommendation next time is use the Brew In A Bag (BIAB) approach in your 5L pot (ideally, you should get a 10L pot and use the full amount you intend to boil.) If you are stuck with a 5L pot, mash using as much water as you can in the pot with the grain & bag, pull the bag and squeeze it like it owes you money, then slowly sparge over the spent grains into the pot until you reach your max limit. That should improve your efficiency. Good luck on your next brew.
Ed

RedlegEd said:

Hi J.,
Seems to me your mash was too thick and you didn't get the conversion as you planned. Assuming you have a good crush on your grain, my recommendation next time is use the Brew In A Bag (BIAB) approach in your 5L pot (ideally, you should get a 10L pot and use the full amount you intend to boil.) If you are stuck with a 5L pot, mash using as much water as you can in the pot with the grain & bag, pull the bag and squeeze it like it owes you money, then slowly sparge over the spent grains into the pot until you reach your max limit. That should improve your efficiency. Good luck on your next brew.
Ed

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply Ed! I don't think the crushing is alright, actually it's the mashing the factor that I modifed. I thought having less infusion water and more sparge water would increase the efficiency, but apparently it's not the case. I will stick to a 1.5:1 wtq ratio and will use whatever left water I have to sparge till I top up the 5L. This method was working fine with me before.
With the lockdown and everything going on right now I can't acquire new equipment, but I was curious about the BIAB before. I'll maybe give it a try if I find a 10L pot that fits in my stove.

Thanks again! I'll make good use of this 2.4% ABV batch anyway

jpm92 said:

Thanks again! I'll make good use of this 2.4% ABV batch anyway

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Just drink twice as much!!!!

Ed

jpm92 said:

Thanks for the reply Ed! Actually it's the mashing that I changed. I thought having less infusion water and more sparge water would increase the efficiency, but apparently it's not the case. I will stick to a 1.5:1 wtq ratio and will use whatever left water I have to sparge till I top up the 5L. This method was working fine with me before.
With the lockdown and everything going on right now I can't acquire new equipment, but I was curious about the BIAB before. I'll maybe give it a try if I find a 10L pot that fits in my stove.

Thanks again! I'll make good use of this 2.4% ABV batch anyway

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I've had this happen with 10 gallons of the beer.
my mill wing nuts worked themselves loose without me noticing so my efficiency went down.
however, I also use reclaimed yeast and this stuff fermented down to 1.004!
which got me to ~4%.
could of been my mash temp was lower than I thought?

anyway, I dry-hopped with some cascade because it seemed overly malty and it went down SOOOOOO easy in the pool on a hot day.

i'd just go with it.
i've made some 3% beers trying to make lower ABV for the summer.
I drink them while working outside and that way when it comes time to grill for the kids and setup the projector for movie night....I can. HA!

Just pitched Nottingham. It's my first time using this yeast so I'm letting it ride between 64f and 66f to keep any potential esters down. I'm hoping this is a VERY quick turnaround brew If not no biggie! Either way it will be beer right? lol

rtstrider said:

Just pitched Nottingham. It's my first time using this yeast so I'm letting it ride between 64f and 66f to keep any potential esters down. I'm hoping this is a VERY quick turnaround brew If not no biggie! Either way it will be beer right? lol

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I really like Nottingham or maybe I should say Nottingham really likes me.

My son in law, also uses it to ferment ciders in the higher 60's.

Well Nottingham is definitely a beast! It was fermenting within 6 hours of rehydration!

rtstrider said:

Well Nottingham is definitely a beast! It was fermenting within 6 hours of rehydration!

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Yep that sounds about right, It has a short lag. Based on my personal experience, it doesn't krauesen that high either, only about 3"

I like to ferment it in the lower to mid 50's and treat it like a lager yeast. Which it's obviously not, but it does produce some lager characteristics fermented at lower temps.

It looks like this recipe is calling for fermention temp of 68 degrees for more fruity and estery aromas, which Notty will surely produce at that temperature and munch through the maltose pretty quick.

My grain bill from Ritebrew should be here tomorrow for this brew, I'll most likely brew it Sunday. So I'll be right behind you.