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

Its been kegged and carbed for a week now: it is exactly what I wanted. The Notty yeast is super clean with just a little "zing". I fermented close to 60f and it has definite lager characteristics. Most tasters think it is a lager, which I take as a good thing...the ale drinkers appreciate the detectable cascade aroma and centennial taste.

Thanks again!

Brewed up my partial mash batch this weekend; went great, smelled great, can't wait to drink it. If the "head" retention in the post-aeration sample I took is any indication, this thing is going to have a monstrous, never-ending head.

here is mine that i brewed up. I said before it wasnt that clear but the last gallon has cleared up pretty nice even though this pic doesn't really justify it... anyway here it is

That is purty...

What's that you're surfing in the background?

I'm just waiting for my ingredients to arrive and I will be making another batch of this. I had to restrain myself from making a 10 gal batch

thanks again BM awesome stuff

Hey BierMuncher,

I served this at a Christmas gathering tonight and it was very well received by everyone who tried it. (Two Coors Light drinkers and a couple of Bud Light folks.) Everybody wanted seconds.

How cool is that?



Thanks.

kornbread said:

Hey BierMuncher,

I served this at a Christmas gathering tonight and it was very well received by everyone who tried it. (Two Coors Light drinkers and a couple of Bud Light folks.) Everybody wanted seconds.

How cool is that?



Thanks.

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Excellent. More Homebrew converts.

This looks great and is next to be brewed here. I do have two questions:

1. I have a nottingham yeast cake from a porter that is in the primary. Can I rack the CB right on top? Do people use dry yeast yeast cakes?

2. May be off topic, but my recipe software (Beer Alchemy) makes a difference between 2-row and pale malt. there are two entries. The CB recipe calls for "Pale Malt (2-row)". Which base malt should I get, regular 2-row or pale malt?

gallagherman said:

This looks great and is next to be brewed here. I do have two questions:

1. I have a nottingham yeast cake from a porter that is in the primary. Can I rack the CB right on top? Do people use dry yeast yeast cakes?

2. May be off topic, but my recipe software (Beer Alchemy) makes a difference between 2-row and pale malt. there are two entries. The CB recipe calls for "Pale Malt (2-row)". Which base malt should I get, regular 2-row or pale malt?

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1. Never rack a light beer onto a dark beer yeast cake (unless you want the light beer to be darker)

2. They "should be" one in the same but there are many different "pale malts" so go with the one that says "2-row".

gallagherman said:

2. May be off topic, but my recipe software (Beer Alchemy) makes a difference between 2-row and pale malt. there are two entries. The CB recipe calls for "Pale Malt (2-row)". Which base malt should I get, regular 2-row or pale malt?

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2-row describes the subspecies of barley used (there's either 2-row or 6-row). That 2-row can be malted in a variety of ways; pale malt is a generic term used for the product of the malting process, but different maltsters will malt and kiln their pale malt differently. If it is a british maltster, the pale malt will tend to be 3.5-5 degrees Lovibond, whereas American 2-row is generally 2.5 L. Some American 2-row is kilned a bit darker than the usual for American 2-row, but you'll just have to check on that in each case.

For the Centennial Blonde, I've used American Pale malt that is 3.5 L. The slightly darker kiln gives it a slightly more forward malt flavor that is more more toasty (hard to explain) than 2.5 L. It'll be fine whichever basemalt you use, but if you're going for appeal to the masses and extreme drinkability go with 2.5 L. If you are okay with slightly more aggressive malt flavor and maybe a tiny bit less appeal to the masses go with a darker kiln.

Hope that helps.

Instead of racking onto a dark beer yeast cake, though, you COULD wash the yeast inorder to re-use it.

Boil up about a half-gallon of water to sanitize it, and let it cool (covered, to keep it clean!) to room temperature. Pour the cooled water into the yeast cake in the bottom of the fermenter, and shake vigorously.

Then, take a sanitized plastic bottle (I use 1L tonic water bottles that I've sanitized with StarSan) and collect as much liquidy yeasty sediment goop as you can into the bottle.

If you let the bottle sit in the fridge for about an hour, it should start to seperate. After about three hours, you should easily be able to pour off the liquid on top without losing the yeast on the bottom.

Voila, yeast cake without the color.

(Plus, you don't need to pitch such a large quantity of yeast, like a full yeast cake, with a recipe like CB. Overpitching causes off flavors too.)

Wow! Just took a hydro sample after 9 days in primary, and this beer is already clear enough to read through. I don't think it's going to dry out as much as I'd like (it's been at 1.013 for at least 2 days), but it tastes and looks great already.

I'm brewing this one in just a few minutes. I figure 5 stars and 30 pages of posts speaks pretty well for this recipe.

I just got some centennial leaf hops last week so I'm set. I'll only be deviating a little bit by using US-05 instead of Nottingham. I'm looking forward to this one. I figure 14 days in the primary and then straight to the keg.

I'm going to do this one again, I've got the stuff and was planning to do it today, but I've only had 3 hours sleep.

But I was going to try it this with saflager yeast and ghetto lager it in my tiny storage locker in my loft buildin'g garage. It's in the low 50's in there...

Finally brewing this up today. It's long overdue on my "to-brew" list.

I am doing this one Thurs or Fri with the following mods:
10% more of each grain (I'll either fix poor efficiency or have a slightly stronger beer)

replace 1st cascade addition with Centennial, second with Amarillo

use 1056 vs dry and use a starter. I'll post the results in a few weeks.

Brewed this one on Saturday. Hit all my numbers. Smoothest brew to date. Hydro sample was divine...clear enough to read through even with hops floating around in it! Cannot WAIT to get this on tap!

Call me a cradle-robber, but I just cracked one of these only a week after bottling (hey, the plastic soda bottle was firm!), and it's incredible. I doubled both Cascade additions, so it's probably a tiny bit hoppier than the original. Light, crisp, with a little Cascade aroma and a touch of grainy malt developing as it warms. This is going to be a killer when it's mature. I'm almost wishing I'd chilled more than one.

Thanks, BM!

im about to make this one today. It seems like a nice easy second brew. Hope it comes out as good as everyone says.

can someone post the beersmith data or whatever program they use data, for the 5gal recipe by tommorow? this is going to be my first AG but not sure on the water amounts and strike temperatures

bkov said:

can someone post the beersmith data or whatever program they use data, for the 5gal recipe by tommorow? this is going to be my first AG but not sure on the water amounts and strike temperatures

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The five-gallon version is at the bottom of the original recipe post.

Strike with the usual 1.25 quarts per pound of grain. Assume you'll have about a 15 degree drop in a cooler mash tun. So if you're shooting for a 152 mash temp...strike at 167. Keep some very hot and cold water nearby to make adjustments once you strike.

1.25 x 9pounds grain = 11.25 or about 3gallons at 167

then sparge with 4gallons at 180? total of about 8 gallons minus about 1 for grain absorb and 1 for evaporation?

Hi, I worked up a partial mash version of this in BeerSmith. Just wondering what BM or any of you that have brewed this a few times thought. The only other PM I have done was an Irish Red kit from Northern Brewer. It will also be the trial run of my 3gal. MLT I built. Any and all help/suggestions welcome! This is based on 3.75 gal boil with late extract addition to keep IBU's in range. Also, I have 3# of Briess Pilsen DME already, would this be an acceptable replace for the 2row or should I buy some Extra Light DME. The OG is a hair higher than original recipe but I do not know what kind of efficiency I am going to end up with. Fudged a little in case my efficiency sucks.




BeerSmith Recipe Printout - BeerSmith Brewing Software, Recipes, Blog, Wiki and Discussion Forum
Recipe: BM's Centennial Blonde
Brewer: Brian Bell
Asst Brewer:
Style: Blonde Ale
TYPE: Partial Mash
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 3.75 gal
Estimated OG: 1.045 SG
Estimated Color: 4.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 21.2 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 30.77 %
1.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 15.38 %
2.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 30.77 %
0.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 7.69 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 7.69 %
0.50 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 7.69 %
0.25 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (55 min) Hops 7.7 IBU
0.25 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (35 min) Hops 6.5 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (20 min) Hops 2.6 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (5 min) Hops 0.9 IBU
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 3.50 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
75 min Mash In Add 4.38 qt of water at 161.4 F 150.0 F

bell0347 said:

Hi, I worked up a partial mash version of this in BeerSmith. Just wondering what BM or any of you that have brewed this a few times thought.

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Well, I'm not BM, and I've only brewed this once, but that's roughly how I did it. The Briess Pilsen DME is, I'm pretty sure, what I used. I only did a 2.75ish gallon boil, so I added all of it late, but the color is very light. The rest of the grain bill is almost exactly how I brewed it (I used the full 12oz of Carapils called for in the 5-gallon batch; this might be overkill since the DME has a small amount of Carapils in it). My efficiency really sucked, so I wound up adding about 4oz more DME in the end.

It's only been in bottles 2 weeks, but the bottle I opened after a week was great. That should be a solid PM recipe.

Did this for my first allgrain today, everything went good and smooth. OG was 1.040

Makin this puppy tomorrow w/ home grown centennial hops

I guess I can't say I brewed the recipe, because I changed it a bit. But I'll say I used about 90% of it. I was going for a crowd pleaser that I can serve at a superbowl party and this certainly seemed like a good one.

I used willamette instead of cascade, mostly as a result of personal preference. And I had a spare 1/2 oz of it so I threw that in at 15 minutes for a slightly different hop profile. but it's 21.5 IBUs though, so virtually the same bitterness.

I did everything else the same, but hit 1042 on account of a lower final volume after the boil.

I used Wyeast 1056 in one fermentor and Nottingham in another. Because it's a clean light beer this should show some differences, so it's a good little experiment I think.

It's the lightest coloured beer I've ever made, and it looks very nice in the hydrometer jar.

Thanks for a good starting point BM! I'll post on it in a few weeks when I start drinking it.

I just kegged this last night after 2 weeks in the primary. I used US-05 instead of Nottingham and it dried it out to 1.005. The hydrometer sample tasted pretty darn good. It's still pretty young so I imagine a few weeks in the keg will make it taste excellent!

Doog_Si_Reeb said:

I just kegged this last night after 2 weeks in the primary. I used US-05 instead of Nottingham and it dried it out to 1.005. The hydrometer sample tasted pretty darn good. It's still pretty young so I imagine a few weeks in the keg will make it taste excellent!

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Yeah, right now what you should get is a pretty tasty drink up front...followed by sort of an astringent bite from the freshness of those Centennial hops.

An extra couple of weeks will make a huge difference.

BierMuncher said:

Yeah, right now what you should get is a pretty tasty drink up front...followed by sort of an astringent bite from the freshness of those Centennial hops.

An extra couple of weeks will make a huge difference.

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That's exactly what it was like. It had a great flavor, but a subtle bite at the very end. I'll have to divert myself to the porter for a couple weeks to avoid drinking all of the CB before it mellows.

I'm going to have to convince my buddy, who's new to homebrewing, to do an extract batch of this. I know it'll fit his tastes perfectly.

I just ordered the ingredients for this recipe. Thanks for putting it out there. I can only order hops in 1oz increments, and I don't have a vacuum sealer. I was thinking of either dry hopping with the extra 1/2 oz C&C or doing a FWH with it.

nowise said:

I just ordered the ingredients for this recipe. Thanks for putting it out there. I can only order hops in 1oz increments, and I don't have a vacuum sealer. I was thinking of either dry hopping with the extra 1/2 oz C&C or doing a FWH with it.

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Depends on your drinking audience. This is a light grain bill so dry hopping will really give it a nice hoppy nose. That may (or may not) appeal to the masses.

First wort hopping might push the bitterness a bit high.

If you want to save them, just do your best at sealing them up in a ziploc bag...inside a ziploc bag and store them in the fridge.

is 52-54F to cold for this one?

A "little" chill haze, but this stuff is fantastic. It was my first PM, and I gotta say, I could drink this whole batch tonight. And it was cheap-cheap-cheap (for extract)!

mew said:

I want to get my hands on the new W-34/70, apparently it's the same strain as used in many german breweries.

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I'm brewing now. I have a growler of washed 34/70, and I'm tempted to use it.

Someone will have to convince me in the next hour.
EDIT: Too late, pitched Notty. I only have one temp controller anyway.

Subbed 7.7% "Centennial Type" (Amarillo and Columbus blend) for first three additions.
Hit 1.039 on the money, with maybe an extra quart in the fermenter.

Gratuitous hydrometer shot:

bkov said:

is 52-54F to cold for this one?

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If you mean fermentation temp, then yes, I think it is too cold.

It depends on the yeast you use though. At that temperature most ale yeasts will not have any where near the optimum performance, and some might not work at all. I am having success, at least as far as attenuation is concerned, with Wyeast 1056 and Danstar Nottingham on this beer recipe at 63F. That is the low end of spectrum for both although I've heard some people take Notty into the high 50's with success.

If that's the only temp option you have you might try using a lager yeast and expecting more like 2-3 weeks in primary, and then cold condition like a lager. I wonder if anyone has tried that with this beer?

noeldundas said:

If you mean fermentation temp, then yes, I think it is too cold.

It depends on the yeast you use though. At that temperature most ale yeasts will not have any where near the optimum performance, and some might not work at all. I am having success, at least as far as attenuation is concerned, with Wyeast 1056 and Danstar Nottingham on this beer recipe at 63F. That is the low end of spectrum for both although I've heard some people take Notty into the high 50's with success.

If that's the only temp option you have you might try using a lager yeast and expecting more like 2-3 weeks in primary, and then cold condition like a lager. I wonder if anyone has tried that with this beer?

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yeah its nottingham

Picked up the ingridients tonight! Gonna brew up the 5gal AG batch tomorrow. Looking forward to enjoying this beer

Heating the Mash water for my second 10gal verson of this right now! The wiffey loves this stuff (and I dont mind drinking it either) The only change I made in BM's recipe was to use Amarillo instead of Centennial hops. This is our new house beer.



SD

I think this may be on my order list officially now.

For the 5 gallon batch could I get away with just using one hop for all the additions? If it's truly necessary to use both cent & cascade I can, I'm sure I'll find a use for the extra ounce .