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

snd1990 said:

Any extract version of any recipe is gonna be a little darker. Also did you use the extra light extract or a darker version extract. And most of the pics are probably from all grain recipe.

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I used Briess Pilsen light LME

JETDOG07 said:

Does this look a little dark compared to what others have come out with after it was done?

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Here is an article in BYO magazine with 6 or 7 tips and suggestions to lighten extract beer! http://byo.com/hops/item/1024-lighten-up-your-extract-brews

It has suggestions like using dme instead of lme, boiling it in 4 or 5 gallons instead of 2, removing pot from heat before adding extract, adding extract in last 10 min of boil, etc

JETDOG07 said:

Do you add all of your extract at flameout?

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yes because I get enough gravity for the boil from my partial mash at the beginning.

I'm also using extra light DME...

Just racked my 3rd batch onto a 1/2 ounce of Galaxy and the peels from 3 oranges. The 2nd keg of this should pop in about a week so hopefully this should be ready by then!

This recipe looks great! I'm thinking of brewing it later this week, but maybe increasing the ABV into the 4.5 range and adding a few extra hops to match.

First time solo brewer, first time all grain, 1000th time making a horrible mistake.

I've known I've wanted to give this hobby a shot for a long time so over the last 4-5 months I've slowly looked for deals, did a lot of building, and got a full 10 gallon all grain setup ready to rock and roll along with a 6 tap keezer. After reading to about page 100 here I decided this was the best recipe for a noob such as myself. Brew day went fine except an awful crush on my grains which led to horrible efficiency. Boiled down a little longer to get the SG right any way and just got a little less into the fermenter.

Great fermentation, great clearing, great kegging, not great double checking my hose clamps....


Got to try a 2oz sample.... warm..... and uncarbed..... damn it was good, and damn it was now in a shop vac.

Any way, when you fail, have a beer, try again, and see if you can fail less next time right? After a quick trip to the LHBS and a conversation that went roughly as follows:

Me: Hey, I got everything here but Viennna, are you out?
LHBS: Yup, sorry about that, I'd sub Munich
Me: No problem, , , , , You out of Munich?
LHBS: Oh yeah, I'd sub Dark Munich then I guess!
ME:

So any way, another good brew day, much better efficiency, and there you have it:



Beer.

10 days grain to glass, higher than expected attenuation got down to 1.002 and about 5% abv. Oh well, it has a beautiful aroma, great color (although a little dark than intended), good clarity, and a crazy fluffy head that laces the entire glass. Thanks BM for this awesome recipe and thanks to this wonderful community that can help a noob like me make beer... from seeds.... It's like magic.

Great post, thanks for sharing. Your beer looks great too.
Gotta say, looking to "give the hobby a shot" and you get yourself a 10 gallon all grain set up AND a SIX TAP KEEZER!?
I've been brewing for almost 2 years now and even a 3 tap keezer isn't in my foreseeable future. You're living the dream!

I've got 9.2AA Centennial and 6.0AA Cascade hops. Plugging the recipe amounts into Brewers Friend gives me 22 IBU which is right about what the recipe calls for, but given the lower AA, I'm wondering if I should bump the amounts slightly.

I just use all-Centennial, and it's gorgeous.

slym2none said:

I just use all-Centennial, and it's gorgeous.

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How did the centennial turn out?

I was thinking of making a 5 gallon batch using all centennial.
I was also thinking of upping each hop addition to .5 oz, bringing ibu to about 45

I made this recipe with my BIAB setup yesterday. Here are my notes on the off chance someone might find them useful. I followed the recipe in the OP for a 5.5 gallon batch. The AA on my Cascade hops was only 6.0, so I decided to bump those additions up to 0.3oz. I used RO water with 2g of gypsum and 5g of CaCl (measure out 5.5g actual to account for the fact it absorbs moisture from the air) and 1.5mL 88% lactic acid.

Mill gap on my MM2-Pro - 0.022"

Strike volume: 8.2 gallons
Strike temp: 154.5F

I stirred for a minute after mashing in, and the mash temp was at 151.4F. Then I wrapped my kettle in a sleeping bag.

After 60 minutes the mash temp was 146F. Gravity 1.029 pH 5.45
After squeezing the bag gravity was 1.032 and I was left with 7.8 gallons of wort (at 142F)

After the 60 minute boil and 10 minutes to chill the wort to ~70F, I had 6.1 gallons in the fermenter with an OG of 1.039. I collected 5.5 gallons.

So conversion efficiency was a little low at 86%, probably because I didn't refire the burner and stir every 15 minutes like I usually do. I still ended up with a pre-boil gravity slightly higher than estimated. My boiloff rate was a little low. I was trying my new Blichmann Hellfire burner and it has some QC problems that prevented me from turning the regulator past 5-10%. I think with a better burner I would have hit the OG. I planned on having half a gallon of trub left, but since the hop bill on this recipe is pretty light, I think I'd start with 0.25 gallons less next time.

Made another batch of this. Going to drop it into apricot purée after it us done in primary.

I have to say how much I love the versatility of this recipe
I nixed the Vienna from the original recipe and added in 2.5#'s Marris Otter....after primary I racked onto 1/2oz Galaxy pellet hops and the peels from 3 oranges. Fruity and delish!
This is a new house beer!
OG was 1.058 and finished in less than 48hrs at 1.006...for a nice 6.83 ABV!

Sideways pics again? UGH!

scottywags said:

Sideways pics again? UGH!

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no, he's trying to pour it into his mouth....you just cant see his head on the side

You do realise you are talking to him, about him, in the second person now?

Bottled today, 12 days after brewing. OG was 1.039 and FG came in at 1.007 for a 4.2% brew

I fined with gelatin (1/2 tsp in 75mL water) yesterday after cold crashing the day before. The beer looked nice and clear today.

I've made this twice now. I poured a pint out of the keg yesterday while brewing an Irish red. It's been in there a little over 3 weeks, racked onto gelatin. Tasty for sure, and dare I say my best looking beer of my 16 batches so far. You can count the dead, withered daisy stalks through that beer!

I did 10 gallons split up into 2 batches. Used a Southern German Lager, White Labs 838. and a London Ale, WYeast 1028. Both are very good. But if I had to choose.........................

Those Germans KNOW how to brew beer. YMMV.

Without wanting to read all 526 pages, is the original recipe on page 1 the one that everyone is still using? Or has the OP posted an updated version?

Why mess with success?

(Other than using all Centennial, that is.)

Hey guys,

I'm giving this recipe a shot this weekend, only with Maris Otter base malt rather than 2-row. Wondered if anyone had experimented with adding a bit (maybe an 1oz) of lemon rind at for the last few minutes of the boil? If so, what were the results. Just after a subtle lemony flavor and aroma, really.

Thanks!

christophereatworld said:

Hey guys,

I'm giving this recipe a shot this weekend, only with Maris Otter base malt rather than 2-row. Wondered if anyone had experimented with adding a bit (maybe an 1oz) of lemon rind at for the last few minutes of the boil? If so, what were the results. Just after a subtle lemony flavor and aroma, really.

Thanks!

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Never tried the lemon but when I brewed it with MO I noticed the taste improved a lot as it warmed up in the glass. Ice cold and you cant taste that biscuit-like malty goodness.
However once brewed you can of course experiment yourself and see what temperature you like most.

Shenanigans said:

Never tried the lemon but when I brewed it with MO I noticed the taste improved a lot as it warmed up in the glass. Ice cold and you cant taste that biscuit-like malty goodness.
However once brewed you can of course experiment yourself and see what temperature you like most.

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Thank you! I also love that quality of MO compared with 2-row. It doesn't stay cold in the glass for too long in South Florida.

First, want to say thanks BierMuncher! This beer is excellent and a true crowd pleaser. Everyone that has tasted it can't believe it is a home brew.

This was my first all grain brew... had been an extract brewer for a couple of years. I will never, ever go back!

I decided to record the process so I could go back and learn from it. If anyone cares to watch... here is the link.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gZbwH0Y-hA[/ame]

Is this 5.5 gallons going into the fermenter or 5 gallons?

5.5 gal into the fermenter.

gnor said:

5.5 gal into the fermenter.

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So should I shoot for the for the boil volume for the amount of wort I collect?

Depends on your boil off rate.

gnor said:

Depends on your boil off rate.

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About 1.3 gal per hour. How much do you attribute to trub loss normally?

In my system, boil off rate is about 1 gal in 60 mins. Trub loss is about 0.5 gal.

Brewing this recipe for the second time this year. Leaving the grain exactly how the original recipe has it, but going to play with some different hop additions. Should look something like this

60 - 0.25oz Centennial
15 - 0.25oz Centennial and 0.25 Mosaic
5 - 0.75oz Mosiac
Flame Out - 1oz Mosaic and 0.25oz Centennial
Whirlpool - 1oz Mosaic and 0.25 Centennial

This will only raise the IBU's by 3 points to 24IBU's, but hopefully add a little more hop aroma and flavor. Not a lot more, but enough to notice it. Here's hoping anyways...

Anyone have success with making this a touch more hoppy and still keeping a good balance to the beer?

Barker said:

Anyone have success with making this a touch more hoppy and still keeping a good balance to the beer?

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I don't but I'll be interested in your results. I started drinking my first batch of this last week. It's very good, but I'm not getting much in the way of hops, would like to bump it up a little bit. My thought was to bump up the grain bill slightly to end up around 4.5% ABV, add a half ounce whirlpool addition, and maybe a small dry hop.

Iv had good success with an additional ounce of each centennial and cascade at flame out. That's for a 10 gallon batch

Epos7 said:

I don't but I'll be interested in your results. I started drinking my first batch of this last week. It's very good, but I'm not getting much in the way of hops, would like to bump it up a little bit. My thought was to bump up the grain bill slightly to end up around 4.5% ABV, add a half ounce whirlpool addition, and maybe a small dry hop.

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Brew day went great yesterday. Ended up with an OG of 1.046, which should put this beer at 5.0% ABV when it's finished. I went with my hop scheduale I posted earlier. I'll report back in a few weeks with the results.

I've made this recipe at least a dozen times, as is and with different variations.

Planning to make 10g later today using Golden Promise instead of 2row. I'm also planning to change up the hops:

2oz Cascade 30min
2oz Cascade 5 min
4oz Farmhouse Hop Blend Hop Stand
4oz Farmhouse Hop Blend Dry Hop

I'm tempted to use all 8oz of Farmhouse Hop Blend for dry hopping. I'm also flexible on the Cascade additions. Trying to go for flavor and aroma with low bitterness.

Thoughts?

BTW, I should've added, I'm estimating this at 23 IBUs, which is close to the original recipe but lower in perceived bitterness which is how I like it.

The purpose of the Cascade is to get the IBUs where it needs to be but the flavor and aroma should come from the Farmhouse Blend.

Ended up going with just the Cascade at 20 and 5 min. Will go with the Farmhouse Blend for dry hopping. OG was 1.050.

hio3791 said:

I've made this recipe at least a dozen times, as is and with different variations. Planning to make 10g later today using Golden Promise instead of 2row. I'm also planning to change up the hops:
2oz Cascade 30min
2oz Cascade 5 min
4oz Farmhouse Hop Blend Hop Stand
4oz Farmhouse Hop Blend Dry Hop
I'm tempted to use all 8oz of Farmhouse Hop Blend for dry hopping. I'm also flexible on the Cascade additions. Trying to go for flavor and aroma with low bitterness.
Thoughts?

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Looks yummy, but that's arguably an APA/IPA on the extra-light end of the SRM range. In fact, aside from the hop varietals, it's almost exactly how I made my last IPA batch.

Planning on brewing this one with Citra instead of Cascade. I see that some of you here already tried this before, but did anyone do both versions (Cascade vs Citra)? How would you compare them?

Cheers! P.S. I'm new around here!