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

This recipe looks good, I think I just found my next brew

I'm thinking of brewing this one, but add some lambic/sour blend to make a sour-blonde. Maybe mash a bit higher to add some more unfermentables for the bigs to eat. Russian Rivers base beer for Temptation is a Blonde Ale, so its not without precident.

I want to try the extract version of this recipe, but the biggest boil size I can do is 3.25 gallons. Would I be ruining the taste by doing a partial boil?

solbergg said:

I want to try the extract version of this recipe, but the biggest boil size I can do is 3.25 gallons. Would I be ruining the taste by doing a partial boil?

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No problem. A light grain bill like this wold be well suited for a partial boil. You may want to extend the boil times on your hops additions since your wort will be more concentrated and your utilization will go down.

BierMuncher said:

No problem. A light grain bill like this wold be well suited for a partial boil. You may want to extend the boil times on your hops additions since your wort will be more concentrated and your utilization will go down.

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Great! Any scientific method I can follow, such as half the boil means double the hop time or something along those lines?

Update: Just checked up on tastybrew.com Putting the first centennial at 60 minutes and the second one for 45 minutes and doubling the cascade times will get the bitterness to 16 IBU on a 3.25 boil, if anyone else is in a similar situation as mine. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Ok, so brew day is tonight. Is there any specific time/temp conditions for the grain steeping or will 160 degrees for half an hour be enough?

I brewed this back in November and just made room in my kegerator last week and it's been on gas for almost a week and I tried it yesterday (while I was brewing your helles belles) and it was excellent. I loved the citrusy combination of the centennial and cascade. I drank 4-5 pints over the course of the day. Everytime my glass would be empty, the kegerator would be calling my name. Glad I made 10 gallons of this and I'll definitely brew it again!

BierMuncher said:

A good week + in a chilled keg and the chill haze will also go away.

Cheers...

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Tastes great but the haze never went away, I cant figure it out. I did a 10G batch fermented all in the same fermenter and then after about 3 weeks I put it in 2 cornys. One had been at 48-50º and one at 36-38º they both have the same haze. I have never had any haze before.

solbergg said:

Ok, so brew day is tonight. Is there any specific time/temp conditions for the grain steeping or will 160 degrees for half an hour be enough?

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Since it's only the cara that you're steeping, 1/2 hour should be fine. Longer wouldn't hurt though.

Well, brew day went pretty smoothly. It took about 16 hours before the airlock started bubbling, but it's doing it pretty consistently now. The wort looked pretty dark when I sealed up the fermenter - does it lighten up during fermentation?

solbergg said:

...does it lighten up during fermentation?

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It will certainly lighten up from where it is now. Never judge a beer color during the fermentation/conditioning process.

Only once you have the yeast drop and the beer has conditioned, can you draw a hydrometer sample and get a close idea as to the color.

Since you did an extract version, it will be darker than an all grain. That's just a fact of homebrewing. Nevertheless, it should taste fantastic.

I'm going to try and brew this one again today. I could only get Cascade hops. I'm wondering if its going to change the flavor much. Il post again when I find out.

Jolly McStanson said:

I'm going to try and brew this one again today. I could only get Cascade hops. I'm wondering if its going to change the flavor much. Il post again when I find out.

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These days you take what you can get...

The nice thing about htis recipe, is you can really sub out a number of different hops. SO long as you keep it drinkable and not overly hoppy.

I've subbed in Northern Brewer and tettnang before. Just make sure to adjust your IBU's for higher/lower alphas.

Oh wait a minute, I do have Centennial hops. So much for using all Cascade, ha ha. Oh and the first time I made this beer, I messed up. I used 2 ounces of hops instead of one ounce. No wonder the taste was very astringent, and tannin like.

Iv also been using 5.2 stabilizer, and it works wonders with my water. I had a big tannin problem, but no more.

If my Bud Light Brother of mine likes this batch, it will be a good thing.

Hello BM! I'm very positive your recipe will be the next i try. I gotta question, do you have the recipe for Partial Mash?

I still cannot do full boils so all grain is out of the question for now.

Thanks in advance,
Mawa

mawa said:

Hello BM! I'm very positive your recipe will be the next i try. I gotta question, do you have the recipe for Partial Mash?

I still cannot do full boils so all grain is out of the question for now.

Thanks in advance,
Mawa

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Here's an Extract/Steeped Grain version.

Just kegged this beer on Wednesday, wow, this is going to be great. I think the BMC crowd will suck this stuff down. THinking about adding a little more on the finishing hops next time.

Just brewed your centennial blonde for the first time with my all-grain setup! It was a great experience with the OG coming out @ 1040 . The color looked real good too. My buddy was brewing what he called a real beer( b/c of the 4%) but I'm sure he'll have to eat/drink his words when this bad boy turns out. Thanks for the recipe and the informative posts.

Tapped my first keg of this yesterday. It's one of those brews that you can drink all day long without getting mung mouth. I'll move that recipe into my 'keepers' folder.

I'm brewing this next weekend. It is going to be my first AG. I can't wait!!!

Finally got around to brewing this one today! Been on my list for a while!! Looking forward to drinking these on the deck as the weather warms! Thanks for sharing BM!

Just wanted to add an update that the beer did in fact lighten up quite a bit, both in the fermenter and when put into the glass. I had a house party last weekend, and many people told me it was the best light (colored) beer they had ever tasted. Great recipe, BM!

I saved this in StrangeBrew... I will be filling my second keg with this brew. $13 to brew this beer... nice! I am looking for my first lager recipe to fill my third keg!

solbergg said:

Just wanted to add an update that the beer did in fact lighten up quite a bit, both in the fermenter and when put into the glass. I had a house party last weekend, and many people told me it was the best light (colored) beer they had ever tasted. Great recipe, BM!

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Glad they enjoyed it. You'll now be expexted to have it on hand all the time.

I brewed this puppy today and I'm stoked about how it turns out.

I did two things differently. 7.25 lbs. of base malt (help compensate for my recently horrible efficiency) and used White Labs American Cream Ale Liquid Yeast instead of Nottingham Dry.

I hit the OG perfectly-- It'll be my first kegged beer, I hope it turns out as well as everyone elses!

I brewed this yesterday, my second all grain attempt with my new MLT and IC!

My only modification was adding an extra pound of base malt for efficiency. I only had two problems.

The first was after the 60 minute mash my thermometer read 138 degrees! Argh! I pre-heated the MLT with 185 degree water for at least 10 minutes, and I know that at the start of the mash I hit 150 right on. Oh well, I guess my MLT is a bit big for this low grain bill. Next time I'll have to try and compensate. I did "the iodophor test" on a sample of the first runnings, and it did not turn black, so I assume all those starches turned into sugars like they should have.

The second mistake happened right after the first, when I just dumped my infusion water in without taking a temp reading (I was distracted by the low temp reading from the MLT). I know it wasn't 185 like I had hoped, probably closer to 160. Oh well.

Then there was the SG, which is not exactly bad news... 1.051! I don't know how much went into the carboy (still need to add gallon markers), but it's between 4.5 and 5 gallons, so I missed my 5.5 gallon target (I must have boiled off a lot). So between boiling off and getting higher efficiency, I'm going to end up with a slightly stronger brew. Hopefully this won't be a bad thing...

xumbi said:

...So between boiling off and getting higher efficiency, I'm going to end up with a slightly stronger brew. Hopefully this won't be a bad thing...

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Never a bad thing. Your lower mash temp will give you a bit drier finish as well. That's a good thing for this style. But like you said, you're liable to end up with more of a 5.4% beer. Nothing wrong with that.

This is the result of my version of your recipe. It is a little young yet getting better each day. Kegging my beers has resulted in so much better clarity.

Blender said:

This is the result of my version of your recipe. It is a little young yet getting better each day. Kegging my beers has resulted in so much better clarity.

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Now that's an inviting looking beer....

Blender said:

This is the result of my version of your recipe. It is a little young yet getting better each day. Kegging my beers has resulted in so much better clarity.

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But more importantly, how does it taste?

I brewed this last thursday, kegged it from primary yesterday, force carbed overnight, and just pulled the first pint.

It's a little green, a bit cloudy yet - but good, very quaffable.

That's good beer, from grain to glass, in 9 days!

Solid Biermuncher, solid.

blacklab said:

I brewed this last thursday, kegged it from primary yesterday, force carbed overnight, and just pulled the first pint.

It's a little green, a bit cloudy yet - but good, very quaffable.

That's good beer, from grain to glass, in 9 days!

Solid Biermuncher, solid.

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Great to hear it.

Pace your self on this batch and get another going. It'll be popular.

So BM, I know you mostly FWH you're bittering hops and add you're finishing hops at knockout now. Would you do that for this beer?

Alamo_Beer said:

So BM, I know you mostly FWH you're bittering hops and add you're finishing hops at knockout now. Would you do that for this beer?

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THis was a traditional hopping (60 minutes and late additions).

FWH would work great with this though, since the Centennial is a higher alpha. It would make the beer a bit more mellow a bit earlier.

Gonna Brew Sunday and try the extract recipe. I have some Carapils at a 7.5L or some Briess Dextrine at 1.5L. What would you reccomend between the two.

Thanks

I brewed this a little over a week ago... took a hydro sample at 1.011 and it tasted phenominal right out of the primary. Cold crashing for a week, then into the keg to do a high pressure carb at 30psi.

Jeff48 said:

Gonna Brew Sunday and try the extract recipe. I have some Carapils at a 7.5L or some Briess Dextrine at 1.5L. What would you reccomend between the two.

Thanks

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I'd lean toward the 1.5. Keep it lighter in color.

I had to replace the Centennial with Columbus, and reduce the first hop addition due to the higher AA% ...

BierMuncher said:

I'd lean toward the 1.5. Keep it lighter in color.

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Thanks, that is just what I was thinking. Light is good and summer sunshine rules. I will let you know how things work out....

Here's this brew after 10 days in primary and 2 weeks in the keg:

The glass is a little scratched because it's kinda old-I stole it from Rennie's in Eugene on my 21er in 1991. But the beer cleared very nicely after a week or so in the keg.