Critique my recipe: Honey Cream Ale

This is my next recipe. I used a partial mash recipe posted on beertools.com by member "Vista" as the basis for this recipe.

Honey Cream Ale
0.75-lbs Crystal Malt
1.00-lbs Pale Malt
3.00-lbs. Muntons Extra Light DME
1.00-lb. Muntons Light DME
0.50-lbs Flaked Maize
0.75-oz. Spalt pellets boiled for 1-hour
0.50-oz. Cascade pellets boiled for 30-minutes
1.00-lb. Clover Honey boiled for 15-minutes
1-pack Nottingham dry yeast

I haven’t really delved into the scientific aspects of brewing, but I want this to be a refreshing summer brew, not hoppy or too heavy.

Some questions:

I’m a little unsure of my hop choices for this as they are what I have on hand and my local homebrew store doesn’t have much else for a light beer. Do you think they are good choices, or should I adjust my recipe?

Also, I’ve never used adjuncts like corn. Should I steep the maize with my grains, should I boil it with the wort, or should I steep it separately and add it directly to the cooled wort when I pitch yeast? Or something else?

What do you think?

If you want a "traditional" cream ale, cut out the crystal. Cream ale's are supposed to be light in body, and crystal will add body and sweetness. As is I think it will make a very nice beer, but you say you want something not too heavy. With the crystal it probably won't be "heavy," just heavier. The choice is yours.
I think the hops look good, only i'd add the cascade at 15 minutes instead of 30 to cut out a little bitterness and give you a little bit of hop flavor out of them.
As for the maize, "steeping" isn't quite the right word, but basically that's what you do. Maize can't convert it's own starches, so you'll need to do a mini mash. Assuming the pound of "pale malt" is 2 row, you should take the maize, pale malt, and crystal if you use it and add it to three quarts of water at about 165 degrees. Adding the malt should drop it down to around 155. Hold the temp there for 30-45 minutes, then rinse the grains with some sparge water at 170. Then add however much water you need to bring it up to your boil amount, and boil as usual.
I bet this will be a very nice summer beer. I'm planning on doing a cream ale myself soon.

I would drop the light DME and add another pound or two of honey. If you want a really strong honey flavor, it has to be more dominant than 1 lb among several. I make a honey beer with 7 lbs of honey and a couple oz of hops, and the honey flavor is great...but a little DME would cover that up pretty quickly. It might be nice to add a pound of wheat to give it some head retention, though.

Ok, here's my updated recipe:

1.00-lbs Pale Malt (Briess 1.8L)
1.00-lbs. Flaked Wheat
3.00-lbs. Muntons Extra Light DME
0.50-lbs Flaked Maize
0.75-oz. Spalt pellets boiled for 1-hour
0.50-oz. Cascade pellets boiled for 15-minutes
4.00-lb. Clover Honey boiled for 15-minutes
1-pack Nottingham dry yeast

I have 4-lbs of honey on hand, so I'll see how that does. I want the honey flavor, definitely. I'll have to hit my LHBS to pick up the flaked wheat. Heck, I think I'll get some more ingredients for that Basic Hefeweizen recipe I see in the recipes section!

Thank you for your input guys!

What if you dropped the flaked wheat, maize, and pale malt, and went with 3 lb of wheat DME + 4 lb honey instead of the ex light DME? Unless you're going to mash, the pale malt is not doing anything for you.

I also don't think you have enough hops to keep your brew from being cloyingly sweet. Up your Spalt to 2 oz at bittering, and you'll be ok.

I think the honey will pretty much ferment out, I don't think it will leave a lot of honey flavour behind but I could be wrong. I'd have a browse around the internet to check!

for a cream ale, you definitely want the maize and the flaked wheat is good, too. i use it in mine and it's killer you would need to leave the pale malt in for that.

use the cream ale blend yeast (WLP080, i think) if you can ferment anywhere between 55-65F.

the honey will mostly ferment out, but it could still work. I would NOT use 4 lbs, though. more like 1 lb. and remember, honey may take longer to finish fermenting.

other than that, it looks like a great cream ale recipe.

If you want to optimize the honey, take about 2qts of water and heat to 180, add the honey, and bring back to 180. Cover and throw in a 180 oven during the boil. Add to the wort while cooling. This should retain as much honey flavor while killing off any wild things that may be in it. Now, your cream ale is now a braggot, but I can't see how it would be anything but awesome.

Ok, I'm going to back off the honey down to 1-lb.

The Danstar Nottingham dry yeast has similar properties to the WL cream ale yeast, though it is more of a broad use ale yeast. It isn't a blend of ale and lager yeasts like the WL, but it produces mild fruity esters and ferments well between 57-70°F. My older brother used it several times in ale recipes and has found it to be a very active yeast strain. He did a honey wheat beer kit with Nottingham and it produced a very clean beer that had a notable honey aroma and aftertaste. It was delicious, so I'm going to see what those yeasts can do here.

Thanks again!

you may wish to up your DME a pound or two to make up for the loss in gravity from removing the honey.

A cream ale should be light, but you don't want it watery.

i wouldn't say that nottingham has similar properties, but it WILL make a nice clean ale and should be very tasty.

hope it comes out great!

I'm a huge fan of Honey malt. I've used it a few times, and find that it makes its way into a lot of my recipes. It imparts a lot of honey flavor and is just all around dandy.

As it turns out, I have a spare fridge that will take a 6.5 gal carboy with room to spare, so I can handle the cold conditioning stage and everything. I ordered WLP060 to make it a true cream ale.

Now that I know for sure I can manage fermentation temps easily, the gears are really turning. There are so many recipes I want to try. I just have to make sure which setting on the fridge maintains lagering temps.

What about the addition of lactose to my cream ale before kegging? Would 5-oz. work to give it a nice head?