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

[ayupbrewing]

I was going to brew this for the first time with the original bill but with an added addition of legacy at flame out. It was the first time a drank more than two while brewing, long story short I thought the 20 minute addition was the flame out and added the the 1/2 ounce of cascade and legacy. Then realized I screwed up and kept boiling adding the next 1/2 ounce of cascade at flame out. Which was miss timed again looks like I only boiled for a total of 45 minutes total. First all grain I haven't done full 60 with. See what flavor it comes out I guess.

Light weight!

 

[Kirkwooder]

I brewed this recipe almost exactly as posted, following the mash times and temps very closely. I have ended up with a beer that is very light on flavor and has no head retention what so ever. I am sure my glassware is not the problem because I certainly don't have an issue with commercially brewed beers.

I am fairly new to brewing and this is only the second AG brew I've attempted. The first was a disaster due to a bad thermometer. (it read over 30* cooler than actual temps.) Needless to say, I purchased a new brewing thermometer, and boil tested it, before this attempt.

Any ideas on what would be causing this?

 

[basementbrewbrad]

I brewed this recipe almost exactly as posted, following the mash times and temps very closely. I have ended up with a beer that is very light on flavor and has no head retention what so ever. I am sure my glassware is not the problem because I certainly don't have an issue with commercially brewed beers. I am fairly new to brewing and this is only the second AG brew I've attempted. The first was a disaster due to a bad thermometer. (it read over 30* cooler than actual temps.) Needless to say, I purchased a new brewing thermometer, and boil tested it, before this attempt. Any ideas on what would be causing this?

Have you tested your ph?

 

[LovesIPA]

Any ideas on what would be causing this?

You will have to share your brewing process before anyone can say what might be going wrong.

 

[shadows69]

I brewed this recipe almost exactly as posted, following the mash times and temps very closely. I have ended up with a beer that is very light on flavor and has no head retention what so ever. I am sure my glassware is not the problem because I certainly don't have an issue with commercially brewed beers.

I am fairly new to brewing and this is only the second AG brew I've attempted. The first was a disaster due to a bad thermometer. (it read over 30* cooler than actual temps.) Needless to say, I purchased a new brewing thermometer, and boil tested it, before this attempt.

Any ideas on what would be causing this?

Light in taste? First thing that comes to mind is your grain crush. Next, are you bottling or kegging? Bottling takes about 3 weeks at room temp, kegging about 2 weeks on co2 unless you force keg it.

 

[Kirkwooder]

I'm bottling, and the beer has fully carbed. It has been botled almost 6 weeks. I ordered the grain crushed from Northern Brewer and o.g. came close at 1.038. I used tap water witch does have some iron and calcium in it, but nothing extreme.

If the crush is the problem, is there any way to deal with buying precrushed grain and making it come out right?

The beer is very light in flavor, but It is susposed to be a BMC'ish type brew. I'm just very surprised as to how light it actually is. It's by no means bad, just much lighter than I was expecting. If it had a good creamy head, I think it would be very well acepted.

 

[Kirkwooder]

I didn't test my PH.

I built my mash/lauter ton from a 48 qt. cooler with a braided water supply line as a drain "false bottom". I mix my grains and add them to the cooler, heat the water, pour it over the grain, use hot or cold water as needed to adjust mash temps, mashed for 60 min, drained the mash wort, batch sparged with enough 170* water to bring me to boil volume, boil for 90, coolled with a immersion chiller, poured into a carboy, shake airiated, pitched the yeast, fermented almost 6 weeks.

I then Primed with dextrose, bottled and put the beer in the closet. It has fully carbed, although the carb seems a bit "course", if that makes any sense.

 

[FATC1TY]

If it's a bit course, it's probably because it's overcarbed a bit for the small body the beer has. Makes it seem lighter to you as well. How much dextrose and how many volumes did you shoot for?

 

[Kirkwooder]

I used the typical 5 oz.. As far as volume that I was shooting for.... ahhh..... carbonated beer. ( I'm not quite that advanced yet!)

 

[shadows69]

I'm bottling, and the beer has fully carbed. It has been botled almost 6 weeks. I ordered the grain crushed from Northern Brewer and o.g. came close at 1.038. I used tap water witch does have some iron and calcium in it, but nothing extreme.

If the crush is the problem, is there any way to deal with buying precrushed grain and making it come out right?

The beer is very light in flavor, but It is susposed to be a BMC'ish type brew. I'm just very surprised as to how light it actually is. It's by no means bad, just much lighter than I was expecting. If it had a good creamy head, I think it would be very well acepted.

I would may try an extra pound or so of gain if your buying orecrushed gain. I crush my own wuth a crona gain crusher found on ebay, set it to .032 and never had a problem. Although, I also agree with the overcarbed statement made.

 

[jflongo]

I just bought my grains yesterday for my first attempt at a 11 gallon batch of this! Should be brewing it in about a week or so.

 

[MarcusKillion]

Beer has plenty of flavor every time I make it . Actually tastes horrible before a month in the bottle then real good . I have gone to using 1/2 oz table sugar per gallon to carb my beers . Can not stand that high carbonation .
Want more white foamy head then perhaps a few pounds of instant rice might work . either that or the corn in my blondes makes a good white head on them but I think it is the rice . ??
I grind my grains quite fine I think it is 023 or 028 but I cover my false bottom with a nylon paint strainer bag so no clogging up.

 

[FATC1TY]

I used the typical 5 oz.. As far as volume that I was shooting for.... ahhh..... carbonated beer. ( I'm not quite that advanced yet!)

It's overcarbed then. The "standard" packet isn't really the right amount in most cases.

Look for a calculator online- weight out your sugar for future batches.

 

[bredle]

Second all grain and first kegged beer. It turned out really good!

 

[Faris427]

I am new to brewing, this is my fourth batch altogether...and I have yet to use a secondary. I ordered and just got all the stuff needed for the original extract recipe. My question is do I need to go get another 6 gallon bucket and all for a secondary or can I just leave it in the primary for an extra 5 days, would this impact the final flavor or color?

Thanks,
Jeremy

 

[Wings13]

I am new to brewing, this is my fourth batch altogether...and I have yet to use a secondary. I ordered and just got all the stuff needed for the original extract recipe. My question is do I need to go get another 6 gallon bucket and all for a secondary or can I just leave it in the primary for an extra 5 days, would this impact the final flavor or color? Thanks, Jeremy

There is no need for a secondary on this beer. You will be fine leaving it in the primary for the extra time.

 

[Jeepinctbrewer]

This beer is awesome thanks for sharing. I split the 11 gallon batch . Dry hopped half just kegged yesterday

 

[doublebogey10]

Not having the time to push through 367 pages ... any other recommended yeasts if Danstar is not available? I have US05 and a couple other options on hand.
Also any recommended substitute for Cascade? I want to brew an easy drinking batch soon with what I have on hand. Have a bunch of other hops but don't have cascade right now.

Thanks!

 

[daggers_nz]

I'd say Amarillo would be the next best thing to Cascade

 

[HBrew71]

Not having the time to push through 367 pages ... any other recommended yeasts if Danstar is not available? I have US05 and a couple other options on hand. Also any recommended substitute for Cascade? I want to brew an easy drinking batch soon with what I have on hand. Have a bunch of other hops but don't have cascade right now. Thanks!

US05 should be fine. I have brewed this beer with 1056 in past - came out fantastic. I used pacman for my current batch which is still in the carboy - so far so good.

 

[Shakybones]

Not having the time to push through 367 pages ... any other recommended yeasts if Danstar is not available? I have US05 and a couple other options on hand.
Also any recommended substitute for Cascade? I want to brew an easy drinking batch soon with what I have on hand. Have a bunch of other hops but don't have cascade right now.

Thanks!

I use US05 for mine and it's always great. Go for it!

 

[shadows69]

I use US05 for mine and it's always great. Go for it!

Wlp080 works very good as well

 

[jflongo]

I use 1056 all the time with this now, so US05 should be fine.

 

[Jeepinctbrewer]

Just tried the dry hopped one I made... Soooo awesome

 

[jflongo]

Just tried the dry hopped one I made... Soooo awesome

Yes I will ALWAYS be dry hopping this now in the future. I enjoyed the non-dry hopped version as well, but enjoyed the dry hopped even more.

I am brewing this up tomorrow, I'm trying the 11 gallon size for the first time.

I plan on dry hopping both fermenters with the same amount, kegging one of them, and bottling the other.

 

[Jeepinctbrewer]

Yes I will ALWAYS be dry hopping this now in the future. I enjoyed the non-dry hopped version as well, but enjoyed the dry hopped even more. I am brewing this up tomorrow, I'm trying the 11 gallon size for the first time. I plan on dry hopping both fermenters with the same amount, kegging one of them, and bottling the other.

Nice ya I did the 11 gallon batch, bottled one kegged one. Dry hopped the kegged one for 2 weeks 1oz centennial 1oz cascade. I have never used such a small amount of hops to brew such a big batch 2oz lol

 

[globe]

Just brewed a batch for a diaper party...There will be lots of bmc drinkers so hopefully it becomes a stepping stone.

I subbed munich for vienna....Im not a huge fan of vienna, but I am really not sure if I have had good examples of that or not, but didnt want to risk it.

Its bubbling away now and excited to see how it turns out since i usually only brew IPAs mostly.

 

[madman960]

Going to brew 2 separate 2.5 gal batches this weekend. I am using Safale US-05 Ale Yeast for 1 and Danstar Nottingham Ale Yeast for the other. Just getting into brewing. Will there be a noticeable difference? Using my LBKs for primaries.

 

[cublue]

Madman, at lower temps (below 65) might not tell a difference. At what temp will you ferment? I tend to use us-04 now, not Nottingham....

 

[Pole]

Planning to do a 5 gal batch this weekend, but I would like this to come out closer to 4.5% abv. Looks like increasing the 2 row to 8 lbs will get me there per Beersmith, but I'm wondering if I need to increase anything else to keep the flavor true to the original recipe. Thoughts?

 

[AlkiBrewing]

I just brewed a 5 gal batch last Friday and wanted to increase the ABV but wasn't sure exactly how to do it without changing the taste/profile. I've brewed 4 batches of it and really like it would just like to increase the ABV. Hopefully somebody with more experience can help out.

 

[cublue]

An increase of all the grains by 10%, should get you about 4.4%. This is assuming you are hitting the same efficiency (70%) as the original. 15% increase would get 4.6%, but that math is much harder to weigh out.

 

[midfielder5]

I would suggest picking a different recipe, a pale ale that has more ABV. If you add more malt, then you need to add more hops, to retain balance, and you might as well pick a beer that was designed to be 5+% ABV instead of messing with this one. There are hundreds of other American/pale ale recipes in the database. good luck.

 

[jflongo]

Nice ya I did the 11 gallon batch, bottled one kegged one. Dry hopped the kegged one for 2 weeks 1oz centennial 1oz cascade. I have never used such a small amount of hops to brew such a big batch 2oz lol

I am going to let this ferment for about 10 - 14 days in primary, open the lids, put 1oz cent 1oz cascade in each of them, let it sit for another 7 days. Keg one, and bottle the other.

 

[Pole]

I would suggest picking a different recipe, a pale ale that has more ABV. If you add more malt, then you need to add more hops, to retain balance, and you might as well pick a beer that was designed to be 5+% ABV instead of messing with this one. There are hundreds of other American/pale ale recipes in the database. good luck.

Good point about the balance, thank you. Guess I'll brew this as-is and do something else at a later time.

 

[midfielder5]

Good point about the balance, thank you. Guess I'll brew this as-is and do something else at a later time.

It will be a fine beer as is with a bit of extra malt to bump the ABV. A rather small increase (such as 0.5% in ABV) isn't going to make a big difference, don't get me wrong. You could have that much variance depending on your AG efficiency, so I like to check my pre-boil OG and add or subtract hops, or boil longer etc. as needed to match the expected gravity.

 

[Jeepinctbrewer]

I am going to let this ferment for about 10 - 14 days in primary, open the lids, put 1oz cent 1oz cascade in each of them, let it sit for another 7 days. Keg one, and bottle the other.

Sounds great !

 

[tg123]

my FG came out to be about 1.015 which seems a bit high. Stayed there for 3 days so decided to just bottle it. Hope there won't be any bottle bombs.

 

[one-L]

my FG came out to be about 1.015 which seems a bit high. Stayed there for 3 days so decided to just bottle it. Hope there won't be any bottle bombs.

What temp did you mash at and how long was it in the fermenter? This has dropped to about 1.008 for me the last 3 times I've done it.

 

[Faris427]

So I just put this in the primary. I did a partial boil (3.25 gallons...the largest boil I can currently do) with the extract recipe on the first page. I steeped 1 pound of carafoam (I read somewhere in this thread by the original poster that this was an acceptable substitute) for 30 minutes at 160deg and then pulled the grain and took it to a boil. I then added 5 pounds of munton's extra light DME. I used 9.5% Centennial pellets @ 45 mins and 20 mins, and 6.4% Cascade pellets @20 and 10 mins with a total of 60 min boil (according to the IBU calculator this got me 16.75IBU) . After cooling the wort and pitching the rehydrated nottingham yeast and adding bottled spring water to get to the 5 gallon mark on the bucket, I took my OG and got 1.048. Is this okay? The recipe stated a OG of 1.044. I only went to the 5 gallon line (this is the highest line on the bucket)...I have half a gallon of spring water left over...should I add this to the bucket as it will bring the gravity down and the recipe stated it should make 5.5 gallons?