HopBurst Cream Ale

[dformed]

I'm getting ready to build a mash tun and start doing all-grain, but I recently found a 15-minute pale ale recipe, brewed it, and was impressed. Best part: successfully made Beer in 2 hours FLAT... and then made a bigger red ale.

The short boil worked because of a technique called Hop Bursting. It sounds like this could be a great way to squeeze a second quick beer into the gaps of a full brew day, but I'd rather get a little more variety than just pale ales. found this article <http://www.brewersfriend.com/2012/08/25/15-minute-boil-tested/> which says Hop Bursting may work for "... Cream Ale, Scottish Light, Porter, Standard Bitter, English Mild, [or] Fruit Beer."

I just did a little research and worked up this Cream Ale recipe (it is apparently "within style" by the numbers). Look like it'll work? any feedback? ideas?

Recipe Type: Extract
Yeast: Wyeast 1056
Yeast Starter: No
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Original Gravity: 1.055
Final Gravity: 1.014
IBU: 17.04 (Rager, apparently more accurate for HopBurst)
Boiling Time (Minutes): 15
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 at 68
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14 at 68

HopBurst Cream Ale

Fermentables
7 lbs Liquid Pale Malt Extract
12 oz Ashbourne Mild
4 oz Vienna
4 oz Crystal 20

Hops
1.5 oz Centennial @ 15min.
1/2 oz Cascade @ 1 min.

I'm not married to the hop varieties - I haven't had a lot of experience with different hops and these are some I've liked that seem to fit the bill for bittering and aroma (relatively mild and citrus-y).

This is the first recipe I've put together, and is based in large part on research rather than experience. I figure I might as well experiment and come out with a weird beer instead of getting bored following recipes until I've "mastered" the art. Lemme know what you think! I'd love to make this (or a modified version) on my next brew day!

 

[sptaylor70]

Corn is fundamental to the Cream Ale style. And that almost automatically pushes you into a partial mash (unless you use Williams American Lager extract, which is 75% pale barley malt and 25% corn). So taking your recipe as a starting point:

Light LME 5.5 lbs. (add with 15 minutes remaining in the boil)
Pale two-row 12 oz.
Ashburne Mild 12 oz.
Flaked corn 2 lbs.
C20L 4 oz.

Also, you probably want some genuine bittering hops. So again, taking your hop schedule as a starting point (and stealing from Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde):

Centennial, 0.25 oz., 60 min.
Centennial, 0.5 oz., 20 min.
Cascade, 0.5 oz., 10 min.
Cascade, 0.5 oz., 5 min.

This would give you OG 1055, FG 1011, SRM 5, IBU 18.

You don't, of course, have to do any of this. What you have looks like a fine blonde ale (I would still shoot for a longer boil for bittering hops).

 

[dformed]

Since I'm going for a 15-minute boil here - so I can brew a small beer while a larger one is mashing - a partial mash would defeat my purpose. Unfortunately, it looks like a Cream Ale isn't going to work for this project! I'll do some more research, talk to my LHBS, and see if I can come up with some other possile styles. Thanks for your input!

(not sure why the other recipes I looked at didn't include corn, but I'm a strong believer in fundamentals...)

 

[sptaylor70]

If what you really want is a fifteen-minute start-to-finish wort, you could go with a can Hopped Malt Extract kit. Something like:

Munton's Canadian Ale Malt Kit
2.2 lbs. of Williams American Lager Extract.
0.5 oz. each of Cascade and Centennial, boiled for five minutes

 

[dformed]

part of the problem is the supply at my LHBS. if I could get that Lager extract, I'd use it and double the hops so I'd still get some effect in a short boil. I don't really like the idea of using a hopped extract kit, but I'd consider it if it would yield an acceptable bittering in a relatively cost-effective way. However, the fact remains that I have no way to get the corn into the equation. Fortunately, with two beers bottle-conditioning and a tun yet to be made, I have time to work this out. If it comes to it, there's a lot of room for inprovisation in the 15-minute pale ale recipe I used - the thread has about 30 pages of variations - so I shouldn't get bored of that one.