Honey Blonde Ale (Extract)

Please check out the recipe we came up with for a Honey Blonde. Any critiques or comments are welcome. The only thing that didn't fit into beer tools is Wheat DME which we are substituting for the Wheat LME. We will probably use .75 lb. in the boil.

Blonde Ale


Size: 5.24 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 177.68 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.053 (1.038 - 1.054)
Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (1.008 - 1.013)
Color: 5.7 (3.0 - 6.0)
Alcohol: 5.25% (3.8% - 5.5%)
Bitterness: 23.0 (15.0 - 28.0)

Ingredients:
4.25 lb Dry Extra Light
1.0 lb Liquid Wheat Extract
0.25 lb Honey Malt - steep
.5 lb Cara-Pils® Malt - steep
1.25 lb Honey - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 oz Willamette (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
0.5 oz Willamette (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 20.0 min
0.25 oz Willamette (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 1.0 min
1.0 tsp. Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 ea White Labs WLP001 California Ale

 

I was going more for mouthfeel with the wheat extract and utilizing the carapils for head retention. Would it be better to use just one or the other?
thanks,
mfs

 

when is the best time to add the real honey? At flameout to preserve its flavor? Or should it be in the boil to kill any bacteria?
mfs

 

Add the honey at 1min. Did it with a gluten free beer I made worked perfect.

 

Made this one yesterday but i upped the amounts on a few ingredients to see if it would come out a little bolder.

 

Let me know how it turns out, this brew was a real crowd pleaser!
mfs

 

Kegged it yesterday. Force carbonated with 15psi. know it wasnt gonna be ready yet but had to try it and i gotta say it tasted amazing. a little bit rounder with a bigger mouthfeel cant wait till its ready. Im thinking another week.

 

Thanks for the recipe! It looked interesting, and I wanted to brew one more summer style while the weather is warm and the days are long.

I put it in the fermenter last night (O.G. was about 1.045 - right in your range). I noticed the wort was really cloudy and full of some kind of suspended stuff; is this the honey or something? Is it normal? Pitched the yeast at 75 degrees with no starter, and after making me nervous for about 8 hours, things are starting to bubble. I will let you know how it comes out.

Mark

 

yeah my beer was a little hazy. still tasted amazing. just tried round three last week. i ended up using more hops then i did in round 2. but so far this beer has been a very popular with my friends

 

Admittedly, a couple of bottles in at this point, so spelling errors will hopefully be ignored....

I took a few bottles with me to a local concert and let a few people try them. The response was overwhelmingly positive (except from the one IPA fanatic that said he couldn't taste anything...). One person said it was so good I should sell it - to which I responded, of course, that I was not the originator, I just followed the recipe.

For my self, I will put a start next to this one and may brew it every summer. [Disclaimer: I am in no way a competent beer judge. I have only brewed about 10 batches] It is light, with the honey sweetness evident throughout, but nicely balanced by just the right amount of hop bitterness. Excellent summer beer. Thanks for the recipe. It is a keeper.

 

By the way, I put it in a 15 minutes just like the recipe specified, and the beer cam out great.

 

Do you have a name for this beer? I will be brewing it again, and "Honey Blonde Ale" is rather non-specific and unimaginative...

 

How about "Smylie's Summer Blonde". Happy to hear so many enjoyed it. Keep on bewing!

 

Hi all, I used this recipe this past weekend and have a question about my results. I had to use a dry Wheat Extract, as my local homebrew did not have the liquid, but othewise I followed the plan. I am relatively new to homebrewing, having made only six batches, all from kits. This was my first time following a recipe like this. Three concerns I have:
1. It came out much darker than I would have expected. It is the color of a medium-amber, rather than pale.
2. OG was extremely high: 1.08
3. After a couple of hours in the fermenter (plastic carboy) it was slightly cloudy, but mostly clear with a 3/4" layer on the bottom of the carboy. 12 hours later, the air lock was bubbling furiously (yay yeasties!), but the beer itself was very cloudy, looking very much like hot chocolate.

Any ideas on why i got these unexpected results? I will follow through with the process (2-3 weeks in fermenter until gravity stabilizes, the 3 weeks or so in bottle); hopefully it will turn out well. I would just like to get an idea of what I may have done to cause this.

 

I wonder how dark the dry wheat extract was? How did it turn out? Liquid vs. dry shouldn't matter all that much. How long did you boil?

 

Will probably be brewing this again within the next month or so. Everyone who tied it last year is excited for it again. I might have to brew twice as much!!

Thanks again,
Mark

 

...ummm, "everyone who *tried* it..." No one was able to *tie* it...

 

My LHBS says that you use less dry extract by weight than liquid because, well, you don't have the liquid in with the malt. So if you used the exact amounts from the recipe using dry malt, your O.G. might be higher, though 1.08 *is* a lot higher than I might expect considering you are only substituting 1 lb of dry extract. This might be a dumb question, but when did you measure the O.G.? You should measure it after topping the fermenter to the 5 gallon mark.

Mine was quite cloudy when it went into the fermenter, but since I use a plastic bucket I can't say what it looked like after that. Can't remember about the color...we drank it all awhile ago.