Blue Moon Clone

[BrewNinja1]

My recipe is pretty darn close to yours (when you scale for efficiency), and after doing 3:1 on the coriander/orange, last night I just did the same as you, 3tsp of each. Let us know how it turns out once you get it kegged. The S-05 shouldnt be that much of a difference either.

 

[MeanGreen]

MeanGreen,

The grain bill, yeast and hops look great. The spices are a personal taste. I would have suggested brewing it first as written and then changing it to taste.

It is nice to sit back and say that. I know it is very hard to not want to put some personal touches on any recipe. Hell, I hardly ever brew my own recipes the same way twice in a row. Most of the time when I change a recipe it is because I do not have the exact same ingredients. I try to sub things that will get the same taste. I don't always succeed, but I do try.

My main contribution to the Blue Moon recipe was the ratio of coriander to sweet orange peel. I do realize that the same type of spices are not available today. The McCormick's orange peel seem to be the closest to the Valencia orange peel I used. I appreciate all the feedback from everybody who has brewed the recipe. With your help, perhaps we may be able to update it to fit what is available to homebrewers nowadays.

Thanks Wayne. One other question popped out at me in the thread and I don't think I resolved it.

Based on my experience cooking I prefer fresh ground spices. Was that how Blue Moon was made, with fresh ground coriander?

If so was it more cracked, like a mortar and pestle or ground to a fine powder or just bought outright ground?

Depending on the answer that may make a difference in the ratio, no? that the powder is more concentrated than just a cracked one?

Again many thanks for this

 

[Wayne1]

When I was brewing Blue Moon, it was on systems between 10 and 15 barrel brewlengths. Roughly between 375 and 500 gallons in the kettle. Dried, pre-ground, not powered, spices were the only practical method to use.

I scaled down the amounts used in those systems to a homebrew sized batch. I do realize that spices do not scale all that well. My spice suggestions were just that. The ratio of coriander to sweet orange peel was fairly important, at least in those size batches.

Once again, I suggest trying the amounts in the recipe I posted. If it does not work for you and the type of spices you use, then change them to suit your taste. At least you will have a reference point from which you can modify the recipe.

 

[MeanGreen]

Wayne, I agree and I am going to, I wasn't questioning your recipe, just was wondering what the origins were. People say ground, and was wondering if it was more complex than that.

Cheers

 

[defacto]

i am pretty new to brewing and have read through this thread. i would like to make a pretty easy extract version of waynes recipe (partial mash at most). i know it wont be a clone, i just want to get something that slightly resembles blue moon and then work up from there. wayne (or anyone else) do you have an extract version?

we just cant get blue moon all the way over here in australia.

 

[Wayne1]

BeerBaronBob submitted a PM version in post #169 on this thread. He seemed to like it, but thought it was a bit dark in color.

I am not sure if you can get the same extract in OZ. I am also not sure about the availability of sweet orange peel. Good luck in your quest.

 

[nilo]

Wayne, from what we know of blue moon today by tasting it, how much you think the recipe have changed thru the years?
I'm asking that because the beer I taste today seems to have a darker color and more thickness that most recipes call for.
I have the recipe below fermenting right now and wondering what you think of it.

5gal batch
4# Briess 2 row
4# Flaked wheat
2# Briess white wheat malt
1/2# Carapils
1/4# Crystal 40L
1# Flaked oats
1# Rice hulls

Boil:
1oz Hallertauer for 60min
1/2oz coriander for 10min
2 chamomile tea begs for 10min

Fresh orange peel from 1 orange infused in vodka and into primary

Eff%=70, mashed at 158F.
Dry yeast S04 at 65F

OG=1.051
FG=1.015
ABV%=4.7
SRM=6
IBU=14

The taste and smell from fermenter are just fantastic

Hey, just wanted to give some feedback, with pics, of what came out from my recipe.
Here are some basic observations after just 2 weeks bottle conditioned:

1)The color of the clone is petty much "right on the money". I wouldn't change a thing;
2)The mouth feel seems a little thinner than the real, perhaps a little more oats, like 1/2lb more would do it;
3)Clone tastes a little stronger on the coriander. I used 1/2oz for 5gals batch, so probably 1/4 to 3/8oz would do it
4)The clone has a bit more carbonation. Used 1 cup corn sugar to prime 5gal batch. 3/4cup would probably be better;
5) My wife actually liked better the clone, so I'm sticking to this recipe, just will apply the above changes.

Here are the pics, please vote what you think is the clone and which is the real Blue Moon? Anyone?

 

[Wayne1]

The beer looks really good, nilo.

My suggestions would be to not use the Briess 2 row. Switch to Weyermann Vienna as your base malt. With that change, you might want to cut back a bit on the crystal 40L. If it is available in your area, use the Weyermann CaraFoam in place of the Cara-Pils. As you can tell, I am a bit biased towards Weyermann specialty malts. I feel they are quite a bit fuller tasting and give a smoother flavor. Briess always seemed to be thin and rough.

As a bit of a plug, I buy my Weyermann grains from Brewmaster's Warehouse.

You can also cut back on the rice hulls. 1/2 lb should be enough.

Did the chamomile tea add anything to the flavor. Did you detect it's presence?

 

[nilo]

Thanks for the great imput Wayne. I'll look for Weyermann grains at my LHBS.
I don't think I can detect anything from the chamomile, so it could probably be left out.

 

[ekjohns]

im going to guess the one on the left is the homebrew. Did you find that having the majority of the wheat being flaked as opposed to malted gave you more of the wheaty kind of graining taste that blue moon has? I had one clone with only 1 lb flaked and 5 lbs of white wheat (1 lbs oats) came out thin and didnt have that wheat flavor

 

[ekjohns]

nilo how did yours come out on the orange taste compared to the real thing? I tried 2 oranges finely zested and got nothin but orange bitter flavor that didnt come across very well

 

[nilo]

I don't think the wheat flakes added anything that makes me want to keep it on the grain bill. The real Blue Moon was much thicker than the clone, so I'm brewing a batch and going hard on the oat flakes, 2 full pounds of it.
Most people that tried the clone noticed that it had orange, but I think it was less than the real, so I'm using now 3 oranges, carefully removing the skin without taking any of the while layer underneath, to avoid the bitter after taste.
I'll also use half the coriander, just 1/4oz. The original 1/2oz was definitely too much.

Ekjohns, you were right, the clone is at the left.

 

[ekjohns]

i was going to try 2 lbs of flaked wheat and 2 lbs of oats as well with 1/4 oz of corriander. Ill try the liquid extract and let you know how it comes out. sounds like we are getting closer!

 

[mccabedoug]

The beer looks really good, nilo.

My suggestions would be to not use the Briess 2 row. Switch to Weyermann Vienna as your base malt. With that change, you might want to cut back a bit on the crystal 40L. If it is available in your area, use the Weyermann CaraFoam in place of the Cara-Pils. As you can tell, I am a bit biased towards Weyermann specialty malts. I feel they are quite a bit fuller tasting and give a smoother flavor. Briess always seemed to be thin and rough.

Wayne, are your suggestions aimed at 'thickening' the mouth feel of Nilo's beer? I, too, feel that Blue Moon has an unusual, yet very pleasing, creaminess to it, especially when it is on tap. It is quite a nice beer in the summer after a hot round of golf. I've never been able to even come close to such a mouthfeel in my years of brewing.

I'd like to add my thanks to everyone else's for contributing to this excellent thread.

 

[Wayne1]

Briess malts are rather thin tasting to me. Changing to European malts will fill out the body a bit. Nilo's thought on using more flaked oats will also help a great deal on obtaining a creamier mouthfeel.

Welcome to HBT!.

 

[ekjohns]

beer was kegged today. the orange flavor really came through with about 4/6 of an oz of orange extract. there is no bitterness like i was getting from peel at all. I only tasted a sip and will get a better taste when its carbed and cooled. either way the orange taste is like a beer with the orange slice already added. the taste i had seemed a little thin even with 2 lbs of oats but i think cooling and cabbing will help this out alot. ill post back in a few weeks with a full write up after a side by side comparison. either way i got much more orange flavor with extract than i ever did with orange peel (dried and fresh) and using orange marmalade

 

[ButcherBrew]

Hello All,

First off, thanks to all for the education that each of you provide with each response and the sharing of your results. I am about to embark on my first true beer making experience with the AHS Blue Moon PM kit - leap-frogging from my old Mr. Beer LME kits. Just picked up my new 5 gallon equipment and ready to start boiling.

Granted, I am not doing an All Grain but I wanted to get your advice. After reading through this entire (20 page) thread, I didnt see anyone talk about what appears to be the new version of the recipe from AHS. The recipe I am looking at has a couple of interesting notes:
> Mash grains for 45 mins, then remove and sparge with 170 water. (Everywhere I have read recommends for 1 hour mash time.)
> After adding LME, bring to a boil and then start the Hop additions. The kicker tho is the total boil listed on the recipe sheet is only 30 mins.
.5oz cascade - start timer at 30 mins
Blue Moon Add Pack(Contains Coreander and Orange peel) - 15 mins
.5oz cascade (aroma hops) - 5 mins
Then cool down and follow standard steps for adding to fermenter.

Just checking to see if anyone has followed this PM recipe and how was the result? Should I change anything or stick with the written instructions for this first batch?

Appreciate all the insight!

 

[midfielder5]

hi butcherbrew- the AHS kit you got has a lot of differences from the original Blue Moon recipe that Wayne1 posted, ie, hops (cascade? really?) plus the mash n boil times you mentioned. i also dont know what grains or yeast came with it-- does it say?

as it is your first PM, id try to keep it simple.
imo- stick w/ the AHS instructions, etc & brew it up!
let us know how it turns out!
im sure it will taste like beer, but it isnt a 100% blue moon clone.
good luck!
wendy

 

[Wayne1]

As I have stated many times in this thread, you may make a similar flavored beer to Blue Moon, but it will not be Blue Moon. Blue Moon has never used Cascade hops. There is no finish hops in Blue Moon. The orange peel and coriander are added at different times.

Most of the discussion here is about replicating the original recipe, not making a kit.

I have no idea what grains or yeast are included in the kit. Blue Moon is best made with pale malt, flaked oats and malted wheat. A neutral yeast should be use, such as Safale US-05. NOT a Belgian style yeast.

The 90 min boil is used to extract all the bitterness from the small amount of Hallertau hops. It is also used to evaporate roughly 10% of the water to hit the correct gravity.

I will suggest you follow the kit directions exactly. Then for your next batch, try the partial mash version that was posted in this thread by BeerBaronBob. I believe it was post #169

 

[ButcherBrew]

Will do guys....thanks for the help. Will report back on the results.

 

[midfielder5]

i have been following this thread and finally brewed it per Wayne1, as is -- except i used the zest of 4 oranges/ juice steeped in vodka and added to primary.

we are crushing this keg! make this beer.



btw, i made 8 gallons: 4 g became true Blue Moon & 4 went in another primary with wit yeast wl400, fresh ginger &orange in vodka. i wanted to see which one we liked better. i will be bottling the wit yeast one soon (tasty).

 

[DougE]

All right. I've spent years brewing before I ever visited a homebrew forum. I looked at one thread, and I'm already posting. That didn't take long.

I love blue moon, and so does my wife. It might be my favorite all time beer. So when I saw this thread, I was hooked. I spent the last week trying to convert this recipe into an extract recipe. I've never done anything other than extract. But then I talked to a brewing buddy who said he would happily help me brew my first all grain recipe. So I brewed it today. I just checked the O.G. before pitching the yeast, and am extremely nervous. The O.G. was 1.020. How is that possible? My lowest O.G. in any of my dozens of extract brews was something like 1.036, but it was usually more like 1.046. Did I do something wrong?

Here was the recipe I used (5 gallons):

5 lbs 2-row
4 lbs white wheat
1 lb flaked oats
1 oz Hallertau (90 min)
3 tsp ground coriander (10 min)
3 tsp ground valencia orange (5 min)
Wyeast 1056 (American Ale)

I mashed (is that the right term?) the malt for 1 hour at 155 degrees.

However, I was overly ambitious, and tried a few other things for the first time today, including...

• just bought a new 30 quart brew pot and brewed the full 5 gallon batch
• brewed in my garage using propane on a turkey fryer (in order to get 5 full gallons boiling)
• 1st time using a wort chiller (again, no other way to get 5 full gallons cooled quickly)
• and, of couse, first time doing all grain
• it's also my first time using my new glass carboy, but i don't know how that could affect the O.G. (I marked 5 gallons on the carboy and it is right at that mark)

I'm not overly concerned about alcohol content of my beer, but this won't even qualify as 3.2 beer. I'm mostly just nervous that it won't taste very good. I've found that my extract batches usually end up with a lower O.G. than it "should", but the beer still turns out good (and with plenty of alcohol). But 1.020 is incredibly low and much lower than the "expected" 1.052 I've heard from previous posters. I don't understand it.

Any ideas?

 

[BeerBaronBob]

I would look at your mashing temps and procedures. Can you provide more details about the steps you used starting with the grain.

Was the grain fresh?

Was it ground?

How did you mash? In a cooler or just steeping?

Did you sparge and bring the mash temp up to 168F at the end of your hour at 155F? How did you get the wort into the kettle to boil? Without using rice hulls did you have issues with draining you mash tun like a stuck sparge? I usually need to use Rice Hulls to get my tun to drain freely.

Lastly you took the OG reading at 72F I presume?

Since you are starting out brewing AG I would suggest that you measure the OG prior to boiling to decide if you need to add any DME in case you get a low OG for whatever reason. You will need to recalculate the true OG if you measure when the wort is hot. (When you measure hot wort at say 170F you will get a low OG reading that needs to be corrected)

When I went from Extract brewing to AG I did a few partial mash brews to get the hang of mashing without having to totally rely on the AG conversion process to fermentable sugars. This took several batches to get the temps down right and I still have most of my problems with hitting my mash temp correctly without having to do fine adjustments.

Your new processes with a larger boil shoud not affect your OG readings except for the final volume which you say was 5 gal.

I would say that you should be using a 90 minute boil for this batch and your starting boil volume should be close to your kettle size capacity... I boil close to 7.5 gal for this but I shoot for a 5.5 gal final batch size to take into accound that I want at least 5.25 gal in my carboy to finally get 5 in my corny keg (I use a 15 gal kettle to do 5.25 gal batches so Im not sure you are going to be able to safetly boil without boilovers when you get your hot breaks using a 30 Qt kettle. You could do partial mashes in this however.)

I finally would suggest getting Beersmith software which helped me tremendously with making the transition to AG.

 

[BeerBaronBob]

ekjohns:

I am going to be brewing Blue Moon AG this weekend using several variations suggested in this thread namely Weyermann Vienna in the place of 2 Row pale but I am also going to use organic Orange Extract in place of the Valencia peel to get more Orange flavor. Have you decided whether the amounts you used were OK or too much? I believe you used 4/6 of an ounce?

The recipe I came up with using Beersmith and a bunch of suggestions in this thread:

4.75# Weyermann Vienna
3.75# Weyermann White Wheat Malt
1.50# Flaked Oats Briess
0.25# Weyermann Carafoam (If I can find it.. Carapils otherwise)
0.16# Crystal Malt 40L

1.25 oz Hallertauer Hops at 60 Min
1.25 oz Ground Corriander - McCormicks at 10 min
0.50 oz Organic Orange Extract at 0 Min

Pitch with Wyeast American Ale (Chico) yeast at 72F
(I make a yeast starter 2 days ahead of brew day)
Ferment at 66-68F for 21 days

Single Infusion Mash, Meduim Body Profile
Mash at 154F for 60 min
Mash Out at 168F for 10 min

Beersmith calculates OG at 1.054 using 70% efficiency
20.8 IBUs and a color of 5.6 SRM
Starting Boil Volume is 7.9 Gal
(Considering 1.25 gal trub loss in my 15Gal Megapot kettle)

Suggestions are welcome

 

[DougE]

Thanks for the reponse, Bob. Let's see if I can answer some or all of your questions...

I bought the grain from the homebrew store the day I brewed, and I ground them at the store.

We kept the procedure very simple for my first AG brew... maybe too simple? I used my buddy's cooler for the mashing. We put all of the grains in a big bag, and put them in the bottom of the cooler. We heated 3.5 gallons of water up to about 165 degrees and poured it over the grains in the cooler. Once it was all settled, the temperature of the mash in the cooler was right at 155. We closed the lid, and it maintained 155 fairly well. We kept about a gallon of water on the side at 170F (or lower) and twice over the course of the hour, we had to pour a little of the extra hot water over the grains to bring the temp back to 155. It never got below about 152. We kept the temperature as close to 155 as we could for the entire hour, and I thought we did a decent job. At the end of the hour, we drained the contents of the cooler into the brewpot. We poured maybe 1 more gallon of water slowly over the grains to get the last bit of goodness out of them (I assume that is what is meant by sparging). We never brought the temp up to 168 before sparging. When it was all said and done, we used 6 gallons of water so the boil started with 6 gallons minus whatever the grains soaked up. I would guess it was just over 5 gallons. The final amount after the boil was just under 5 gallons. I didn't have any issues with draining freely because we put the grains in a bag. My buddy says he always does it that way, and I know he's made some tasty AG brews.

I did a 90 minute boil on this batch. As I said, the pre-boil volume was probably a little low (5.25 to 5.5 gallons probably), but I was okay with that for this batch. In the future, I will bring it up to 6 - 6.5. In the end, I think I only lost about 0.5 to 0.75 gallons on the boil because my final volume was just a touch below the 5 gallon mark on my fermentor. If anything, this should have increased the OG.

After the boil, I used the wort chiller to bring it down to pitching temp. Once in the fermentator, it was 70F so I took the OG and pitched the yeast.

The only things I can think of that I did wrong were:
1) Maybe I should have done the mash for longer than 60 minutes
2) I didn't bring the temp up to 168 for mash out

I wouldn't think that those two things could account for such a low OG, but maybe there was something else that I'm missing.

Thanks for your other tips. I will definitely take them into account for future brews. At this point, I may retreat back into my shell and do some more extract brews before I try another AG brew. I've been nervous about trying AG, and now I'm a little gun shy. But I would like to figure out what I did wrong so I can fix it the next time I go AG.

 

[Wayne1]

DougE,

Welcome to HBT!

Your low gravity could be the result of many things. The crush of the grains might have been a bit coarse. If the grains were not ground much the water could not get in to convert the starches to sugar.

Your rinsing of the grains might have gone too fast. I am old school when it comes to sparging (rinsing). I fly sparge. Which is constantly keeping 2" of so of hot water on top of the grain bed when draining. I take about 45-60 minutes to run the entire amount of water through the grains. I usually start with close to 8 gallons in my kettle and evaporate off 1.5 gallons or so over a 90 minute boil.

I am not sure when I might brew a Blue Moon again, but I should be brewing something in the next couple of weeks, weather depending. Drop me a PM if you would like to travel to the SW Denver suburbs to help me do an all grain batch. Hopefully you might be able to pick up something you can use in your brewing.

A link to my rig in in my signature. I may have some more stuff in my system to make it easier for this old man to do things, but the principle is the same in all grain brewing.

 

[ekjohns]

i think the big things are:
1) how well you ground the grain. The finer the grind the better in most cases (you can go to fine though)

the big problems I see is the sparge.

1) 1 gal is not nearly enough. Usually you would mash with about 3 gal of water for 10 lbs of grain then add 4 gal to sparge. With only a gal i think you left alot of sugar behind do to too little of a sparge.
2) i think the bag idea while nice for clean up doesnt all for a good mixture and you can get a lot of dry pockets of grain. Thus the water cant get to them to convert and disolve the sugar so you dont get anything out of them.

 

[ekjohns]

Bob: I havent tasted the beer yet since its gone in the keg (i brewed it for a friend this time, but I will be trying it this coming weekend). I added the extract late in the ferm. so I wouldnt blow off all the aroma. At kegging day the orange smell was strong which is what i wanted. I could taste the orange and I got zero bitterness. If anything the flavor was a bit bland but this was because of the yeast. I used US-05 and kept it down into around 64-65F so i dont think I got any flavor from the yeast at all. The color using 2-row with the crystal was spot on so I think vienna may make it a bit too dark and may be a bit too malty.

 

[DougE]

Don't know how the crush of the grains could be wrong. I used the mill at the homebrew store that everyone else uses.

It sounds like the consensus is that my sparging was too fast/not thorough enough. I could believe that. I was just following my buddy's lead. I know he's brewed a lot of tasty AG brews, but that doesn't necessarily mean he was doing it right. He made the comment that most of his AG brews used closer to 20 pounds of grain and were very high in alcohol content so I don't know if that changes anything. He also said he started using the bag as he increased the quantities of grain because his drain kept getting clogged. It sure seems like a great idea, but if it doesn't work then it doesn't work.

So what is the consensus? Does this beer still have a chance at being somewhat tasty even if the gravities and alcohol content are way off? Also, is 60 minutes long enough to do the mash (not counting the sparging at the end) or should I have gone longer?

Thanks again everyone.

 

[BeerBaronBob]

Thanks ekjohns,

I am using Nilo's version of Wayne's original recipe with the Vienna substitution suggestion from Wayne's post #188 with less Crystal 40L. I just got a great deal on a 55# sack of Weyermann Vienna so Im going to try this out using Vienna as well as the additional Flaked Oats at 1.5# sugested to get a better creaminess to the body.

Im not sure I will add the Orange Extract to the fermenter after blowoff as you suggest, I will add the 0.5oz at the end of the boil. I may end up using both the some Valencia peel and the extract. Im not sure the bitterness is something you want to get rid of completely but I do like the orange taste.

One question I have for Wayne is what fermentation schedule you have used for BM. I know you have said the freshness is key here. How many days would you ferment this and what temps. How many days carbed before tasting.

Im using 21 days for primary at 66-68F and 2 weeks force carbing/conditioning at 35F so about 5 weeks to taste.