Blue Moon Clone

[ekjohns]

seems like the right fermentation schedule for a 5 gal batch. If Brewmasters (tv show) taught me anything its the big boys can speed things up like crazy do to the higher volumes. The bigger the batch the quicker its ready to drink

 

[BrewNinja1]

BeerBaronBob, 1.25oz of corriander sounds like too much unless you like spicey. Most of us have used 3 tsp and its perfect.

 

[midfielder5]

2 weeks to condition& force carb?
i could never wait that long! i like to chill it overnight, then in the morning-- add the gas at 25-30psi in short bursts, shake the heck out of the keg and drink it the same day. Granted, it does taste better the next day and improves over time, but i gotta have it !

 

[ButcherBrew]

Perfect for my question.....

So I brewed the PM version of the AHS Blue Moon Clone on the 7th. Trying to have the batch ready for consumption at my superbowl party sooo.....

Should I bottle it now....to give it just over 2.5 weeks in the bottle, or let it ferment til this Friday so it has primaried for 2 weeks, and then bottle giving it two weeks until my deadline to carbonate.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Much appreciated.

Guess I need to know if it is indeed ready by taking a reading tonight....but was looking for feedback on what step from this point is more critical...longer in primary or longer in bottles....

 

[JonClayton]

Butcherbrew, gravity readings are the only reliable means of knowing when it's time to bottle. I see 2 weeks tossed around a lot as a magic number, but it's really not the case. I would take a sample reading today, and again in a few days to see where it is at. If it's the same you a ready to bottle, if it's still dropping, repeat in a few days. I bet it will probably be ready to go, but you need those samples to be safe and avoid bottle bombs.

It looks like you will at least be Friday or so bottling the brew, but don't give it, I've had beers be drinkable after a week in the bottle... not ideal.... but completely drinkable.

 

[JonClayton]

I am hoping to visit brewmasters warehouse this weekend and purchase some ingredients for this.

do you guys think there is much difference between Briess 2-Row Brewer's Malt and Briess organic 2-row in terms of this recipe?

 

[Wayne1]

No need for organic. You might want to look into using Weyerman grains.

 

[JonClayton]

Thank you Wayne. By the way, if I have not told you... I really really appreciate you taking the time to post this information and weed out the bad information in the thread. I am excited to give this a try.

I only have one AG batch under my belt, and it did not go well - but I think I have read enough now to have a good idea of what I did wrong. Would you say this is a fairly forgiving recipe for a new AG brewer?

 

[ekjohns]

i like my pesticides! and I would agree with weyerman grains or anything other than briees (it tastes thin). Even some MO would be nice.

wayne my last couple attempts have been thin (stupid briess grain) and I was thinking about replacing some of the malted wheat with flaked to give it a more wheaty flavor. The malted wheat gives me almost no grain flavor (again cause its briees)

 

[JonClayton]

warning: dumb question follows

I am just trying to get my head around the science of brewing now, moving past the typical buy a kit and following the directions stuff.. so here is my question..

What makes Breiss this and Weyerman good? I assumed that Breiss and Weyerman were just the companies packing the grain, and that grain is grain right?

Just asking so I know what to look for. Thanks!

 

[Wayne1]

Grain is grain like grapes are grapes.

Where the grain is grown, What country, what part of the county, when it is grown all effect the taste and flavor.

Once it comes out of the ground, it goes to the maltster. It is the maltster that really can bring forth all that the grain can give. Both Briess and Weyerman are Maltsters. Briess uses grain grown in the US and Canada. Weyerman uses grain grown in Europe.

Most of the larger maltster products are for the larger breweries and bakeries. They do not want big flavors. They want bland. That is what you get with most of the American malts. There are some small craft malsters that care about the end products enough to allow the full flavor to come through.

In Colorado, we are fortunate to have the Colorado Malting Company who make small batch malts. As homebrewers, we have to seek out companies that provide us with the flavors we want.

Blue Moon was supposed to be fairly bland. A training wheels beer to get people one step up from industrial lager. To fine tune the recipe to your tastes, I would suggest using European malts. They do take a lot more care in the malt house. The soil composition is a bit different so the grain tastes different. German or Belgian wheat will give more flavor than most American of Canadian grown wheat.

It does come down to who malts the grain and how much care they take. There still are a few small houses that do the traditional floor malting. This is far more labor intensive and it will cost more, but it does produce malt that tastes quite a bit better.

Blue Moon is not what I would suggest as a first all-grain beer. The use of oats and wheat can set the mash quite easily. A pale ale with just good 2-row and maybe half a pound of 60L crystal would be a perfect first all grain project.

 

[BeerBaronBob]

2 weeks to condition& force carb?
i could never wait that long! i like to chill it overnight, then in the morning-- add the gas at 25-30psi in short bursts, shake the heck out of the keg and drink it the same day. Granted, it does taste better the next day and improves over time, but i gotta have it !

Patience my friend. I have found that most of my beers taste better the longer I leave them in the keg to a point. The last few glasses seem to be the best from the keg.


BrewNinja:
Thanks for catching that. If I recall, Wayne's original large batch amount scaled down to about 0.6 oz per 5 gal. batch. On my first batch I used 1.25oz ground Coriander to maintain close to a 3:1 ratio by weight to the Valencia orange peel which I was using 0.4 oz. I like spicy foods so it was fine when I tasted it. I used 0.6 oz in my last batch with 0.2 oz peel and I thought was OK as well. On this batch I think I will use 0.5 oz Coriander at 10 min and 0.5 oz organic orange extract at the end of boil.

Recipe update: I ended up getting Rahr White Wheat Malt as Weyermann only sells Pale Wheat Malt and Dark Wheat Malt which I take to be Red Wheat. Maybe the next batch Ill use the Weyermann Pale Wheat to compare the differences.

DougE:
Hope you got your answers, I think you are on the right track. You may also have water ph issues which are more important for AG. There are lots of resources explaining this online. One good place that is free is Palmer's "How to Brew" http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14.html and http://www.brewwiki.com/index.php/Sparging

Not sure how that beer will turn out. You put a lot of effort into a batch. Dont be scared off ... try a few PM batches.

 

[midfielder5]

patience.... harrumphf!
it was in primary for 3 weeks, chilled/kegged/carb'd in 2 days, and killed in 5 more days!

 

[DougE]

DougE:
Hope you got your answers, I think you are on the right track. You may also have water ph issues which are more important for AG. There are lots of resources explaining this online. One good place that is free is Palmer's "How to Brew" http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14.html and http://www.brewwiki.com/index.php/Sparging

Not sure how that beer will turn out. You put a lot of effort into a batch. Dont be scared off ... try a few PM batches.

Thanks Bob. My initial reaction to this experience was pretty negative, but in the last few days, I've lifted my spirits. Armed with information I've obtained on this forum (and random websites), I feel confident I can figure this AG stuff out. Plus, I'm lucky enough to live 20 minutes from Wayne, and he has offered to let me help him brew sometime.

I'm getting pretty excited about brewing all grain again even if the first attempt was less than perfect. Before I do another AG batch, I will need to get a little more equipment since I borrowed everything the first time around. I've had an old cooler laying around that I never used because I lost the plug. So I cleaned the heck out of it and am starting to look at how to convert it into a mash tun.

One other question I had... is it possible to do smaller batches of beer than 5 gallons? While I learn and experiment with AG, it would be nice to be able to do a few smaller batches so I don't end up with 5 more gallons of beer that may not even be drinkable. Normally, I'd say someone is crazy for wanting to do less than 5 gallons, but I've had to dump out 5 gallons once before, and it almost broke my heart. I felt somewhat comforted when watching the episode of Brew Master's where Dogfish had to dump out $500,000 of beer. Ouch!

Thanks again, everyone. This forum has been great.

 

[ekjohns]

4/6 ths of an oz of orange extract is AMAZING! the beer tasted super close to blue moon with an orange already added. The body was a little thin but thats cause i used briess. I will make it again with MO as a base grain. Also, I would probably use 1/2 oz of extract just so I can get 2 batches per bottle. I dont think 1/2 and 4/6 will make much of a difference added after the krausen has dropped. The orange smell is still very nice as it pours. I think I added only 2 tsp of ground corriander so I might try 3 next time. As far as additional changes I would do as follows (to perfect the recipe, which is already damn close):

Replace more of the malted wheat with flaked wheat.
Use Muntons MO instead of briess

 

[JonClayton]

Wayne, sorry for my delay getting back to you. Thank you for a very clear detailed explanation of the various grains. It makes perfect sense now, and I now know what to look for

On a side note, anyone know of a chart online detailing most of the common grains as to origin, taste profile etc?

 

[BrewNinja1]

ekjohns, when you say orange extract are you talking about the stuff in the baking isle at the grocery store?

 

[ekjohns]

yep, by us we have Kroger grocery stores. I just bought a 1 oz bottle of the generic kroger brand. should only be a couple of bucks

 

[mccabedoug]

yep, by us we have Kroger grocery stores. I just bought a 1 oz bottle of the generic kroger brand. should only be a couple of bucks

If you don't mind me asking, what is your current recipe? It is ever-evolving for you, correct? Just wondering where you are and how close you believe you are now.

It's been a pleasure following this thread.

 

[imperialipa]

Brewed a 5 Gal All Grain batch of this last night. Its bubbling away nicely. I will post my results in 6 weeks when its done. Going to do 4 weeks in primary then condition and carbonate another 2 weeks in keg.

Purchased all my ingredients from northern brewer....

4.75lb pale malt 2 row
3.75 lb white wheat malt
1.0 lb flaked oats
1.0 oz hallertauer Mittlefish @ 90 min
Corriander ground .10 oz @ 10 min
Orange peel .50 oz @ 5 min (dried sweet orange peel purchased from northern brewer)
Wyeast 1056 american ale yeast
Mashed at 151 for 90 min (12 Quarts for mash)
Mash out to 170
Fly Sparged with 169 degree water to 7 gal for 40 min got 73% efficency
Boiled for 90 min
OG 1.052
IBU 16.4

 

[imperialipa]

Brewed a 5 Gal All Grain batch of this last night. Its bubbling away nicely. I will post my results in 6 weeks when its done. Going to do 4 weeks in primary then condition and carbonate another 2 weeks in keg.

Purchased all my ingredients from northern brewer....

4.75lb pale malt 2 row
3.75 lb white wheat malt
1.0 lb flaked oats
1.0 oz hallertauer Mittlefish @ 90 min
Corriander ground .10 oz @ 10 min
Orange peel .50 oz @ 5 min (dried sweet orange peel purchased from northern brewer)
Wyeast 1056 american ale yeast
Mashed at 151 for 90 min (12 Quarts for mash)
Mash out to 170
Fly Sparged with 169 degree water to 7 gal for 40 min got 73% efficency
Boiled for 90 min
OG 1.052
IBU 16.4

 

[ButcherBrew]

Just wanted to post a little follow up on how my batch is progressing. I rushed my process a bit as I was try to get something drinkable by the superbowl. I am glad to report that it is more then just drinkable....haha!!!

I did the partial Mash AHS Blue Moon clone. Primaried two weeks, and just tasted two in a bottle after 1 week. This is by far one of the best beers I have made, according to the tasters! LOL...Even after 1 week of carbonation in the bottles, I have some great tiny bubbles and a small but sufficient head. (LOL - no jokes)

One more week of carbing should put this beer in an even better position to be the star of the show at my superbowl gathering!

Definitely a repeat and will make it a point to have this on Tap once I get my kegging system completed.

Good Luck all....this is a keeper.

 

[nilo]

Regarding the beer thickness, It seems that most of us are still trying to brew something as thick as the original beer without success.
I mashed 2lb of flaked oats and still far from the commercial beer.
I brewed once a beer that I boiled 1 lb of flaked rye and it came out very, very thick.
Have anyone tried that, boil the oats instead of mashing it?

 

[midfielder5]

Here are a few pics of my brew-- I did it just as Wayne said (except I used fresh zest; see my post above).

It was perfect!!

 

[ekjohns]

midfielder that seems much darker than everyone else is getting can you please post your recipe.

nilo i also tried 2 lbs of oats mashed and the body was still thin. I have never boiled the oats but it might be worth a try

 

[midfielder5]

I don't have it readily available// but I took Wayne's % allocations and entered the 3 ingredients into a free online beer calculator, adjusting for my efficiency to get his OG, ibu & srm #s. I used Weyermann two-row per his recommendation.

 

[mccabedoug]

Regarding the beer thickness, It seems that most of us are still trying to brew something as thick as the original beer without success.
I mashed 2lb of flaked oats and still far from the commercial beer.
I brewed once a beer that I boiled 1 lb of flaked rye and it came out very, very thick.
Have anyone tried that, boil the oats instead of mashing it?

How would you go about doing that? Do you simply boil the water/grain mixture and then drain the liquid into the kettle?

Or, do you add the boiled mixture to the mash tun with the other grains?

 

[nilo]

How would you go about doing that? Do you simply boil the water/grain mixture and then drain the liquid into the kettle?

Or, do you add the boiled mixture to the mash tun with the other grains?

You mash normal without the oats, collect your wort, then add the oat flakes to the boil. Best inside a muslin bag.

 

[nilo]

ok, went ahead and added 1/2lb of oats to the boil (50min).
It came out very, very thick. Maybe too thick, perhaps 1/4lb should be good enough.

Brewed the followig recipe, a variation of what I brewed before:
4.5# white wheat malt
5# 2 row
2# crystal 10L
1/2# Carapils

Mashed at 158F for 80min
60min 1oz hallertauer
1/4oz coriander
1/2oz sweet dry orange peels
1/2oz bitter dry orange peels
1/2lb oat flakes boiled for 50min
S04 dry yeast

From what I see, adding oats to the boil is the answer to get the tichkess of the real beer.
will report back once fermented and aged.

 

[mccabedoug]

ok, went ahead and added 1/2lb of oats to the boil (50min).
It came out very, very thick. Maybe too thick, perhaps 1/4lb should be good enough.

Brewed the followig recipe, a variation of what I brewed before:
4.5# white wheat malt
5# 2 row
2# crystal 10L
1/2# Carapils

Mashed at 158F for 80min
60min 1oz hallertauer
1/4oz coriander
1/2oz sweet dry orange peels
1/2oz bitter dry orange peels
1/2lb oat flakes boiled for 50min
S04 dry yeast

From what I see, adding oats to the boil is the answer to get the tichkess of the real beer.
will report back once fermented and aged.

Nilo, how close did this recipe previously come (color?) to Blue Moon (except for the 'thickness', of course)? It is quite a departure from previous recipes in this thread, especially the 2 lb of crystal and the English-style yeast.