Blue Moon Clone

[NFryan]

Are you leaving the coriander and Valencia peels in the fermenting pale? Or are they added in a boil bag for the last 10 min/ possibly strained out?

I am brewing #7 this weekend. At this point nilo what would you suggest? the corn starch method or oats in the boil. Or both?

Also are quick oats ok to put in the boil? or do I need to buy flaked oats from a brew supply?

Thanks

 

[nilo]

Add the coriander and peels in a muslin bag for last 10min of boil, then remove.
Regarding the corn starch vs oat flakes, it is up to you. Quick oats should be ok, also in a muslin bag. I didn't get the chill haze that I was looking for with the corn starch. I'll replace it with or just add gluten flour on my next attempt. Also, I will remove the irish moss from the recipe.

 

[tnsen]

Hey gang...I love blue moon...going to try #7 soon, question, seeing as I always use a secondary fermentor would you suggest the coriander seed and orange peel in my secondary?...sorry if this has been covered b4 but I dont have the time to go thru 660 plus posts...thankx....Tom

 

[el_caro]

El caro, I can help to scale down the recipe that you decide to use. The attempts I made are listed on the link below. I recommend #6 (for my taste). Take a look at other recipes here from Wayne and other great contributors.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxL7TXS8tHPsNWM2YmQ1YTYtMGY1YS00YjJjLWE5ZDktMmQ2ODdmMzljNDUz

Thanks Nilo. Great work.
I would like to try your number 6 version. Do I just multiply your spreadsheet quantities by 0.6 to get the 3 gallon (into the fermenter) volume I am seeking?

 

[Wayne1]

Hey gang...I love blue moon...going to try #7 soon, question, seeing as I always use a secondary fermentor would you suggest the coriander seed and orange peel in my secondary?...sorry if this has been covered b4 but I dont have the time to go thru 660 plus posts...thankx....Tom

Sorry for your time crunch. I do suggest if you get the chance to read the whole thread. There is a lot of useful information.

Spices should be added free into the kettle. It is suggested that you add one spice at 10 mins before the end of the boil and one at 5 mins. Which one and how much of each is determined by your system and exactly what you use. I do not believe anyone has used the exact same ingredients and process.

I would suggest dried ground coriander for 10 in the kettle and dried ground Valencia orange peel for 5. The amounts are up to you. I highly suggest you plan on making this recipe 3-4 time varying the amount of spices to suit your taste. A starting point might be 1 tsp of each. In the second batch you can vary the amounts up or down depending on what exactly you use and your taste.

Once again, I suggest using the first recipe to establish a base. Use the grain, wheat and oat in the mash tun. No need for boiling oats or cornstarch.

DO NOT use any kettle coagulant or finings. The beer should be slightly hazy all by it self. Brew it at least once as I have suggested and then start making changes to get it closer to your ideal flavors.

Cheers,
Wayne

 

[NFryan]

So my post was contradicted within 3 posts

Should I add all spices directly to the boil or not? Do I strain the wort or not? Should I just use a boil bag?

Corn starch or no corn starch?

Here's what I was thinking:
1lb quick oats in mach
1TBSP Corn starch in boil
Or am I way off base here. If so what amounts?

I'm looking for suggestions based on who had the best results

 

[jrb03]

If you would read at least the first few pages of this thread you would see that Wayne freaking brewed Blue Moon commercially when it was first developed. I can't imagine why you wouldn't at least start from there and listen to his great advice. I brewed it exactly as he recommends a starting point and it was pretty darn close and my best brew yet. Everyone loved it. As he says, start there and adjust. My attempt #2 will be this weekend, I'm going to up the coriander a smidge, or get a better crush on it. Still deciding that. I'm going to stay with the recommended amount of orange peel, that was close, just changing brands to experiment. Body and color were perfect. Not much tweaking needed on my setup. Give it a try and play, that's what home brew is all about. Don't expect to nail it on your first attempt.

 

[NFryan]

If you would read at least the first few pages of this thread you would see that Wayne freaking brewed Blue Moon commercially when it was first developed. I can't imagine why you wouldn't at least start from there and listen to his great advice. I brewed it exactly as he recommends a starting point and it was pretty darn close and my best brew yet. Everyone loved it. As he says, start there and adjust. My attempt #2 will be this weekend, I'm going to up the coriander a smidge, or get a better crush on it. Still deciding that. I'm going to stay with the recommended amount of orange peel, that was close, just changing brands to experiment. Body and color were perfect. Not much tweaking needed on my setup. Give it a try and play, that's what home brew is all about. Don't expect to nail it on your first attempt.

I hear you. I plan on brewing it a few times. It never hurts to aim high on try 1 haha. There is also such a big difference between nilos and wayne's coriander and Valencia peel amounts.

Wayne you suggest:
0.33tsp of ground Valencia peels and 1.25 tsp corriander

Nilo suggests :
1.5oz of Valencia peels (which is about 9tsp) and 2.25 tsp of crushed coriander

No disrespect to either of you. Just trying to find out which will yield a better result based on other forum members past batches. I'm brewing this on Saturday. So again any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[kkimmes]

I brewed version #6 and kegged it last week.

I poured one glass of my own next to a glass of blue moon. Results were very good, but not perfect.
I used the 0.375 ounces of coriander and 1.5 ounces of Penzey brand orange peels.

By aroma and taste, I felt my brew was missing 25-35% of the necessary coriander and about 5-10% short on orange.

I will be adding more coriander to my next batch.

I would also like to try and use real oranges versus spices bought in the store. If anyone has a good recommendation there, I would love to hear it.

 

[caioz1jp]

I am kegging and bottling my first attempt today. I used Nilo #6. My next attempt will be off waynes suggestions. I think that should give me something easier to minkey with. Also boiling the oats was a bit of a pain. My muskin bag was holding alot of wort. Deffinatly mashing next time.

 

[NFryan]

I brewed version #6 and kegged it last week.

I poured one glass of my own next to a glass of blue moon. Results were very good, but not perfect.
I used the 0.375 ounces of coriander and 1.5 ounces of Penzey brand orange peels.

By aroma and taste, I felt my brew was missing 25-35% of the necessary coriander and about 5-10% short on orange.

I will be adding more coriander to my next batch.

I would also like to try and use real oranges versus spices bought in the store. If anyone has a good recommendation there, I would love to hear it.

Did you add spice directly to the boil? If so did you strain them out when transferring to the fermenting pale? Secondary?

Thanks for the info I will def be upping the coriander when I give it a try saturday. I will be brewing #6 as well

 

[nilo]

If you would read at least the first few pages of this thread you would see that Wayne freaking brewed Blue Moon commercially when it was first developed. I can't imagine why you wouldn't at least start from there and listen to his great advice. I brewed it exactly as he recommends a starting point and it was pretty darn close and my best brew yet. Everyone loved it. As he says, start there and adjust. My attempt #2 will be this weekend, I'm going to up the coriander a smidge, or get a better crush on it. Still deciding that. I'm going to stay with the recommended amount of orange peel, that was close, just changing brands to experiment. Body and color were perfect. Not much tweaking needed on my setup. Give it a try and play, that's what home brew is all about. Don't expect to nail it on your first attempt.

I understand the point of people getting scared with the amount of posts and information on this thread.
From the time Wayne posted his recipe, almost 5 years ago, and over 660 posts later, I'm sure that someone planning its first attempt would be better of starting with a recipe already twicked to better represent the "current" comercial BM. I didn't taste the original BM launched in 1995 by Blue Moon Brewnig CO in Golden,CO (Wayne, correct me if I'm saying anything wrong here), but that beer could have been very different that what we drink today.
My major issues with this clone was the thickness of the beer. Can't achieve anything close to comercial BM by mashing the oats. But that may be just me.
It would be much easier if we had all recipes proposed here with comments/score from everyone that brewed it in an easy format, perhaps a webpage?

 

[jrb03]

I understand the point of people getting scared with the amount of posts and information on this thread.
From the time Wayne posted his recipe, almost 5 years ago, and over 660 posts later, I'm sure that someone planning its first attempt would be better of starting with a recipe already twicked to better represent the "current" comercial BM. I didn't taste the original BM launched in 1995 by Blue Moon Brewnig CO in Golden,CO (Wayne, correct me if I'm saying anything wrong here), but that beer could have been very different that what we drink today.
My major issues with this clone was the thickness of the beer. Can't achieve anything close to comercial BM by mashing the oats. But that may be just me.
It would be much easier if we had all recipes proposed here with comments/score from everyone that brewed it in an easy format, perhaps a webpage?

You see I don't agree with that at all. I mashed the oats and followed Wayne's recipe exactly. The body is spot on. No need at all for tweaking, other than the coriander and orange peel, which I can see varying by brand of peel and how fine you crush the spices etc. Maybe the type of oats used makes a difference. I got mine from brew masters warehouse. The grains from my next batch all came from northern brewer, we'll see if I can replicate.

 

[caioz1jp]

This makes me question the boil time. Protiens play a huge part in body and mouth feel. The longer you boil the thinner your beer will be. Heat is a protien's worst nightmere.

http://byo.com/stories/article/indices/12-body/89-add-body-to-your-beer

I think this would be a good refresher article. I can deffinatly see how clarifying agents could cause weak mouth feel.

 

[jrb03]

This makes me question the boil time. Protiens play a huge part in body and mouth feel. The longer you boil the thinner your beer will be. Heat is a protien's worst nightmere.

http://byo.com/stories/article/indices/12-body/89-add-body-to-your-beer

I think this would be a good refresher article. I can deffinatly see how clarifying agents could cause weak mouth feel.

That's great info thanks. Fwiw I boil 60 minutes. My setup is 2.5 gallon e-biab on a 110v element. I don't get a raging boil, more like steady, and boil off less than .5 gallon an hour.

 

[Wayne1]

I understand the point of people getting scared with the amount of posts and information on this thread.
From the time Wayne posted his recipe, almost 5 years ago, and over 660 posts later, I'm sure that someone planning its first attempt would be better of starting with a recipe already twicked to better represent the "current" comercial BM. I didn't taste the original BM launched in 1995 by Blue Moon Brewnig CO in Golden,CO (Wayne, correct me if I'm saying anything wrong here), but that beer could have been very different that what we drink today.
My major issues with this clone was the thickness of the beer. Can't achieve anything close to comercial BM by mashing the oats. But that may be just me.
It would be much easier if we had all recipes proposed here with comments/score from everyone that brewed it in an easy format, perhaps a webpage?

Nilo,

I greatly respect the work you have put into refining the recipe to suit your perceptions and your system. I do however have to disagree with your comments about mashing the oats. I read your earlier comments about thin body and light color. I attempted to vary the recipe to increase the perceived body by changing the base malt to Vienna and to add a small amount of crystal malt. This turned out WAY off. It ended up TOO dark and the body was way too big.

The next time I brewed it I went back to the original recipe and the color and body were dead on. I am not sure if your perceptions of body and color have to do with your brewing system and/or process or ingredient selection or water profile. All I can say is I have brewed the recipe in downtown Denver, Lake Havasu City, AZ, Castle Rock, CO and Littleton, CO on different sized breweries and all have turned out relatively close.

For brewers attempting this recipe for the first time, I would strongly suggest you plan to brew it at least three times before you decide on a recipe. Try it once with my suggestions, Try it once with Nilo's suggestions. Taste both of the finished products and decide which one of them tastes closer to what you want your beer to be. THEN tweak the third one to try to arrive at the best compromise for your system and tastes.

Again, Nilo, thank you for your contributions to this thread. Please keep tweaking until it works for you and your system. If you make it to CO, please let me know. I will do the same when I get up to Seattle. I do like your idea of a thread or website where people can post their comments on which recipe they have brewed and how close it comes to the original.

A slightly off topic note, I am getting back into pro-brewing. I am presently consulting with two start-ups. One in WY and one in SD. The brewery in WY has ordered their system and is expected to open around May 2013. The SD brewery just received approval for their funding and hopes to be open sometime next summer.

I am also doing recipe consulting for a recently opened micro in IA. A couple of my recipes should be available by spring. Perhaps by the fall of 2013 there might be a few places to try some other commercial variants of this "American White Ale"

 

[nilo]

Wayne, I completely understand what you are saying and my statements about the thin body are purely based on my perception. I think this is one thing very hard to understand in my opinion, not like bitterness, sweetness or color.
A question regarding the oats, how does mashing oats increase body? My thoughts were that it will provide starch and some flavor. The starch will be converted into sugars by the enzymes from the 2row and wheat malt. Will it yeld longer chain sugars after convertion than sugars from the malts, resulting in higher FG? Or does it add something else that I'm not aware of?
I think I'll do some simple tests with water and dextrin powder with different concentrations to measure my hability to detect "body" changes

 

[caioz1jp]

Wayne, I completely understand what you are saying and my statements about the thin body are purely based on my perception. I think this is one thing very hard to understand in my opinion, not like bitterness, sweetness or color.
A question regarding the oats, how does mashing oats increase body? My thoughts were that it will provide starch and some flavor. The starch will be converted into sugars by the enzymes from the 2row and wheat malt. Will it yeld longer chain sugars after convertion than sugars from the malts, resulting in higher FG? Or does it add something else that I'm not aware of?
I think I'll do some simple tests with water and dextrin powder with different concentrations to measure my hability to detect "body" changes

I know this wasnt directed at me but starch is not the only thing extracted from the oats.

"Unmalted, flaked grains, especially barley and oats, are rich in large beta-glucan gums from undegraded cell walls and contain a lot of undegraded proteins. Both classes of compounds are associated with mouthfeel, especially undegraded beta-glucans. In fact much of the protein contributed by these products never makes it into the wort because it is lost during mashing and boiling. This is not the same with polypeptides from malted grains. The beta-glucans, however, do survive and give wort and beer added viscosity. It is for this reason that lautering and filtration can be significantly affected by unmalted and undermodified grains. In practice these products should not exceed 15 percent of the total grist bill."

 

[jrb03]

Congratulations Wayne! Please let us know when the breweries are open, can't wait to try out the new "variations" on my favorite beer. Thanks again for your time and efforts in this thread, and look forward to supporting your efforts!

 

[jwalker1140]

I have to say, this is one of the more interesting threads on HBT. And I like the idea of some sort of website or database that tracks versions and results.

My $0.02 for someone trying this for the first time: start with the original recipe. If that doesn't get you what you're looking for, Nilo and others have offered all sorts of possibilities for branching out.

The first couple times I tried to clone BM I tried to tweak 'this' and add a little extra of 'that' because I figured there had to be some secret process or hidden ingredient. It's very tempting to do, especially when the grain bill of the original is so simple. But what I've found, at least on my system and to my taste, is that the 50/40/10 ratio of 2-row, wheat and flaked oats mashed at 154 pretty much nails it in terms of body, color and taste. YMMV.

 

[jrb03]

Did you add spice directly to the boil? If so did you strain them out when transferring to the fermenting pale? Secondary?

Thanks for the info I will def be upping the coriander when I give it a try saturday. I will be brewing #6 as well

Sorry i keep forgetting to reply to you. I add the spice and orange to my hop bag, so it gets strained and removed. I believe this is how it's intended, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Wayne1]

Sorry i keep forgetting to reply to you. I add the spice and orange to my hop bag, so it gets strained and removed. I believe this is how it's intended, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Nilo and others may do it differently, but I have always added it directly to the kettle. No straining.

In all the systems I have brewed this recipe on, the kettles had a whirlpool integrated in them. Hops and any spices would normally end up in the trub pile in the bottom center of the kettle. It is no big deal if some went into the fermenter.

I would not use poplin or any natural fiber bag. If you feel you must use a bag, use one of the paint strainer bags from Lowes. A better alternative would be to look into the stainless steel hop filters from Stainless Brewing.

Congratulations Wayne! Please let us know when the breweries are open, can't wait to try out the new "variations" on my favorite beer. Thanks again for your time and efforts in this thread, and look forward to supporting your efforts!

Thank you. One brewery should open in May the other is hoping for June. It all depends if the brewhouse manufacturer can get the gear built in time. They are currently quoting 5-6 months. These both will be decent sized with brewhouses by Specific Mechanical and the fermenters and servers by Premier Stainless. One is a 7 bbl brewhouse the other is 15 bbl.

Wayne, I completely understand what you are saying and my statements about the thin body are purely based on my perception. I think this is one thing very hard to understand in my opinion, not like bitterness, sweetness or color.
A question regarding the oats, how does mashing oats increase body? My thoughts were that it will provide starch and some flavor. The starch will be converted into sugars by the enzymes from the 2row and wheat malt. Will it yeld longer chain sugars after convertion than sugars from the malts, resulting in higher FG? Or does it add something else that I'm not aware of?
I think I'll do some simple tests with water and dextrin powder with different concentrations to measure my hability to detect "body" changes

As caioz1jp mentioned the gums produced by mashing oats add quite a bit to mouthfeel.

Here are some quotes from an article in BYO about oatmeal stout. The comments have the same relevance to a wit.

However, the oats impart th well-known smoothness because of their high content of proteins, lipids (includes fats and waxes), and gums. The gums increase the viscosity and body of the beer.

Oats have no enzymes useful to mashing. They must be mashed (or partially mashed) with a malted grain for the starches to be converted. Like unmalted barley, the starches inside are hard and not readily usable, encased within the hard cellular structures of the grain. Without further processing they cannot be broken down by the malt enzymes.

For the starches within to be converted to sugar, the oats must be gelatinized prior to use. Gelatinization is basically a cooking process in which the hard kernel coating is broken and the starch granules are ruptured and released.

There are a few different kinds of oats available to the homebrewer. With flaked oats, also called rolled oats, the gelatinization is done by the manufacturer. This is done by softening the oats with steam and then passing them through heated pressure rollers into flakes. The grain husks are removed when the oats are rolled, and in this process the flake thickness can be controlled. The heat and pressure gelatinize the starches, and these grains can be added to the mash directly. The brewer does not need to cook these prior to mashing.

Rolled oats are available in the supermarket. It is best to buy the "quick cook" or "one minute" oats. These are identical to the traditional breakfast oats (which require longer cooking time), but the "quick oats" are cut into finer pieces. The resulting increased surface area allows the starches to dissolve more readily into the water. Special flaked oats, similar to the supermarket "quick cook" oats, are available in homebrew supply stores.

Steel-cut oats are the whole oat kernels, cut up but not gelatinized or processed in any othe way. These are cheaper than rolled oats. For the starches in these to be usable, these oats must be cooked before use. This can be done by placing the oats in boiling water, two gallons of water per pound of grain. This mixture is boiled between 45 minutes and two hours, and must be stirred every five minutes. The gelatinization is complete when the liquid consistency becomes uniform. Because of the extra work and mess involved in the cooking process, you're probably better off with pregelatinized, flaked oats.
The Gum Content of Oats

The thick consistency of an everyday bowl of cooked, breakfast oatmeal results from the high gum content of oats. These gums consist of beta-glucans, which are essentially long chains of many glucose units linked together. The difference between these beta-glucans and starches (which are also chains of glucose molecules) is in the structure of the bonds between the individual units. In well-modified malted grains, beta-glucan levels are low because these bonds are broken down during the germination phase.

 

[nilo]

Thanks Nilo. Great work.
I would like to try your number 6 version. Do I just multiply your spreadsheet quantities by 0.6 to get the 3 gallon (into the fermenter) volume I am seeking?

Here's the #6 scaled to 3gals

 

[jrb03]

Nilo and others may do it differently, but I have always added it directly to the kettle. No straining.

In all the systems I have brewed this recipe on, the kettles had a whirlpool integrated in them. Hops and any spices would normally end up in the trub pile in the bottom center of the kettle. It is no big deal if some went into the fermenter.

I would not use poplin or any natural fiber bag. If you feel you must use a bag, use one of the paint strainer bags from Lowes. A better alternative would be to look into the stainless steel hop filters from Stainless Brewing.

Thanks for the clarification. I don't whirlpool with my setup, so I have always used a nylon hop bag for hops and additions such as this.

 

[caioz1jp]

Nilo,

I just kegged and bottled my first attempt at your #6. I boiled the oats in a mulsin bag with my hops, corriander, and orange. Deffinatly not using irish mosh next time. This stuff was crystal clear lol. I am super excited to taste this weekend.

Wayne1,
Congrats on the new jobs. I am going to use your recipe suggestions next so i have a good idea of where i want to meet the two recipes.

 

[nilo]

OK, I have added a poll in my blog to track everybody's feedback on brewing the recipes proposed on this thread.
Link to blog is in my signature, go to menu "polls" and vote, per cathegory (Color,Body,IBU,Orange,Coriander), on the recipes that you tried or tasted which closely match the comercial beer. You can make multiple selections on each cathegory.
The poll is setup to accept one vote per day per IP address.
The pie graphs/charts should be updated instanteneously but the final score table at the very bottom will need to be loaded by me, which I plan to do once a week if new votes are placed.
Regarding new recipes that anyone has tried that significantly differ from what we have there already, please send it to me and I'll add to the poll.

Can someone send me/post the Wayne's original recipe so I can add to the pdf that I keep all my recipes?

Right now the data shows one vote, my vote, reflecting "my" feedback on the recipes I brewed.

What you guys think, can we give it a try and see how it goes?

 

[caioz1jp]

Cant figure out why the image is side ways. Nilo #6 is what im calling it lol. Good job man

 

[nilo]

Cant figure out why the image is side ways. Nilo #6 is what im calling it lol. Good job man

Looking good. How did it taste?
Did you do a side by side test already? If so, check my previous post and enter your ratings in the poll.

 

[el_caro]

Here's the #6 scaled to 3gals

Many thanks Nilo

 

[caioz1jp]

It tasted really good. I am going to pick up some blue moon today and do a side by side plus im going to blind some one. The true test will be when the person i brewed this for tries it. If she likes it then its good lol.