Blue Moon Clone

[BrewinBuckeye]

Brewed up a batch last night, this was my first attempt at all grain brewing so we will see how this goes. I only wanted to use a 1/2 lb of some grains, but I didn't realize they would come all combined in a bag already crushed instead of individual bags so I used what came...we will see how it turns out I guess.
Found the orange peel at Kroger as well for anyone looking.

I have a feeling I should of had a higher OG, I think I may of ran off the wort to fast from the MT which may of had an effect on that? I did do a batch sparge though. Smelled great going into the fermenter, will post back with updates if someone wants to try this one.


Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type #
5 lbs Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess) (1.8 SRM) Grain
5 lbs Wheat - White Malt (Briess) (2.3 SRM) Grain
1 lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain
1 lbs Caramel Malt - 10L (Briess) (10.0 SRM) Grain
1 lbs Munich 10L (Briess) (10.0 SRM) Grain
1.20 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] - Boil Hop
2.00 tbsp Corn Starch (Boil 15.0 mins) Other
2.00 oz Valencia Sweet Orange Peel (Boil 10.0 mi Flavor
0.40 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 10.0 mins) Spice
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast


Mash Schedule: 01 Medium Body (152 Deg)
Total Grain Weight: 13 lbs
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 18.25 qt of water at 163.5 F 152.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 4.48gal) of 161.0 F water
Notes:
------
154 mash in

Batch Sparge 168
Post Boil - 1.052 SG

 

[gatsby174]

Your within a couple points for your fg, great job for your first ag brew! I'm sure it'll turn out great.

P.s. I usually try the original recipe first, then try the "improved" recipes offered later on. I can tell you the original one from post one turned out spot on for me and couldn't be differentiated from blue moon in a taste test, ymmv.

 

[BrewinBuckeye]

Your within a couple points for your fg, great job for your first ag brew! I'm sure it'll turn out great.

P.s. I usually try the original recipe first, then try the "improved" recipes offered later on. I can tell you the original one from post one turned out spot on for me and couldn't be differentiated from blue moon in a taste test, ymmv.

Thanks! We had a good time drinking some Blue Moon while brewing it up...wanted to play around with a cooler MT before jumping on the all electric ship. Great thread here, thanks to all who have posted.

 

[Wayne1]

Thought I would jump start this thread.

While not EXACTLY about Blue Moon, I have recently made a beer based on the Blue Moon recipe I first posted here years ago.

I have been brewing professionally again for about a year and a quarter. I just brewed my 100th batch on Friday.

Last month we got together with a brewer from Cigar City for a collaboration beer. We were looking to bring forth elements from both locations. Andre, from Cigar City was excited about brewing with such clean, fresh water. We quickly decided to make a White IPA with LOTS of citrus elements.

The malt bill was put together using the same ratio I spoke of on page 2 of this thread: 50% malted barley, 40% malted wheat and 10% flaked oats. Andre thought we should use a malt with a little character, so I got in Warminster Floor Malted Maris Otter. We used Cargill White Wheat and Briess Flaked oats.

The hopping was a bit more aggressive. We added Apollo for first wort hops and all the rest were added for hop burst from 15 min left in the boil on. We used Citra, Lemon Drop, Amarillo, Summer, and Galaxy. Hops were also added for a whirlpool steep. I was able to get the same orange peel used in Blue Moon and that was also added to the kettle.

We made a 30 bbl batch and it has been happily fermenting away outside. This past week, I pulled the yeast from the tank and added the first charge of dry hops. It contains all of the above with the addition of Mandarina Bavaria. Next week I will add a second dry hop charge with some more dried orange peel. We want a lot of the citrus to come through.

The beer will be unveiled at the Colorado Collaboration fest on March 21 at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. We will also be tapping in on site at Station 26.

I hope to hear that some of you might try this evolutionary development from the original Blue Moon.

Cheers,
Wayne

 

[Helly]

Wayne that sounds fantastic. On my future brews list I had scribbled "variation of blue moon". So I may have to try something along these lines this summer.

 

[Jcashwe1]

Delicious

 

[zackattack784]

So I brewed a batch very similar to Wayne's first recipe that just finished carbing up. It tastes great and all my friends love it but I can certainly tell a difference between it and real blue moon. I used 3tsp of ground coriander and 3tsp of Mccormick dried Valencia orange peel but real blue moon has a more citrusy character to it.

Based on what I can surmise from this thread, people are stepping the orange peel up to an ounce. Is this right? The container I have is only 1.5 ounces. It seems stepping up from 3tsp to a full ounce is a huge increase. I was considering stepping up to 3.5 or 4 tsp for my next batch but if people are having success with an ounce I might just try that instead.

 

[Wayne1]

As I have stated before in this thread, use of spices are pretty much up to trial and error. What works for one person's system and taste will not work for another.

When I made the Imperial White IPA, I also added more ground orange peel with the dry hops. If you are not getting the aroma/flavor you wish out of just the kettle addition, you may want to experiment with dry spicing.

 

[COEBRA]

As I have stated before in this thread, use of spices are pretty much up to trial and error. What works for one person's system and taste will not work for another.

When I made the Imperial White IPA, I also added more ground orange peel with the dry hops. If you are not getting the aroma/flavor you wish out of just the kettle addition, you may want to experiment with dry spicing.

Never even considered "dry spicing". That's a nice idea!

 

[Joesl8]

Hello
New to brewing and this site. Sorry to post on old link...but is there A link to Wayne's Blue moon recipe for 5 gal all grain brew? Thanks!!

 

[zackattack784]

Hello
New to brewing and this site. Sorry to post on old link...but is there A link to Wayne's Blue moon recipe for 5 gal all grain brew? Thanks!!

Very first page, though you're definitely going to want to up the orange peel from the original recipe.

 

[dpeters]

I made this beer last night and the original recipe calls for 1.25 tsp coriander and .33 tsp orange but if you read throughout this thread people are switching between tsp and ounce which is a really big difference in quantity of spice. I tasted the hydrometer sample and could not really taste any of the orange or coriander so should it have really been ounce? I guess I could always make a tea with more spice and add it after primary. Has anyone else noticed this discrepancy? There are over 100 posts so I could not find the time to go thru all of them and it may have been discussed.

 

[Joesl8]

I made this beer last night and the original recipe calls for 1.25 tsp coriander and .33 tsp orange but if you read throughout this thread people are switching between tsp and ounce which is a really big difference in quantity of spice. I tasted the hydrometer sample and could not really taste any of the orange or coriander so should it have really been ounce? I guess I could always make a tea with more spice and add it after primary. Has anyone else noticed this discrepancy? There are over 100 posts so I could not find the time to go thru all of them and it may have been discussed.

I hear you, I read most of the post but there was a lot of back & forth on the recipe. Wayne's original recipe was I percentages and from what i gather the orange and coriander are hit or miss as to how much. I think they even suggested dry spicing ( or that might have been the sculpin grapefruit thread I read??) I was looking for an exact 5 gallon AG recipe a dumb noob like myself could follow.

 

[dpeters]

I would say if you wanted to do an extract you could use

4 lbs Extra Light Dry Extract
3 lbs Wheat Dry Extract
0.75 oz Tradition [6.90 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 16.5 IBUs
1.00 tsp Coriander Seed (Boil 10.0 mins)
.33 tsp Dry Orange Peel, Valencia (Boil 5.0 mins)

The #1 of flaked oat may be a little tricky for an extract brewer as I believe they have to be mashed. I would think you could get a smaller grain bag to put the oats in and mash it in a kettle on the stove by heating the oats and a couple of quarts of water to 153 and hold it at that for 30 to 60 min.

Not sure about the spice thing but you may want to triple it.

 

[Joesl8]

I'm trying to do 5 gal all grain

 

[Wayne1]

The amount of spice to use is completely variable.

It depends on where you get the spices from and how fresh they are.

You will have to find a consistent supplier and go through trial and error to get a flavor you like.

With that said, I do have a fair amount of ground orange peel left over from the White IPA I made at the pub. The IS the exact same source of orange peel that was used in the first batches of Blue Moon Belgian White.

I have no interest in packaging it down to sell to individual homebrewers. I tried to get a local homebrew shop to carry it , but they were not interested. If there are any homebrew shops out there that may want to be able to retail this, I would be happy to talk to them.

Please PM me.

Thanks,
Wayne

 

[dpeters]

i

 

[dpeters]

I made this beer last night and the original recipe calls for 1.25 tsp coriander and .33 tsp orange but if you read throughout this thread people are switching between tsp and ounce which is a really big difference in quantity of spice. I tasted the hydrometer sample and could not really taste any of the orange or coriander so should it have really been ounce? I guess I could always make a tea with more spice and add it after primary. Has anyone else noticed this discrepancy? There are over 100 posts so I could not find the time to go thru all of them and it may have been discussed.

I kegged the beer yesterday and we decided to not add any additional spice because we actually liked it better. I would say if you want it just like Blue Moon then you may want to up the spice a bit but we could taste the spice it just was not as much as Blue Moon.

 

[zackattack784]

I made this again last week and decided to change almost everything from my first try. Not because the first batch was bad (it was excellent) but because I could.

My first attempt I followed Wayne's original recipe and used 3 tsp of orange peel and coriander. This time I substituted the two row for pilsner malt, added some crystal 10 for color, mashed at 154 instead of 152, and used 1.5 ounces of orange peel and .5 ounces of coriander. It's been fermenting for a week and seems to have hit final gravity. The hydro sample tasted great but I'll find out how good it really is in a few weeks!

 

[wetzie]

I am trying this for the first time. I am making a 12 gallon batch and decided to do 2oz of hops because of the batch size. I also opted to try the WLP 008 East Coast Ale Yeast with a 2Ltr starter. Mash is at 154. I am not sure what happened to getting the 008 yeast but we will see what happens.

 

[Rockindaddy]

Wow....I can't believe this thread has been going for 7 years! I brewed a batch this weekend based on the original recipe in this thread. (I couldn't read through 100 pages) It is fermenting now, but smelled wonderful before I put the lid on the fermenting bucket. I tried brewing another Blue Moon clone about a year ago (different recipe) and it came out terrible. I'm glad I found this thread. I'm looking forward to it.


Oh.....and thank you Wayne!

 

[Joesl8]

+1 more for Wayne's continuing input to the thread and help!

 

[Helly]

Brewing this today again. One of my favorites. I'm sure I'll do it a couple times this summer.

 

[zackattack784]

I made this again last week and decided to change almost everything from my first try. Not because the first batch was bad (it was excellent) but because I could.

My first attempt I followed Wayne's original recipe and used 3 tsp of orange peel and coriander. This time I substituted the two row for pilsner malt, added some crystal 10 for color, mashed at 154 instead of 152, and used 1.5 ounces of orange peel and .5 ounces of coriander. It's been fermenting for a week and seems to have hit final gravity. The hydro sample tasted great but I'll find out how good it really is in a few weeks!

Bottled this last week and tried one tonight because I couldn't wait another week to try it. Wow! My first batch tasted great but I would have no trouble picking out my beer from a real blue moon. With this batch I'm not so sure. I'll have to get a blue moon and do a comparison but this is spot on!

My recipe:
5.75 pounds Pilsner
4.75 pounds wheat malt
1.25 pounds flaked oats
.5 pounds crystal 10

2 ounces Hallertau (2.7%) 90 mins
.5 ounces Coriander 10 mins
1.5 ounces Mccormicks Valencia Orange Peel 5 mins
Mashed at 154
US-05 yeast

5.75 gallon batch size
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.014

 

[dmelt11]

Brewed this today and it smells awesome! Can not wait to try it. I stuck with the original recipe for the most part and had good efficiency. I was a little short on the oats by 1.5 oz but not a big deal to me. Used about a half pound of rice hulls and ran off slowly but still had a stuck sparge at one point but easily got it going again. Very easy brew day and loved the smells of the boils especially at the end! I figure I'll give it two weeks in the fermenter then check and maybe give it another week before bottling. Can't wait to try this one out!

 

[Joesl8]

I'm going to brew a 10 ag batch based on your recipe tomorrow. Any suggestions on mash water and sparge volumes? Also, seems like your recipe had a tad more hops to it, are their flavored present? Thanks for any suggestions or extra advice to get her done!

 

[bassnfool]

I just want to thank Wayne for his input in informing us how to make a great Blue Moon. I made my first batch and it was pretty good, but my second batch was per Wayne's instructions on Reply # 274 scaled up to 10 gallons. I have a glass full setting next to me while I type this. Thanks a million

 

[Wayne1]

You are all welcome!

I am glad that some of the information I provided has been found useful.

I have been rather busy at the pro brewery. 159 batches since we opened.

If any of you are going to GABF, try to stop by the brewery or booth while you are in town

Cheers,
Wayne

 

[HappyFermentations]

Have 5 gallons of this going now - can't wait to see how it turns out! It's been fermenting for about 3 days and it actually is starting to smell like blue moon!

Also - just stumbled on this... looks like Wayne's story checks out!

http://www.millercoorsblog.com/brewing/homebrew-tips/

Thanks for all the help you've given us!

 

[dstockwell]

Just tried similar today.

4 lbs. Pale Ale
4 lbs. Red Wheat
6 oz. Oats

.75 oz. Hallertau Mittelfrüh
.5 oz ground Coriander
.5 oz Valencia Orange