Blonde Ale Centennial Blonde (Simple 4% All Grain, 5 & 10 Gall)

[Dynachrome]

Supervisors...

 

[Dynachrome]

....higher temp a the tail end?

 

[Ale-bee]

I made this all grain style, expecting to get 60% attenuation. I hit 70% and came out with 1.053 OG.

Fermented fairly warm with Mangrove Jack Kveik yeast and the rascals took it down to 1.004 in ten days.

So I’m looking at a 6.6% blonde. A big brawny blonde.

I guess due to the sheer size of the gal, the hops don’t come through much in the hydrometer samples. More of a sweet malty thing going on. I’ll take it.

Into the kegs today, to be carbonated naturally and revisited next month. Sober October. Tolerance break for the liver.

EDIT:

October 24th. The beer is aged, carbonated, and chilled. Pulled a tasting sample. Notes below:


An easy blonde. Goes down real easy. Fun to be around. A little opaque. Good head though. Wet finish. Not at all bitter or harsh. Would definitely do again.

 

[Jth171]

I'm brewing this recipe for Learn to Brew Day on my Advil 6.5 electric. The Brew Store is hosting and has 220, so this will be the 1st time with big juice. I love easy drinkers and this recipe fits the bill. I went up couple percent on the malts ( OG 1.046 ) IBU 22.0. Alittle concerned with SRM 4.1. But this is a Blonde....

 

[rtstrider]

Will be rebrewing this Friday. The grain order should be here tomorrow. Going to use unfiltered city water treated with campden and adjust mash Ph. Wanted to give this a go on the Brewzilla Gen 4 since it's easy! Coincedentally I will also be brewing Cream of Three Crops using Cellarscience Baja yeast. You might say I'm a bit of a fan of these two recipes

 

[rtstrider]

Welp grain order arrived a few minutes ago. Already have the grains weighed out. Guess I might as well brew this today!

 

[Brewsterguy]

I brewed this as my 3rd beer ever. did the extract version.
Great beer, tastes lightly malty and lightly bitter, barely any hop aroma = which means everybody can enjoy such a light beer.
OG and FG both as recipe stated.
Definitely gonna do again. had 55 bottles of this, only 15 left and its been carbonated for about 2 weeks now.

 

[redrocker652002]

Having read thru only a small part of the total thread, I ran into a post about adding strawberries to the secondary. I have been tempted to try a fruit beer and was curious what would be the process for adding say, dry apricots? I might think about doing a smaller batch size to try it. Any input would be appreciated. RR

 

[rtstrider]

Just took the last pull off the keg of cream of three crops. It's soaking in oxiclean right now. Kegging the Centennial blonde this evening and dosing with gelatin/burst carbing tomorrow once the keg is at serving temps. Plan on letting it sit until Friday then it's time to enjoy after quitting time

 

[rtstrider]

Just took a pull of this off the kegerator. It's definitely not ready yet carbonation wise. It could use another week cold conditioning at serving pressure. Nottingham does drop like a Flippin rock though with gelatin. May just have to play around with this strain. I can't figure if the nice little tart "zip" I get in the background is the yeast or the Cascade hops. Would have to lean towards the late additions of Cascade. Will take pics when this is properly ready in a week or so!

 

[Cfox]

Does anyone have a water profile for the centennial blonde?

 

[RedlegEd]

Does anyone have a water profile for the centennial blonde?

Hi,
I use Bruin Water Yellow Balanced with great results.

Ca+2	Mg+2	Na+	Cl-	SO4-2	HCO3-
63.3	22	2	5	67.5	120.3
Bruin Water - Yellow Balanced, expected pH: 5.42

 

[rtstrider]

Been in the keg right at a week and a half. Nottingham doesn't play when it comes to floccing out! This tastes significantly cleaner than the other times I've brewed this recipe. Going to have to rebrew to see if I can reproduce these results! Forget the previous posts where I dogged this a bit. If your technique is up to snuff this comes out to be a tasty recipe!

 

[rtstrider]

Here's a much better picture of Centennial blonde! 1 and a half weeks in the keg and BAM!

 

[doctordan70s]

Could this be pressure fermented in an all rounder ?

 

[rtstrider]

Have had more time to sit back and and wait till almost the end of the keg and will say say I'm still not the biggest fan of this recipe for a blonde. It's too busy for my taste buds. I am going to rebrew this and tweak it for my preferences. First thing is I'm going to get rid of the carapils and try a different yeast strain. The carapils, at these levels, leaves a slickness on the palate I do not care for. Also Nottingham still has a fruity tartness to it. Both of those combined are a bit off putting. I'd be curious to try this with wlp029 fermented around 60f and sub extra base malt for the carapils. It's definitely on the to do list! I'll report back on tasting day!

 

[Brooothru]

Have had more time to sit back and and wait till almost the end of the keg and will say say I'm still not the biggest fan of this recipe for a blonde. It's too busy for my taste buds. I am going to rebrew this and tweak it for my preferences. First thing is I'm going to get rid of the carapils and try a different yeast strain. The carapils, at these levels, leaves a slickness on the palate I do not care for. Also Nottingham still has a fruity tartness to it. Both of those combined are a bit off putting. I'd be curious to try this with wlp029 fermented around 60f and sub extra base malt for the carapils. It's definitely on the to do list! I'll report back on tasting day!

Try Imperial G03 "Dieter" for the yeast. IIRC it's a Kolsch yeast, reportedly the PJ Fruh strain. It supposedly drops very clean without fining but doesn't take forever to do it like WLP-029, which is also purportedly PJ Fruh from Koln. I've got some of it in a Shaken Not Stirred propagation and am anxious to try it. The pouch was a few months past its prime, but seems to be coming around OK. Not sure what to do with it, but "Cof3C" seems like a logical choice as soon as the days warm up a bit. "Sposed to be in the low 20s F next week, so it might be a while. Brrr.

 

[rtstrider]

Try Imperial G03 "Dieter" for the yeast. IIRC it's a Kolsch yeast, reportedly the PJ Fruh strain. It supposedly drops very clean without fining but doesn't take forever to do it like WLP-029, which is also purportedly PJ Fruh from Koln. I've got some of it in a Shaken Not Stirred propagation and am anxious to try it. The pouch was a few months past its prime, but seems to be coming around OK. Not sure what to do with it, but "Cof3C" seems like a logical choice as soon as the days warm up a bit. "Sposed to be in the low 20s F next week, so it might be a while. Brrr.

I actually have that yeast on hand in the freezer bank. Now having used both I'd say it's a bit different than wlp029. I'm not sure if it's a mutation or different yeast altogether. It has an initial "tartness" that ages out with cold conditioning. I don't get the same tartness with wlp029. It definitely clears a bit quicker than the banked up wlp029. wlp029 does end up coming out a bit cleaner as it clears though. It's a touch malt forward at first but falls to the background given about 3-4 weeks of keg conditioning and gelatin. Have a few brews lined up before even eyeballing this again though lol

 

[doctordan70s]

man this beer turned out so good. I'm going to be brewing another batch friday!

 

[Tallwolf]

Brewed up a 5 gallon batch in my clawhammer earlier this week. Came in a few points low at an OG of 1.035. My problem now is that after 3 days, the Nottingham seems to have stalled out (per my Tilt) at 1.016. Pitched dry. Any thoughts? Recommendations?

 

[Mark3885]

What temperature did you ferment at? When I use Nottingham at 68F , about 4 days and it’s slowing down, then I’ll bump the temperature up to 74F for another week. During that week , I’m getting a bubble every minute. Then I’ll cold crash for 3-4 days at 36F . I brewed an Irish red on 2-12 SG was 1.052 , I should be kegging this today. Should be about 1.012 . I’ll let you know what I get.

 

[Tallwolf]

What temperature did you ferment at? When I use Nottingham at 68F , about 4 days and it’s slowing down, then I’ll bump the temperature up to 74F for another week. During that week , I’m getting a bubble every minute. Then I’ll cold crash for 3-4 days at 36F . I brewed an Irish red on 2-12 SG was 1.052 , I should be kegging this today. Should be about 1.012 . I’ll let you know what I get.

Good advice. I fermented at 67. Do you think it would be wise to move to a secondary at the increased temp or just leave well enough alone until I get some bubble action?

 

[GregKelley]

Leave it on the yeast cake. If anything, stir with a sanitized spoon and increase the temp.

 

[Tallwolf]

Well neither the stir nor the temp bump caused any reaction over the last 12 hours. Made a slurry of pasteurized dextrose and I'm going to drop that in next as a last resort.

 

[Tallwolf]

The slurry temporarily helped start some action but not for long. Sweet, hot mess. I dumped and rebrewed, this time rehydrating the Notty as suggested in the recipe (my LHBS said not to do it) and it is now happily bubbling away after 24 hours. Having real doubts about the accuracy of the Tilt 2 as SG has gone down and up. Obviously being affected by the action in the fermenter.

 

[Tallwolf]

Finally figured out my problem. My new Clawhammer system was underreporting temp by about 10 degrees. Put three different thermometers in latest batch and verified temp error. I have brewed two batches of beer since and I am getting lots of activity. P/O'd that I ruined 4 batches of beer before I figured it out. Looking forward to trying this one in the keg!

 

[Junker Jörg]

Kind of really changes the beer, But I have a bunch of El Dorado and Citra. I was thinking about subbing those into this recipe. Think it’d turn out alright?

 

[Brewsterguy]

Kind of really changes the beer, But I have a bunch of El Dorado and Citra. I was thinking about subbing those into this recipe. Think it’d turn out alright?

Go for it!
I am a newbie still, but from friends homebrews citra is pretty dominant.
I wooild use citra for bittering and el dorado for flavor and aroma.