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

[OZZ]

Nice .... Will do! Never used it before but I'm gonna start from the sounds of it

 

[andrewmaixner]

Nice .... Will do! Never used it before but I'm gonna start from the sounds of it

Yes, gelatin is probably the best bang for your buck on clearing beer if you already have the infrastructure to get it cold. In terms of clarity, cold+gelatin probably does in 2 days what cellaring does in 2 months.

I've heard it doesn't work well when warm (or it could just be slow, unsure).

 

[Sunward33]

Brewing this today to celebrate my lack of labor. Following the page 1 recipe to the letter.
A friend keeps this one on tap all the time and I got to try it. Now I'm trying my hand at it. If all goes well I'll serving it at my father's birthday party.

 

[HiImBrian]

Hey I brewed this again yesterday. 3rd time brewing this one and once again I ended up a bit high on my OG.

Riddle me this though: I made an 11 gallon batch AG. I took readings while fly sparging and I was about a gallon short before my gravity slipped below 1.010 and I had to stop my sparge. My overall OG was 1.063. Would this just be an efficiency error?

 

[andrewmaixner]

So I made this base recipe, and my friends all love it, but I personally found it to be lacking in flavor and uninspiring.
Added 1oz of centennial pellets for a day, chilled it back down for two, and now I've got an APA.

Apparently the belief that dry hopping does not increase bitterness is incorrect. While it may not increase iso-alpha acids, there are other compounds in there which are bitter.

In any case, it seems to be mellowing with time, will see how it proceeds.
edit: Day 4 at 40F after dry hop removed, starting to re-approach blond levels.

 

[andrewmaixner]

Hey I brewed this again yesterday. 3rd time brewing this one and once again I ended up a bit high on my OG.

Riddle me this though: I made an 11 gallon batch AG. I took readings while fly sparging and I was about a gallon short before my gravity slipped below 1.010 and I had to stop my sparge. My overall OG was 1.063. Would this just be an efficiency error?

was 1.063 pre or post boil? what was the actual volume when the reading was taken? did you forget to account for later dilutions to bring the volume back up to 11 gallons?
if no mistakes were made, then either enjoy a stronger blond, or dilute and use your extra fermenter to make even more beer.

 

[Ike]

Hey I brewed this again yesterday. 3rd time brewing this one and once again I ended up a bit high on my OG.

Riddle me this though: I made an 11 gallon batch AG. I took readings while fly sparging and I was about a gallon short before my gravity slipped below 1.010 and I had to stop my sparge. My overall OG was 1.063. Would this just be an efficiency error?

Not sure what might have happened in your case, but a few months ago I made a batch that was called "three wrongs make a right." Two of the three wrongs added up to a higher than normal SG. It still tasted as awesome as it always does, so I don't expect any issues!

 

[HiImBrian]

was 1.063 pre or post boil? what was the actual volume when the reading was taken? did you forget to account for later dilutions to bring the volume back up to 11 gallons?
if no mistakes were made, then either enjoy a stronger blond, or dilute and use your extra fermenter to make even more beer.

1.063 was post boil after I got everything into my conical. I think I was somewhere around 9.5 gallons or so, so not horrible. I never add any sort of top up water, so that wouldn't be the case here. I'll definitely enjoy it, but I like to review and better my practices with each brew. Thanks for your response.

 

[andrewmaixner]

1.063 was post boil after I got everything into my conical. I think I was somewhere around 9.5 gallons or so, so not horrible. I never add any sort of top up water, so that wouldn't be the case here. I'll definitely enjoy it, but I like to review and better my practices with each brew. Thanks for your response.

hm. so you are estimating 10 gallons collected (this is an 11 gallon targeted recipe, after boil-off, so up to 12 gallons of wort before),
resulting in 9.5 gal at 1.063 would mean 0.5 boiloff, which calculates to a mash result of 10 gal at 1.060

Presuming you followed the recipe exactly for grain, this gives you a mash efficiency of 95.35%, which is almost unheard of short of BIAB with powdered grain.

This implies that some measurement may be off (volume, gravity, grain weight, etc) ?

 

[daggers_nz]

soo tempted to swap out the Centennial for Citra, but the recipe is so good as it is

 

[AleHailKrausen]

soo tempted to swap out the Centennial for Citra, but the recipe is so good as it is

Try it and tell us!

 

[slym2none]

Has anyone else brewed this using all Centennial? I did and it was awesome! I want to re-brew sometime, and don't know if I should brew the recipe as-is, or stick with the way I brewed it before.

 

[HiImBrian]

hm. so you are estimating 10 gallons collected (this is an 11 gallon targeted recipe, after boil-off, so up to 12 gallons of wort before),
resulting in 9.5 gal at 1.063 would mean 0.5 boiloff, which calculates to a mash result of 10 gal at 1.060

Presuming you followed the recipe exactly for grain, this gives you a mash efficiency of 95.35%, which is almost unheard of short of BIAB with powdered grain.

This implies that some measurement may be off (volume, gravity, grain weight, etc) ?

I went into my boil at about 10.5 gallons and 9.5 went into my fermenter. Sure there's a slight loss considering trub in my boil kettle, but my boiloff was close to 1 gallon. I think next time, the smart thing to do would be to just add water and top up my preboil volume right? That probably would have been closer to my estimated preboil gravity too and thus hitting my numbers a bit closer.

 

[andrewmaixner]

I went into my boil at about 10.5 gallons and 9.5 went into my fermenter. Sure there's a slight loss considering trub in my boil kettle, but my boiloff was close to 1 gallon. I think next time, the smart thing to do would be to just add water and top up my preboil volume right? That probably would have been closer to my estimated preboil gravity too and thus hitting my numbers a bit closer.

You can dilute pre- or post- boil.

Post-boil is what a lot of extract brewers do, and allows you to get the exact volume you want in your fermenter without having to consider boil-off.

Pre-boil will improve hop / alpha acid isomerization (which is reduced/slowed by higher gravity) to match what your recipe is planning for -- you can play with the numbers in Beersmith, or see this: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter5-5.html


In any case, congratulations on your excellent efficiency. Are you using pH measurements/adjustment and water/grain/etc profiles?

 

[PhinneyWoodBrews]

Like many of you, after seeing this as the #1 recipe on HBT, I decided I had to brew it to see what all the fuss was about. I've been brewing for about 5 years, and I'd never made a blonde-I tend to gravitate to bolder styles when I'm at the bottle shop or making my own, usually IPAs, Stouts etc. I resisted the temptation to tweak the recipe in any way, and scaled for my system(3g BIAB). At that size, hop additions are well under 1oz total! Brew day was smooth and easy, slightly overshot gravity at 1.047 but a negligible difference.

After a 15 day fermentation, it tasted great and was at 1.003-nottingham always seems to attenuate for me beyond what BS predicts. All my kegs were tied up, so I bottled and let them carb up for 3 weeks before finally cracking one a couple days ago. On first whiff, I'll agree with what someone else mentioned: the grainy malt aroma from the 2-row is so reminiscent of mass produced lagers, I was worried that I'd ended up with a BMC clone-ale. But it tastes fantastic. The bright, subdued hop character zips right through the sip and lingers just long enough to push ahead of the light grainy malts. It's so smooth and drinkable, yet still interesting flavor-wise that the glass is empty before you know it. Mine didn't turn out as bright as some pictures I've seen in this thread-a bit of chill haze I'm hoping will dissipate, but I'm not one to obsess over clarity. Overall, a really, really nice beer. Won me over. Congratulations to BierMuncher on his #1 recipe, will definitely brew this again.

 

[summerofgeorge]

Need some quick help on this one...I had to rush this recipe (not really lack of planning but a little overzealous with brewing too many batches for a party). I kegged last night and it was a lot cloudier than normal. I typically cold crash with gelatin and it's crystal clear. No time for that this time. Well, given it's cloudy I was going to go with the gelatin in the keg. The problem is that I'll be serving it at a party on Saturday and have to move the kegs around a little bit (just upstairs from the basement and then outside). Will it settle down after a few hours if I go this route? I don't have any empty kegs to do a transfer first.

 

[jwalk4]

Need some quick help on this one...I had to rush this recipe (not really lack of planning but a little overzealous with brewing too many batches for a party). I kegged last night and it was a lot cloudier than normal. I typically cold crash with gelatin and it's crystal clear. No time for that this time. Well, given it's cloudy I was going to go with the gelatin in the keg. The problem is that I'll be serving it at a party on Saturday and have to move the kegs around a little bit (just upstairs from the basement and then outside). Will it settle down after a few hours if I go this route? I don't have any empty kegs to do a transfer first.

I think you're knackered for clarity, mate. But I'm not one to fuss over clear beer. Fining, chilling, transferring, worrying, etc. its not worth it for a party beer. If you're self conscious about it, serve it out of solo cups and no one will know.

 

[andrewmaixner]

Need some quick help on this one...I had to rush this recipe (not really lack of planning but a little overzealous with brewing too many batches for a party). I kegged last night and it was a lot cloudier than normal. I typically cold crash with gelatin and it's crystal clear. No time for that this time. Well, given it's cloudy I was going to go with the gelatin in the keg. The problem is that I'll be serving it at a party on Saturday and have to move the kegs around a little bit (just upstairs from the basement and then outside). Will it settle down after a few hours if I go this route? I don't have any empty kegs to do a transfer first.

It's only Wednesday. That's plenty of time for gelatin, right in the keg. Just get it super-cold, throw in the gelatin, and wait 2 days.
If you want, you can transfer from the crashing keg to a "super clean" keg after that. run off a glass or two till it's clear first. Don't disturb the current keg at all and kick up the sediment.

 

[mattdee1]

Really enjoying my 2nd batch of this stuff. This time, I did about 7.5 gal and filled up my Mr. Beer LBK with whatever wouldn't fit in the bucket fermenter. I bottled the stuff in the bucket as usual, but after primary fermentation wrapped up I tossed the leftover hops I had from brew day (quarter to half oz each Centennial and Cascade) into the Mr. Beer and dry hopped for about 4 days before bottling that stuff. Both "versions" of the beer turned out great; the dry-hopped portion is a completely different beer. Very nice hop aroma and crisp flavor.

 

[chucknorris101]

Hitting about 2.5 weeks since brew day today, sat longer than id hoped, going to bottle asap - hydrometer sample hit 1.002, my only concern is the hop flavor seems to be mostly missing! At least in the warm sample I wasnt picking up too much, I did use fresh hops from my yard but figured I had included more than the typical pellet conversion...will the hops come out a bit more when carbed/bottled?

 

[andrewmaixner]

Hitting about 2.5 weeks since brew day today, sat longer than id hoped, going to bottle asap - hydrometer sample hit 1.002, my only concern is the hop flavor seems to be mostly missing! At least in the warm sample I wasnt picking up too much, I did use fresh hops from my yard but figured I had included more than the typical pellet conversion...will the hops come out a bit more when carbed/bottled?

Mine didn't, so I dry-hopped it for a day in the keg, with 1 oz. of pellet in a mesh bag. a week of lagering later, it was quite good and balanced hop aroma for the gravity.

 

[brew703]

I brewed this one a couple months ago. Only did a 1 gallon batch just to try. It was only my 3rd batch and used US-05 but I thought it tasted more along the line of a BMC. Didn't have much flavor at all. Could have been contributed to me being a newbie but I plan on brewing again soon with some changes.
Possibly use Maris Otter and will increase the IBU's a bit to 35 and dry hop with a little citra and undecided if I will try some Notty or 04.

 

[HiImBrian]

I've brewed this a couple times using Notti and loved it. I went to US-05 this time because other people seemed to like it better and my fermentation looks to have finished at 1.016 which is a bit higher than I'd like...

 

[daggers_nz]

Try it and tell us!

I got too excited and added about 1oz of Citra around 5 mins with the Cascade addition, it tasted pretty bitter in the hydro sample. I'm gonna take a sample tonight (6 days later) and I should get a good idea if it's ruined or not

 

[dg2001]

I'm making a 10g batch and my local store only sells 1# packs of Cara-Pils. The recipe calls for 1.25#, will I ever miss the extra 1/4# of Cara-Pils?

 

[tallguybrewer]

I'm making a 10g batch and my local store only sells 1# packs of Cara-Pils. The recipe calls for 1.25#, will I ever miss the extra 1/4# of Cara-Pils?

In a ten gallon batch, 0.25 lbs less carapils will not be noticeable.

 

[dg2001]

In a ten gallon batch, 0.25 lbs less carapils will not be noticeable.

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

[TxBigHops]

I'm making a 10g batch and my local store only sells 1# packs of Cara-Pils. The recipe calls for 1.25#, will I ever miss the extra 1/4# of Cara-Pils?

Is this normal in some places? All the LHB stores I've ever bought from will measure out their grains in any quantity I want.

 

[Munster51]

One of my LHBS only carries ndividually sealed 1 lb. bags. And if you ask for it to be milled they will only do the full bags.

 

[TxBigHops]

One of my LHBS only carries ndividually sealed 1 lb. bags. And if you ask for it to be milled they will only do the full bags.

Ugh... that really sucks. What an enormous waste of time, energy and packing materials. So if I want 10 lbs of two row, it comes in 10 separate bags??? That must really run the prices up!