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

[Wemet]

Just bought the ingredients to do the recipe as-is on the first page. My intention is to split a 10gal batch and ferment half using the Nottingham yeast and the other half using White Lab's German Lager yeast, followed by a decent lagering period. It will be interesting to see how the 2 halves compare.

 

[BigPicture]

I'm doing this again with a Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale yeast. This recipe works with everything. I've done raspberry, banana, Columbus, dry hop, British Ale yeast, American Ale, California Ale, Nottingham, etc.

I've brewed variations of this about 20 times. I have never done a lager with this.

I love the UK.

I envy BierMuncher.

 

[theowlman16]

2 ounces does not seem like much hops for a 1o gallon batch? Anyone ever done this beer with more?

 

[jakeasaur]

2 ounces does not seem like much hops for a 1o gallon batch? Anyone ever done this beer with more?

I regularly 10 gallons of this as written with the exception I add 1 Oz of each centennial and cascade at flame out. Turns out great

 

[andrewmaixner]

2 ounces does not seem like much hops for a 1o gallon batch? Anyone ever done this beer with more?

Yes, I regularly use this as a base for experimentation with other hops. It's a good neutral-but-not-flavorless beer that won't hide the characters of various hops at whirlpool or dryhop.

 

[scottywags]

I brewed this up with a slight variation....I eliminated the Vienna and added 2.5 pounds of MO. I wanted to get a slight bit more malty flavor and I wanted to boost the ABV to around 5.5 to 6ish.
All went well on Wed the 18th, OG of 1.055.....Now Monday the 23rd and it finished at 1.008. She went into the keg tonight to chill and then I'll force carb on Tues and Wed and should be drinking by Thursday or maybe Fri depending.

 

[JETDOG07]

I brewed up a 5 gallon extract version of the Centennial Blonde on January 14, 2017. It has been in the primary for 2 weeks as of tomorrow. Is this enough time to go ahead and bottle this beer tomorrow?

 

[Barker]

Yup, go ahead and bottle that sucker

 

[JLeuck64]

2 ounces does not seem like much hops for a 1o gallon batch? Anyone ever done this beer with more?

When I was making this recipe in 5gal I thought the hop quantity was a little on the low side for my liking. I played around with just moving the 60min hop addition to a FWH instead. I liked it better that way, so when I brewed my first 10Gal batch I bumped the FWH addition up to .625 oz of Centennial, it only increased the IBU's by another point but to my taste buds it's perfect.

 

[JETDOG07]

I bottled this 5 gallon batch with 5g of priming sugar. I just got to thinking that might have been too much from what the recipe said. Am I going to have exploding bottles on my hands?

 

[jakeasaur]

5g or 5oz? When I bottle this I typically use 4oz. 5oz will not cause bombs if fermentation was completed. When I started brewing I would use the 5 oz packs that came with kits. They caused slightly more carbonation than I liked

 

[JETDOG07]

I'm sorry. I meant 5oz. I let it ferment for 2 weeks. Was at its fg when I bottled

 

[scottywags]

I brewed this on the 18th....The keg is almost kicked
I bought the ingredients to brew this one up again and thought I'd throw a slight variation in there....has anyone ever used Herkules hops? My LHBS tells me it should impart a slight strawberryish flavor, yet every search I do does not reference that.

 

[JETDOG07]

Does this look a little dark compared to what others have come out with after it was done?

 

[Calaeb]

Kegged my version with mosaic hops on the back side additions. Its my best yet, and just in time for the stuperbowl

 

[BrewerE]

Does this look a little dark compared to what others have come out with after it was done?

yeah. Mine is light....like Coors Light light.

 

[JETDOG07]

yeah. Mine is light....like Coors Light light.

I wonder if it would help to add my extract to 4 gallons of water to boil instead of 2.5 gallons?

 

[BrewerE]

I wonder if it would help to add my extract to 4 gallons of water to boil instead of 2.5 gallons?

probably....I also add mine at flame out (have been doing PM batches lately)

 

[snd1990]

Does thimt s look a little dark compared to what others have come out with after it was done?

Any extract version of any recipe is gonna be a little darker. Also did you use the extra light extract or a darker version extract. And most of the pics are probably from all grain recipe.

 

[JETDOG07]

probably....I also add mine at flame out (have been doing PM batches lately)

Do you add all of your extract at flameout?

 

[JETDOG07]

Any extract version of any recipe is gonna be a little darker. Also did you use the extra light extract or a darker version extract. And most of the pics are probably from all grain recipe.

I used Briess Pilsen light LME

 

[snd1990]

Does this look a little dark compared to what others have come out with after it was done?

Here is an article in BYO magazine with 6 or 7 tips and suggestions to lighten extract beer! http://byo.com/hops/item/1024-lighten-up-your-extract-brews

It has suggestions like using dme instead of lme, boiling it in 4 or 5 gallons instead of 2, removing pot from heat before adding extract, adding extract in last 10 min of boil, etc

 

[BrewerE]

Do you add all of your extract at flameout?

yes because I get enough gravity for the boil from my partial mash at the beginning.

I'm also using extra light DME...

 

[scottywags]

Just racked my 3rd batch onto a 1/2 ounce of Galaxy and the peels from 3 oranges. The 2nd keg of this should pop in about a week so hopefully this should be ready by then!

 

[Epos7]

This recipe looks great! I'm thinking of brewing it later this week, but maybe increasing the ABV into the 4.5 range and adding a few extra hops to match.

 

[smit6089]

First time solo brewer, first time all grain, 1000th time making a horrible mistake.

I've known I've wanted to give this hobby a shot for a long time so over the last 4-5 months I've slowly looked for deals, did a lot of building, and got a full 10 gallon all grain setup ready to rock and roll along with a 6 tap keezer. After reading to about page 100 here I decided this was the best recipe for a noob such as myself. Brew day went fine except an awful crush on my grains which led to horrible efficiency. Boiled down a little longer to get the SG right any way and just got a little less into the fermenter.

Great fermentation, great clearing, great kegging, not great double checking my hose clamps....

Got to try a 2oz sample.... warm..... and uncarbed..... damn it was good, and damn it was now in a shop vac.

Any way, when you fail, have a beer, try again, and see if you can fail less next time right? After a quick trip to the LHBS and a conversation that went roughly as follows:

Me: Hey, I got everything here but Viennna, are you out?
LHBS: Yup, sorry about that, I'd sub Munich
Me: No problem, , , , , You out of Munich?
LHBS: Oh yeah, I'd sub Dark Munich then I guess!
ME:

So any way, another good brew day, much better efficiency, and there you have it:

Beer.

10 days grain to glass, higher than expected attenuation got down to 1.002 and about 5% abv. Oh well, it has a beautiful aroma, great color (although a little dark than intended), good clarity, and a crazy fluffy head that laces the entire glass. Thanks BM for this awesome recipe and thanks to this wonderful community that can help a noob like me make beer... from seeds.... It's like magic.

 

[Barker]

Great post, thanks for sharing. Your beer looks great too.
Gotta say, looking to "give the hobby a shot" and you get yourself a 10 gallon all grain set up AND a SIX TAP KEEZER!?
I've been brewing for almost 2 years now and even a 3 tap keezer isn't in my foreseeable future. You're living the dream!

 

[Epos7]

I've got 9.2AA Centennial and 6.0AA Cascade hops. Plugging the recipe amounts into Brewers Friend gives me 22 IBU which is right about what the recipe calls for, but given the lower AA, I'm wondering if I should bump the amounts slightly.

 

[slym2none]

I just use all-Centennial, and it's gorgeous.

 

[Pyg]

I just use all-Centennial, and it's gorgeous.

How did the centennial turn out?

I was thinking of making a 5 gallon batch using all centennial.
I was also thinking of upping each hop addition to .5 oz, bringing ibu to about 45