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

[Broothru]

We will see! I'm just hoping to see progress lol Still have a VERY long way to go. Hopefully they have the right guy at the helm

We're in St. Pete visiting our daughter and SIL (and grand-twins). Both are FSU grads, as well as die-hard 'Noles. As you can imagine, the last few years have been not as festive as past Saturdays in Autumn.

 

[rtstrider]

My idea also is to use the remaining hops (15/20 gr. cascade & 15/20gr.centennial) in Hopstand @80°C x 15 min....anyone has tried?

Personally I think it'd be too much in a light ale such as this one. Now that's just my preference. You might really enjoy it though! Try it and report back

 

[Gel999]

Do you guys do mash out on this recipe? Do I need to mash out @ 170 for 10 mins?

 

[Broothru]

A mashout at 170F for 10~15 minutes can help improve body in a finished beer, which could be beneficial in preventing a Blonde from tasting thin or watery.

(I'm trying my best to not make some sophomoric joke about 'blondes' and 'good body'. Oops. Epic fail).

 

[Dynachrome]

She who must be obeyed just through in and said I should do a blonde.

Erp, er... Yeah, well...

I took inventory and I think I've got everything I need for the recipe.

I looked at the mash temp and it seemed extremely high to me. I do my reds and my porters up there but I had the thought that this should be down in like the 152 to 154° range? I thought the whole thing about blondes was that they should be easy summer beers....

I'm trying a whole bunch of new stuff all at once so it'll probably be chaos. I'm putting it in kegs I have a new barley crusher and a recipe I've never tried....

It will be beer.

Trying to make something light and easy drinking for people at a wedding that may or may not enjoy craft beer but would enjoy the idea that it was at least homemade.

 

[Saunassa]

Looking at the recipe in the beginning of this the mash temp is 150f. Did it get edited somewhere in the 140+ pages?
This was my first all grain, did it as biab and came out nice and light. Bottled and one carbed I put the bottles in the fridge for a month. Perfectly clear and did not last long at all. I considered it a gateway to craft for a lot of my friends.

 

[Dynachrome]

I did not read all the pages, but a number people said they were going to up the temperature.

Mine srarted low - a little ove 140°F for 15 minutes. I mashed in some more hot water. It leveled off at abour 155° for 1 hour total.

My crusher, first time using it seems to have done well efficiency-wise. I mixed the first two pots and got 1.044 OG on that wort, 10 gallons total. The third pot was down to 1.010 OG. I made small beer with just late addition hops with it in a growler.

 

[Dynachrome]

Brunette Ale with blonde roots.

Speech-to-text babelfish anyone? Honest, I had one beer the whole time.

Half a pound caramel municipal lover buns 60
1 lb Crystal caramel malt rubber band 2
14 and 1/2 lb Maris otter two roll
12 oz of dextrin malt
15 gallons of water to finish at 11 gallons in the fermenter
1 lb of steel cut oats crushed in with the barley
Mash 1hr total, at 140° for 15 minutes. Mash at 155° for the next 45 minutes.
Scratch that 4 oz of calves skate hops and 60 minutes 3/4 of an ounce of Cascade hops 10 minutes to flame out.

I did my pseudo-starter. Room temp water, corn sugar, Ball jar for a couple hours to wake up the yeast.
I used a wort chiller cool it and to get it in the carboys. I usually just let it sit and cool off, but needed done sooner.

Cleaned corny kegs Sunday, rebuilt with new O-rings.

 

[Dynachrome]

I didn't have the lighter ingredients.

...in english:

Half a pound caramel crystal malt lovibond 60

1 lb Crystal caramel malt lovibond 20

14 and 1/2 lb Maris otter two-row

12 oz of dextrin malt

15 gallons of water to finish at 11 gallons in the fermentor

1 lb of steel cut oats crushed in with the barley

Mash 1hr total, at 140° for 15 minutes. Mash at 155° for the next 45 minute

4 oz of Cascade hops and 60 minutes, 3/4 of an ounce of Cascade hops 10 minutes to flame out

 

[Dynachrome]

stock image

 

[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!

 

[Broothru]

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!

 

[user 336826]

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?