cream ale

[iceman1407]

Anyone have any experience to share about cream ales and their brewing. Going to start one tomorrow

iceman1407

 

[Revvy]

What are you looking to know? I've brewed plenty.

There's a ton of recipes on here. It's nothing special, just a really refreshing beer.

Here's some info on the style of beer.

The easiest way is to use flaked maize. The corn goes through a process where it is pregelatinized, and you just add it to the mash tun along with your grain.

The other way is to do what's called a cereal mash. You boil the corn with some diastic grain like 2 row until it becomes like porrige and the starch has converted, then you add it to the mash tun with your grain. If you're doing a cereal mash you can use almost any form of corn, folks use grits, masa, cornmeal, canned cream corn, corn on the cob, hominy, and even popped popcorn.

Here's a cream ale recipe made with popcorn

Popcorn Cream ALe

 

[Golddiggie]

I've made one honey cream ale and one dark cream ale so far. Both came out good... IMO, follow the KISS principle for the grist and you'll do well. Also, you probably want to have it finish with a lower SG, so that it's more refreshing... Mine finished around 1.016 and were/are pretty easy drinking. Second one is still in keg, so I'm still enjoying it.

 

[iceman1407]

Well while I will keep these messages once I get to all grain, I am only at partial mash brewing now. I started at Mr beer type brewing and have now up'ed my operation to brewers best. My next step is all grain as I am piecing all the partaking together so I can start. So at this point I'm referring to the brewers best kit.

What I'm looking for is any insights or tips for brewing this style as it us my first...

iceman1407

 

[Revvy]

There's really nothing special or different from this or any other style. In terms of difficulty, unless you're getting into all grain brewing and doing things like "abrew in a bag triple decoction with a step infusion and a mashout" then one recipe is no more complicated than any other, especially if you are doing any extract with steeping grains recipe.

Your grain bill might be different for different recipes, but what you with them (the process) will be the same, which is something akin to "steep grains for x minutes, in y gallons of water, remove grains bring to boil, add extract and hops as directed, cool, transfer to ferment, pitch yeast and relax."

You'll be fine.

 

[iceman1407]

Hey thanks Revvy,

One last thing though, are there any little things that I could do with this cream ale to kinda put it over the top. Like outside the obvious directions. Do you or anyone else know of any little extras? I planning to brew this for a uncle who is a general retiring from the army. He is a big beer fan and really wanted to knock his socks off with it.

iceman1407

 

[Revvy]

Just do what we recommend doing for all beers.....Kepp the temps low during fermentation (use a swamp cooler and ice water bottles to keep the fermenter cool for the first week.) Then throw out the instructions and leave your beer in primary for a month before you bottle, and leave them in the bottles above 70 degrees for 4 weeks before openning them, and they should be great.
And read the stickeys in the beginner's section for all the other tips and tricks we suggest.

 

[iceman1407]

Ok so I said one last thing Haha, but hey one last thing...

So stay only primary? Don't secondary at all? And also if I was to keg part and only bottle a sixer then still age the same amount?

Again I appreciate all the help. So glad this forum is here. When first breaking into this hobby I had so many questions and nowhere to ever get answers. Now in my journey to all grain I finally find it.

Thanks again.

iceman1407

 

[lumpher]

secondarying isn't necessary unless adding fruit, really, the way a lot of us look at it. stay only primary. age the bottles for the same amount of time regardless; the main reason is to let the yeast clean themselves up and carbonate correctly

 

[iceman1407]

So the other keged part that would be force carbonated would age fine for that month too?

iceman1407