Cream Ale Cream of Three Crops (Cream Ale)

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LOL 2008 and this thread still rocks. Great job BM! I have made this brew best I could a few times, turned out to be beer....I'll drink to that!
 
I filmed my cream of 3 Crops a few weeks ago.

https://youtu.be/boQM84kW0jo


Good vid. Unrelated to the brew itself, but I appreciate your statement that you feel gelatin "strips flavor". I have always felt that way but have been stone cold admonished for saying that on these forums! Glad I am not alone.

Anyway to keep topic I am going to make this one for the summer.
 
Good vid. Unrelated to the brew itself, but I appreciate your statement that you feel gelatin "strips flavor". I have always felt that way but have been stone cold admonished for saying that on these forums! Glad I am not alone.

Anyway to keep topic I am going to make this one for the summer.

Glad to find another that feels the same way. I am actually going to do more videos on brewing and such. One will be on washing yeast, and another on gelatin stripping and what I find. I don't want to plug my own videos but any likes and subscribes help towards more videos.
 
I know this an old thread but tried a cream ale on holiday recently and would like to try and make one. What temperature did you ferment? I have read that cream ale is sort of the opposite to a cal common in that you use ale yeast but at relatively low temperatures?
 
I know this an old thread but tried a cream ale on holiday recently and would like to try and make one. What temperature did you ferment? I have read that cream ale is sort of the opposite to a cal common in that you use ale yeast but at relatively low temperatures?

I like this one fermented nice and cool around 60-65F to minimize ester production and emphasize the character of the malt rather than the yeast.

That said, I just kegged 3-gallons of this recipe fermented with Belgian Saison II (58F ramped to 68F) and the subtle esters and spiciness from the yeast really compliment the smooth corn and malt notes.

On another note, substituting (accidentally) oats for the rice portion of the malt bill produces a very smooth beer with great mouthfeel. I don't think I can taste any "oat" flavor as you might in an oatmeal stout.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I have A LOT of oats and am always looking for ways to use them...
 
My og ended up at 1.060 due to boil overs and an over zealous boil ( aiming for 6 gal. ended up with 4) what do you guys think that will that do to the final flavor of this recipe and what can I expect my fg to be
 
Hey guys. I am about to brew this tomorrow. I just wanted to ask, after I am done mashing for 90 mins at 152 degrees, do I raise the temp for mash out and to what temperature? Do I sparge with near boiling water or 152 degree water?
 
You can keep things simple and just sparge with 180-190F water without worrying about a mashout. I would advise acidifying your sparge water to a pH of around 5.2-5.5 to avoid extracting tannins from the grains. The malt bill for this recipe doesn't result in a very low pH to begin with due to the lack of darker malts.

If you don't have a pH meter, then you can add a ballpark amount of about 1 tsp lactic acid per 5 gallons sparge water assuming that you have water with an average alkalinity.

A mashout is generally intended to stop enzyme activity to prevent a wort from becoming too fermentable, but in this case, a longer 90-min mash is used to create a highly-fermentable wort.
 
Thanks for the recipe BM!

I brewed this up for a bunch of my BMC coworkers. I brewed it up not having any particular event with said associated planned. However, 5 days after brew day I got an email about a fish fry/poker night and figured what better time... Long story short, they drained a 5 gallon keg of this 9 days after I brewed it! They all loved it and want it to be a regular.

A little backstory, I botched my scaling down and accidentally put 1lb of minute rice in the mash instead of the half pound I should have for the 5 gallon batch. This bumped my gravity up and I ended with about a 5.5% beer. I boiled and mashed for 60 minutes. For yeast, I spun up one packet of 34/70 in 1.6 liters of 1.040 wort for 12 hours before pitching it into the fermenter. I fermented at 66 degrees and it finished in 4 days. I pushed it into a keg, fined it with gelatin and then proceeded to force carb it. Since I was going to have to transport the keg, I cut the dip tube by a couple inches and racked it over to clean keg. Good stuff!
 
Where I live, we don't have the Minute Rice brand. Would other pre-steamed rice brands work? For example this one. I would remove the rice from the bags of course.
 
Where I live, we don't have the Minute Rice brand. Would other pre-steamed rice brands work? For example this one. I would remove the rice from the bags of course.

Hmm... the fact that i calls for the rice to be boiled for 10-12 minutes leads me to believe it isn't pre-cooked and then dehydrated. Course the ingredient list does say it is parboiled. I definitely didn't use Minute Rice brand or Uncle Ben's. I was at Aldis and just found the rice that had the quickest listed cook time.
 
Haven't seen any around here that doesn't require boiling so I guess it's either a cereal mash or flaked rice from the LHBS. We do have flaked rice at the grocery store (much cheaper than at the LHBS) but I don't know if it is any different.
 
Thanks for the recipe BM!

I brewed this up for a bunch of my BMC coworkers. I brewed it up not having any particular event with said associated planned. However, 5 days after brew day I got an email about a fish fry/poker night and figured what better time... Long story short, they drained a 5 gallon keg of this 9 days after I brewed it! They all loved it and want it to be a regular.

A little backstory, I botched my scaling down and accidentally put 1lb of minute rice in the mash instead of the half pound I should have for the 5 gallon batch. This bumped my gravity up and I ended with about a 5.5% beer. I boiled and mashed for 60 minutes. For yeast, I spun up one packet of 34/70 in 1.6 liters of 1.040 wort for 12 hours before pitching it into the fermenter. I fermented at 66 degrees and it finished in 4 days. I pushed it into a keg, fined it with gelatin and then proceeded to force carb it. Since I was going to have to transport the keg, I cut the dip tube by a couple inches and racked it over to clean keg. Good stuff!

Does 34/70 give any off flavours at 66 at all?
Did u have to drest at all?.
Think i might try this at that temp.
 
Haven't seen any around here that doesn't require boiling so I guess it's either a cereal mash or flaked rice from the LHBS. We do have flaked rice at the grocery store (much cheaper than at the LHBS) but I don't know if it is any different.

I'd bet that flaked rice would work just fine. Try a small amount in 155F water and see how it reacts. If it is pre-gelatinized which it probably is, it will swell right up.
 
I brewed this one last Saturday. It was my first all grain BIAB effort. I took a few liberties with the recipe though. Through a combination of wanting a stronger beer and not being sure what my efficiency would be I went with 8lbs of 2 row, 2lbs quick grits, and 1lb instant rice for a 5.5 gallon batch. My efficiency turned out pretty good, so depending on attenuation I might have close to a 6% abv beer on my hands.

The wort was quite pale and translucent. Even in the midst of vigorous fermentation I can see more going on in the carboy than any previous beer I brewed. I feel like the finished product is going to be a very pretty beer. I'm fermenting with some harvested Nottingham yeast at 59-60F because I've heard that it can produce a very clean, lagerlike beer at those temps. I also mashed mostly in 145-150 range for 90 minutes in the hopes of producing a highly fermentable wort.

I'm excited about this one. It represents the culmination of every tool and bit of knowledge I've collected so far about brewing. It's getting the best of everything that I know how to give it at this stage. *fingers crossed*
 
Brewed the original recipe and used 34/70 fermented at 62-65 degrees for 10 days. It was crisp and refreshing. Early tasting had a noticeable corn flavor that mellowed a week later. Here are a couple of picture from 10 days after kegging to 20 days. Cleared up even more days later.

3Crops at 10 days.JPG


3Crops at 24 days.JPG
 
I brewed the original recipe too. I chilled it and hit it with gelatin last night because I used 1007 yeast and that stuff NEVER clears on its own. Photos soon ...
 
Brewed the original recipe and used 34/70 fermented at 62-65 degrees for 10 days. It was crisp and refreshing. Early tasting had a noticeable corn flavor that mellowed a week later. Here are a couple of picture from 10 days after kegging to 20 days. Cleared up even more days later.

Nicely done! Looks right on par. I found that corn flavour to be a lil much. But now you say it the first time I brewed it it did mellow out.
 
Nicely done! Looks right on par. I found that corn flavour to be a lil much. But now you say it the first time I brewed it it did mellow out.

I tasted my first gravity sample of this beer yesterday. Up until then I had really been wondering what corn tasted like in a beer. Somehow I was assuming that like a lot of different additions, it would ferment out to be something different than the original flavor. The moment I tasted it I was like "wow that's corn flavor for sure". It's really prominent for something that made up a relatively small percentage of the grist. I'm wondering if it's going to be a bit much for me too. It's still got a ways to go before I'm actually drinking it though, so I'll reserve judgement until then.
 
Brewed the original recipe and used 34/70 fermented at 62-65 degrees for 10 days. It was crisp and refreshing. Early tasting had a noticeable corn flavor that mellowed a week later. Here are a couple of picture from 10 days after kegging to 20 days. Cleared up even more days later.

I really like that glass, where did you get it from?

beer looks great, cheers from Canada! :mug:
 
First one was a gift from my in-laws. The bottom is a removable rubber stop & 12 oz. The second is a tall 20 oz. glass that was also a gift. Unfortunately I don't know where either were purchased from but they were free!:mug:

Beer was made BIAB, BTW!
 
I'm going to brew this in a few weeks. I've got some california common yeast slurry, so I'm going to try that. I'm also going to use nugget as the bittering hop. I can't imagine the bittering hop matters a whole lot in this beer as long as you get the IBU roughly right.

What water profile would work best for this? Really light, like for a pilsner or a helles? With Philly tap water, when I punch in the numbers, it says I need to use ~75% distilled water to get close to those numbers. (I know about mash & sparge pH & all that.)
 
Also, why not mash this at 148 instead of 152? Is there any reason you wouldn't want a maximally fermentable wort with this baby?
 
I'm going to brew this in a few weeks. I've got some california common yeast slurry, so I'm going to try that. I'm also going to use nugget as the bittering hop. I can't imagine the bittering hop matters a whole lot in this beer as long as you get the IBU roughly right.

What water profile would work best for this? Really light, like for a pilsner or a helles? With Philly tap water, when I punch in the numbers, it says I need to use ~75% distilled water to get close to those numbers. (I know about mash & sparge pH & all that.)

I used the light lager profile in Brun' water which for me just meant a ton (relatively) of acid since there is no roast grain to boost pH. Also, i used the lowest AA hop I had, which I believe was a Styrian Bobek at like 6%.

Also, why not mash this at 148 instead of 152? Is there any reason you wouldn't want a maximally fermentable wort with this baby?

Do it! Per some of the brulosophy experiments, mash temp does make a difference in fermentability, but possibly not a huge difference in flavor/sweetness/mouthfeel!
 
I just kegged this based on bonecitybrewco's recipe a few pages back after 2.5 weeks in the fermenter and it's good but the corn flavor stands out a little more than I like. Will this condition out and mellow a little bit? I got 2 kegs so I threw one in the keezer and left one out to warm condition.
 
I just kegged this based on bonecitybrewco's recipe a few pages back after 2.5 weeks in the fermenter and it's good but the corn flavor stands out a little more than I like. Will this condition out and mellow a little bit? I got 2 kegs so I threw one in the keezer and left one out to warm condition.


It definitely will mellow. Some people are much more sensitive to the corn flavour than others so be aware of that as well. But give it some time and it will smooth right out.
 
It definitely will mellow. Some people are much more sensitive to the corn flavour than others so be aware of that as well. But give it some time and it will smooth right out.

Agreed! Cold storage for a month or so will really mellow and smooth all of the flavors, but I really like this one fresh with the corn aroma. This is one beer that I really think the corn aroma works well with and doesn't end up tasting like diacetyl.
 
You guys were right even after a few days in the keezer and carbonated things are starting to blend and the corn taste is there but much more balanced and tasting really good. Awesome beer to start the summer thanks for the recipe!
 
Gonna be out of country next week, but when I'm back I'm gonna give this a brew for a nice, crisp summer beer.

Anyone brew this with other hops? I have some Columbus lying around and I figure I'll just use those for bittering (since the recipe doesn't call for any aroma hops).
 
Gonna be out of country next week, but when I'm back I'm gonna give this a brew for a nice, crisp summer beer.

Anyone brew this with other hops? I have some Columbus lying around and I figure I'll just use those for bittering (since the recipe doesn't call for any aroma hops).

I am going to be using some experimental hops that were gifted me by my lhbs owner. He said they were described as 'amarillo on steroids'!

High alpha acids (14-16%) will require some late addition times but it should be awesome.
 
So I finally got around to being able to brew this tomorrow.

I dropped the corn and bumped up the rice a little, and I'm doing half and half 2-row and Pilsner. (This is a 5.5 gallon batch.)

2 lbs., 12 oz. 2-row
2 lbs., 11 oz. Pilsen
1 lb., 4 oz. flaked maize
1 lb., 0 oz. flaked rice

12g Willamette (4.8%) as a first wort hop
12g Crystal (4.8%) as a first wort hop
(12g is just a hair higher than 0.4 oz.)

Mash at 148 for 90 minutes; sparge in the mid-160s for 20 minutes. This is the first time I've paid any attention to the pH of my sparge water, so I'm hopeful about that.

My target water profile (all ppm):
Ca: 13
Mg: 6
Na: 7
SO4:37
Cl: 14
Target mash pH: 5.3

To get to these numbers, I'm using 85% distilled water and 15% Philly tap water. I'm adding .1 g/gallon gypsum and .15 g/gallon Epsom salt.

I'm trying to make this a pseudo-lager, so I'm using a lager-sized pitch rate of California Common yeast, grown from a slurry in a starter. The target pitch rate is 1.5 million cells per ml per degree Plato, or about 312 billion cells.
 
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I had really high efficiency for some reason. I ended up with 5.8 gallons of 1.044 gravity wort. In any case, I had a great hot and cold break, so I'm optimistic.
 
So I finally got around to being able to brew this tomorrow.

I dropped the corn and bumped up the rice a little, and I'm doing half and half 2-row and Pilsner. (This is a 5.5 gallon batch.)

2 lbs., 12 oz. 2-row
2 lbs., 11 oz. Pilsen
1 lb., 4 oz. flaked maize
1 lb., 0 oz. flaked rice

12g Willamette (4.8%) as a first wort hop
12g Crystal (4.8%) as a first wort hop
(12g is just a hair higher than 0.4 oz.)

Mash at 148 for 90 minutes; sparge in the mid-160s for 20 minutes. This is the first time I've paid any attention to the pH of my sparge water, so I'm hopeful about that.

My target water profile (all ppm):
Ca: 13
Mg: 6
Na: 7
SO4:37
Cl: 14
Target mash pH: 5.3

To get to these numbers, I'm using 85% distilled water and 15% Philly tap water. I'm adding .1 g/gallon gypsum and .15 g/gallon Epsom salt.

I'm trying to make this a pseudo-lager, so I'm using a lager-sized pitch rate of California Common yeast, grown from a slurry in a starter. The target pitch rate is 1.5 million cells per ml per degree Plato, or about 312 billion cells.


Curious to hear your results. My only concern is Ca ppm is a bit low for yeast health.
 
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