Cream Ale Cream of Three Crops (Cream Ale)

[walker111]

Yeah the pics early in the thread show clear fermenters early on. My crush was tight so more flour creating some cloudiness. I will be patient and keg one after 3 weeks.

 

[Nubiwan]

I just ordered 4kg of 2 row, and a kg each of corn and rice flakes. That's like 8.8#, 2.2# and 2.2# with 35g each of the recommended hops.

Questions:
Does the recipe adapt ok for BIAB? It'll have to. It's all I have. Was reading through first few. Pages, but no one mentioned BIAB.
With my grain bill, can I shoot for a 6-7 gallon batch? I like to maximize my BIAB adventures.

Will brewers friend give me the details, if I plug in my grains? Do I just balance the grain bills and volume for expected OG? 1.040 I think it was.

 

[Immocles]

Yep, I biab. Brewed this recipe, or just slightly tweaked it, 3 different times. Cleared up for me beautifully each time, and a quick favorite.
My mental math is sketchy at best, but yes, an online calculator should be able to give you the OG by punching in the grain bill and volume

 

[Nubiwan]

Yep, I biab. Brewed this recipe, or just slightly tweaked it, 3 different times. Cleared up for me beautifully each time, and a quick favorite.
My mental math is sketchy at best, but yes, an online calculator should be able to give you the OG by punching in the grain bill and volume

Thanks for that.......

Similar grain bill to BierMunchers? I've seen some use no corn at all. Is there a corn flavour imparted? Trying to understand what that would even be like. Visions of my beer tasting like Cracker Barrel.

 

[Immocles]

I brewed the recipe exact the first time. There was some minor corn flavor, but nothing o empowering. I cranked it up the second time, and cranked the rice the third time. All different, but good. The rice one was a bit more bland, but still very crisp and good. I preferred the corn, myself.

 

[Nubiwan]

I just went down and took an SG reading. Good excuse to have taste too. Lots of break in there still. Decent sized creamy looking krausen. Tastes pretty corny to me. Hope it bitters out a little with carbing in bottle. Hard to imagine what the final beer will be like. Got big plans for this baby on Canada Day - July 1.

 

[moreb33rplz]

I brewed it and it was good. Photo is from a week in keg, no fining.

2.5 gallon batch
3 lb 2 row
2 lb corn grit
1 lb rice
.5 fuggle @ 60
Us-05 slurry

I often make German lager and this was different but just as good

 

[NitrogenWidget]

Tomorrow is the day!
finally all situated with new burner and 13 gal. fermenters.
going with 1 oz of CTZ at 60 for a 10 gallon batch.
software puts it at 22 ibu's but the hops are 3yrs old so i'm sure they have lost a little.
not that I think a difference of a few IBU's at that level will be all that huge.

 

[Nubiwan]

I tasted mine after a week in the bottle. I always do to check the carbonation, and get a general feel for things. Tastes like a light lager ale. Like any non-descript beer in a can. Not something I'd drink regular, but a light beer, at 4%. The intent was for a light summer beer for mey wife to enjoy. Pretty happy with it.

I have noticed a slight cider twang on the beer. Reminded me of early home brewing days. Not sure what might have caused this. Is it simply a freshness issue at a week old? Perhaps a santitary issue in bottle?

Will see if that smooths out over a week or more conditioning.

 

[NitrogenWidget]

On last week didn't happen, but today is. Except I brewed a few 5g batches and now only have s-33 and k-97. I'm thinking s-33.

edit: I found one last jar of notty slurry in the back of the fridge.
I took her out and fed her half a cup of dry malt.
if she wakes up in a few hrs i'll go with that.

edit2: notty is alive and well.
Also grain is in the mash.
For the next few 4 or 5 hrs at least.
Have to go to my parents for something so won't be able to start boil until 6 or 7. LOL!

not the first time i've had to do that.
it'll still be good.

didn't finish until almost 11 last night but it's in fermenter.
11 gallons.
came in at 1.040 though brewfather had me at a higher OG (1.050).
I've noticed when I use wheat or flaked oats the software has me roughly 10 over every time.

Other than that the sample I took for OG was surprisingly clear.

 

[d40dave]

I have been brewing this recipe for a few years now. It seems to me that mashing for 1 1/2 hours may be necessary because of the corn and rice. Is the 1 1/2 hours boil time necessary? Thanks

 

[dwhite60]

No matter what, I do a 90 minute mash.

Nothing gets boiled 90 minutes. Everything gets 60.

Your mileage may vary.

 

[cmac62]

Has anyone used enzymes in the mash or in the fermentor to dry this out even further? This sounds a lot like the recipe in the is Miller Lite Really Triple Hopped thread. I think that one is all 2 row and corn with a ibu of 18 and enzymes into the fermentor after krousen. I may have to pick up the ingredients Thurs to brew this weekend. Maybe a 10 gallon batch with different dry hops going in during fermentation.

 

[HopSing]

This one is always on tap. About 12 batches ago I switched over to quick grits. 60 minute mash, 60 minute boil. I could not tell the difference. This is the stuff I use:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Quaker-Q...uick 5-Minute Grits,Walmart.com - Walmart.com

 

[d40dave]

I use Quaker Quick Grits too, it's about $0.50 a pound. I found that I need to gelatinize tem first.

 

[HopSing]

I use Quaker Quick Grits too, it's about $0.50 a pound. I found that I need to gelatinize tem first.

I just throw 2 lbs into the grain bag after I mill the the grains and give it quick mix while dry. I BIAB and I thought they would clog the bag, but mixing them with grains seems to work just fine.

How do you gelatinize them? What's the benefit?

~HopSing.

 

[d40dave]

I found if I don't gelatinize the grits first I get very poor efficiency. I leave about 4 gallons of water in my kettle and simmer the grits for about an hour then let it sit overnight. I have the same issue with the clogging. What I have been doing is to put the grits and rice in a BIAB bag and put that bag in another BIAB bag which has the grains. Eventually the grits and rice starts to get less "gluey"

 

[HopSing]

I found if I don't gelatinize the grits first I get very poor efficiency. I leave about 4 gallons of water in my kettle and simmer the grits for about an hour then let it sit overnight. I have the same issue with the clogging. What I have been doing is to put the grits and rice in a BIAB bag and put that bag in another BIAB bag which has the grains. Eventually the grits and rice starts to get less "gluey"

Interesting. I've read you need to do that with "real" grits, but the quick grits were already par-boiled then dried. I have my 3 crops recipe dialed in and my efficiency is consistently within 2% +/-. I'm going to give it a shot and see if it comes up. Thanks for the info.

~HopSing.

 

[Immocles]

I have been brewing this recipe for a few years now. It seems to me that mashing for 1 1/2 hours may be necessary because of the corn and rice. Is the 1 1/2 hours boil time necessary? Thanks

I believe the first time I made this recipe, I boiled for about 80-90 minutes. But I've since switched to 60m boils and have not noticed any difference, even when using pilsner malt.

No matter what, I do a 90 minute mash.

Nothing gets boiled 90 minutes. Everything gets 60.

Your mileage may vary.

I've started mashing a lot more recipes for longer than 60m lately. I know folks say biab mashes can be shortened, but I've had better luck pushing the FG down with longer mashes. This recipe benefits from it.

 

[d40dave]

The first time I used quick grits was with an American lager recipe which called for a pound of flaked corn and a pound of flaked rice. I got around 72% efficiency. I then started to gelatinize the grits and rice and my efficiency went up to around 85% which is what I get with flaked grains.

 

[NitrogenWidget]

the ferment looks like soap foam.
I'm guessing it's the corn causing that?

 

[d40dave]

I haven't noticed any difference in the way the ferment looks compared to using flaked grains. In the end it clears up nicely.

 

[NitrogenWidget]

I haven't noticed any difference in the way the ferment looks compared to using flaked grains. In the end it clears up nicely.

every notty fermented brew i've done has brown crud on top of the foam.
this ferment looks like I filled a keg with oxyclean and left the hose in to long while filling, foamy bubbles.
pure clean tiny bubles.

 

[NitrogenWidget]

I was concerned about the strong corn smell coming from the fermenter but this hit an FG of 1.006 (4.7%) and the sample tastes really nice.
cold crashing and kegging this.

 

[NitrogenWidget]

ok, so something went slightly wrong.
beer is sorely lacking in flavor. I went light on the CTZ because of high AA% but they are a few yrs old so possibly have lost some.
tastes as bland as mic ultra to me, but people who drink mic ultra told me it had no flavor.
its crisp but I need to dry hop the keg with something while keeping it an easy drinker.

I'm thinking an oz of the 3% tetnang I have after some googling.

 

[HopSing]

Betting you're right with older hops. I use Crystal and Williamette and the only time I had an issue with flavor is when I overcarb'ed it. Your FG is also a bit lower than mine (1.010 - 1.012) so that may have dried it out too.

Plan for some fresh hops and higher mash temp and give it another try. Tettnanger would probably work well!

~HopSing.

 

[NitrogenWidget]

Betting you're right with older hops. I use Crystal and Williamette and the only time I had an issue with flavor is when I overcarb'ed it. Your FG is also a bit lower than mine (1.010 - 1.012) so that may have dried it out too.

Plan for some fresh hops and higher mash temp and give it another try. Tettnanger would probably work well!

~HopSing.

that feel when the lid gasket falls into the keg.......
thankfully i got plenty of extras but it's still annoying.

 

[Consigliere]

Just finished off a keg of this beer. Overshot the OG targets by about 0.1 and used some water to liquor it back. Did 90min mash and 90’min boil. In future will only do 60 each. I did the 5G recipe on the front page exactly.

next time I do this beer (likely soon) I wanted to try some variant to up the flavour a bit.In general, I found the flavour to be a bit citrusy and had some feedback from people that it had sour like
Qualities. I Was thinking of playing with this add whirlpooling some lemon drop hops next time. Any thoughts on this variant? Really novice at modifying recipes but was thinking 1oz whirlpool at 170F for 20min as a way to get more citrus and flavour into this great quaffable beer.

 

[NitrogenWidget]

so first keg was not good and I ended up throwing 2 oz of summit into it to make it taste good. (hiding off flavor)
I just pulled the 2nd keg out of the basement and hooked it up.
I let that naturally carbonate.
it's still warm (65 ish) but it tastes completely different from the first. no strong after taste.
like a Genesee Cream Ale which is THE cream Ale in central and western NY since the 1960's.
let's see how it does when it is cold.

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

Just finished off a keg of this beer. Overshot the OG targets by about 0.1 and used some water to liquor it back.

Man, you're sweating things too much. 0.1. Relax and have a homebrew.