First ever brew Cream of Three

[snail71]

So I have purchased all the equipment to do all grain brewing. I have done ALOT of reading and watching videos. I have a cooler mash setup consisting of two 5 gallon igloo coolers, a false bottom for the mash tun, valves for both, an 8.5 gallon brew kettle with valve and thermometer, wort chiller (immersion type), a 6.5 gallon bucket fermentor, and a 5 gallon carboy secondary. I am controlling fermentation temp in a refrigerator that I added a small heat element and a temperature controller to.

After looking around at recipes I decided I would like to try a Cream Ale because it seems pretty simple.

This is a recipe I put together after looking over the thread on this site:
#5 pale 2 row
#2.5 flaked corn
#1 flaked rice
Safeale 05
1.0 Hallertau (90 min boil)

Does this recipe look OK? Anything I should look out for?

 

[Moose_MI]

I've done this beer at least 3 times. It's a fun recipe and makes for good conversation when you tell people you put minute rice in it. :fro:

It is very lite so don't be surprised if it's not perfect the first time. Lite beers are hard for me because there is nothing there to cover up my mistakes.

 

[Cain]

Please let us know how your brew day goes.

I am particularly interested to hear how someone's first all-grain day goes, as I have not taken the plunge yet. Good Luck!

 

[Puddlethumper]

Does this recipe look OK? Anything I should look out for?

You are well on your way. I've made this recipe numerous times (thanks Biermuncher!) and it never disappoints. It is in the cue for another batch in a couple of weeks with several repeats through the summer months. It is light, refreshing and a real crowd-pleaser around here. Perfect for hot summer days.

You can experiment with the hops (try 1 oz. Crystal + 1 oz. Willamette or Mt Hood), try some different yeasts (I like BRY-97 personally). Without altering the grain-bill you'll get some variations that will almost always turn out to be very enjoyable.

I think it is important that you extract a full 7 gallons of wort and boil the full 90 minutes. This to be sure all the DMS in the corn gets boiled off. Ferment a little on the cool side then add warmth after a few days to let it fully attenuate. It will probably be ready to package in a week or 10 days.

A great recipe and a very smart choice for a first AG brew. Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

Cheers!

 

[casualbrewer]

Often people will cut that corn down to 1 lb and add 1.5 lbs of 2 row. Corn can be an acquired taste depending. And 3.5 lbs of adjuncts in a 5 gallon recipe may be a bit much sometimes. I have made the recipe roo and it is a very easy drinking beer

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

This is next up in my brew line up but I'm going to experiment with adding some different dried fruits at the last 5 minutes of the boil and will follow into the primary in a hop bag.

Pretty excited to do this brew! Be sure to let us know how it goes!

 

[sky4meplease]

I might add some rice hulls to this one as a laughtering aid but other than that I may try this recipe myself for a spring/summer brew.

 

[snail71]

I think it is important that you extract a full 7 gallons of wort and boil the full 90 minutes

This may seem like a dumb question but my hot liquor tank is a 5 gallon. Will I be able to get 7 gallons without have some additional sparge water ready? Also should I mash for 90 minutes?

 

[snail71]

Often people will cut that corn down to 1 lb and add 1.5 lbs of 2 row. Corn can be an acquired taste depending. And 3.5 lbs of adjuncts in a 5 gallon recipe may be a bit much sometimes. I have made the recipe roo and it is a very easy drinking beer

I have #6 of 2 row available. What if I did?
#6 pale 2 row
#1.5 flaked corn
#1 flaked rice

 

[Puddlethumper]

This may seem like a dumb question but my hot liquor tank is a 5 gallon. Will I be able to get 7 gallons without have some additional sparge water ready? Also should I mash for 90 minutes?

You'll be fine with that since you won't use the full 10 gallons anyway. Just heat up 5 gallons to your strike temp (probably ~165F), add the water and grain to your mash tun. Once you have your mash temperature right and settled in you can then refill the HLT. Heat it to ~180F. It'll then be available to adjust your mash temp if needed and you will still have plenty on hand for the sparge.

I normally mash this beer 60 minutes. The 90 minute boil is important because of all the corn.

I have #6 of 2 row available. What if I did?
#6 pale 2 row
#1.5 flaked corn
#1 flaked rice

We have no way of knowing how your brewhouse efficiency is going to come out at this point. But assuming 70% efficiency the recipe above comes in a little light on O.G. therefore your ABV will be a little lower than the original Cream of 3 Crops recipe. It will still be a very good and drinkable beer. If you want to up the OG a bit and give the yeasties a little more to chew on you could easily up the 2 row to 7 lbs. All your numbers should fall right into place with that combination.

I have about 80% efficiency so my recipe looks like this:

7.0 lb - Domestic 2 Row
2.0 lb - Flaked corn
0.5 lb - Minute Rice

1 oz. - Willamette @ 60 min
1 oz. - Crystal @ 60 min.

This recipe comes in almost spot-on to style but a bit hoppy because I prefer it that way. If I wanted to enter this beer in a competition I would probably reduce the hops to .75 oz. each.

Good luck!

 

[snail71]

Well I finally got everything together and did this brew yesterday afternoon. I started later than I should have and the process took MUCH longer than I had initially thought. Overall things went smoother than I feared but I did have a couple of hickups along the way. Here is the recipe that I settled on:

6 lbs - Pale 2 Row Domestic
1.5 lbs - Flaked corn
1.0 lbs - Flaked rice
1 oz Hallertau 60 minutes
Assuming brewhouse efficiency 75%
OG = 1.044, FG = 1.008, ABV = 4.67

I started by heating 5 gallons of strike water to 180 degrees. This was the one area I had not considered. It actually takes time to heat water (duh). I do think my burner setup isn't very efficient so I'm going to look at changing some stuff. I started heating the strike water at 2:35 PM and it was ready at 3:18.

I added 11 quarts of 180 degree water to the mash tun and stirred it until it was 170 degrees. I then slowly added the grains stirring them in. When this was completed the temp was about 150 degrees in the mash tun. I added 2 quarts of 180 degree water which brought the temp up to 154. I think 2 quarts was too much. My mash temp was much more stable than I thought it would be. I mashed for about 70 minutes and at the end of the mash the temp was 152. During the mash I heated 5 gallons of water to 200 degrees and filled the hot liqueur tank.

The sparge was the part I was most concerned about going into this but went according to plan. It took about 50 minutes to get a little over 7 gallons of wort.

I started the burner for the boil at 5:38 PM and the hot break happened at 5:56 PM. After 30 minutes I added the 1oz of Hallertau and continued boiling. With 5 minutes remaining I added spanish moss and the wort chiller.

Then I connected the wort chiller to the garden hose and this is where I had an issue. I turned on the water and the hose entering the wort chiller blew off. Fortunately it also blew out of the brew kettle so I didn't get much hose water into the wort. I decided to get all the ice out of ice machine and put it into a cooler and set the kettle into the cooler. After an hour or so all the ice had melted but the kettle was still hot (160 degrees). I decided to transfer the wort to the fermentor and place it in my fermentation fridge over night to cool down. This morning the carboy was at 73 degrees so I pitched the S-05. I am fermenting at 68 degrees. My OG was 1.044 so it looks like I hit 75% efficiency. Here are some pics:

 

[Puddlethumper]

Well I finally got everything together and did this brew yesterday afternoon. I started later than I should have and the process took MUCH longer than I had initially thought. Overall things went smoother than I feared but I did have a couple of hickups along the way. Here is the recipe that I settled on:

Congrats and that's a nice looking batch of beer in your carboy. Good job.

I did a batch of this recipe this afternoon. And yes, it does take longer than many other recipes. For some reason the extra 30 minutes in the boil seems to make the whole brew day disproportionately longer. Ahh well, it will be an enjoyable brew in a few weeks!

Cheers!

 

[snail71]

I was anxious to get off work yesterday and see if those yeast were up to anything. I was surprised to see that after only 12 hours they had been busy. I didn't even rehydrate the yeast. Just pitched in the carboy and shook it up for a while and then back into the fridge. Does this pick look like all is well?

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

That's awesome man! Everything looks great to me but I am by no means a ruling entity lol. I'll probably snag your recipe my friend!

 

[Puddlethumper]

I was anxious to get off work yesterday and see if those yeast were up to anything. I was surprised to see that after only 12 hours they had been busy. I didn't even rehydrate the yeast. Just pitched in the carboy and shook it up for a while and then back into the fridge. Does this pick look like all is well?

If that pic was taken 12 hours into fermentation then everything looks totally normal to me. What yeast strain did you use and what temp are you fermenting it at?

 

[aprichman]

IMO the top of that beer looks oddly chunky, probably some protein or trub floating on top?

One suggestion would be to hook up your temperature controller's probe directly to the carboy and insulate it from the outside environment.

 

[carloscede2]

I did a beer like that that Im currently drinking and I feel like its a bit lite for me, 4.5% and used 1.5 oz of Hallertauer at 60 and 0.5 at 15, also felt like the bitterness was pretty low too. Its only been 2 weeks in the bottle but hopefully it becomes better over time

 

[Spyk'd]

One suggestion would be to hook up your temperature controller's probe directly to the carboy and insulate it from the outside environment.

Or place the probe in some kind of liquid. Air and liquid conduct heat/cooling at different rates.

 

[aprichman]

Or place the probe in some kind of liquid. Air and liquid conduct heat/cooling at different rates.

While putting the probe in liquid works, it doesn't do a very good job at keeping fermentation temperatures steady.

 

[snail71]

If that pic was taken 12 hours into fermentation then everything looks totally normal to me. What yeast strain did you use and what temp are you fermenting it at?

The yeast was SA-05. My controller is set to 68 degrees. I put thermometer on the carboy day before yesterday and it always shows 69 degrees. The temp controller is doing a good job regulating the temp in the fridge so I'm not worried about that. Knowing that the beer is staying about 1 degree warmer than the chamber, next time I will adjust for it.

The airlock was bubbling every couple of seconds and it smelled like beer when I opened the fridge.

Here it is as of last night:

 

[Puddlethumper]

The yeast was SA-05. My controller is set to 68 degrees. I put thermometer on the carboy day before yesterday and it always shows 69 degrees. The temp controller is doing a good job regulating the temp in the fridge so I'm not worried about that. Knowing that the beer is staying about 1 degree warmer than the chamber, next time I will adjust for it.

The airlock was bubbling every couple of seconds and it smelled like beer when I opened the fridge.

You are spot-on Bud. Ought to be a good beer!

Cheers!

 

[aprichman]

When fermentation kicks off you won't be 1 degree above ambient temps, also that thermometer is not insulated from the outside environment which makes the 69F somewhat meaningless. At the very least you should have the fermentation chamber around 62F but I have trouble figuring out why you would go through all the trouble of making a decent beer and then be too lazy to tape the temperature probe to the side of the carboy for proper temperature control. To each their own I guess.

 

[Cain]

When fermentation kicks off you won't be 1 degree above ambient temps, also that thermometer is not insulated from the outside environment which makes the 69F somewhat meaningless. At the very least you should have the fermentation chamber around 62F but I have trouble figuring out why you would go through all the trouble of making a decent beer and then be too lazy to tape the temperature probe to the side of the carboy for proper temperature control. To each their own I guess.

Maybe he isn't lazy, and just doesn't know as much as you do...
Perhaps that's why he came on to this site,asking for help,and admitting he was doing his first batch of all grain beer.

 

[imrook]

You'll be very pleased with this beer. It was also my first AG batch and I got lots of compliments on it. I prefer to ferment US-05 on the cool side (60-62), but I like my beers squeaky clean. I'm curious why you didn't re-hook the hose up to the wort chiller. The reason AG brewers use wort chillers is because ice baths take too damn long with that kind of volume. Congrats on the beer.

 

[snail71]

but I have trouble figuring out why you would go through all the trouble of making a decent beer and then be too lazy to tape the temperature probe to the side of the carboy for proper temperature control. To each their own I guess.

Let me fill you in a some details that I didn't already include. I am an electrical engineer with 20+ years of controls experience. The reason that the temperature probe is not attached to the carboy is because I am logging the chamber temperature throughout a fermentation cycle. My controller is an Arduino that I wrote the code for myself. I have an SD card that the data is being written to. I am also going to add a second temperature sensor so that I can have a chamber temp sensor and a fermentor temperature sensor. I will at that time be attaching it to the carboy. This first batch of beer is a learning experience in terms of the all grain mashing process, boiling, fermenting, etc...

And lastly let me assure you that I am far from lazy! Thanks for your concern.

I'm curious why you didn't re-hook the hose up to the wort chiller. The reason AG brewers use wort chillers is because ice baths take too damn long with that kind of volume. Congrats on the beer.

It was already a long day. I was also concerned that it wouldn't stay attached. This is one of the cheap wort chillers that has the hose clamped to the copper tubing. I plan to flare the copper tubing and add a fitting to make sure this doesn't happen again.

 

[Puddlethumper]

Let me fill you in a some details that I didn't already include.

FWIW, I assumed you were monitoring the temperature of the beer not the ambient temperature of the space surrounding it. You may be assured that +/- 1 F isn't critical in the finished quality of the beer. That 1F you are seeing is probably nothing more than the temp controller's preset tolerance for variance. After the first 72-96 hrs. the initial fermentation will be winding down and the beer will assume the ambient temperature surrounding the fermentation vessel.

That being said, 68-69 F is not too warm for US-05. There have been a number of posts, in fact an entire thread on this forum, from brewers who found this yeast to throw diacetyl flavors when fermented too cool. So on that point I would take issue with anyone suggesting sub-65F for this yeast. Great for Nottingham, not so great for US-05. Now this will probably start a shouting match of, "I've done it for years and the beers have always been great". So be it. Ultimately you have to figure out some of the finer points as you go along ... you pay your money and then you can take your choice.

Cheers!

 

[jcav]

Congrat's, I'd say your well on your way my friend! Especially for your first all grain batch. Gonna be a tasty brew!

John

 

[Puddlethumper]

Congrat's, I'd say your well on your way my friend! Especially for your first all grain batch. Gonna be a tasty brew!

John

Followed your link. Great looking brewing rig. Well done!

 

[snail71]

Is it possible this brew is finished? It has been 8 days since pitching and hardly any airlock activity anymore. I don't have a thief to get a sample to check gravity. I guess I could use the racking cane and siphon off a little to check it. Or should I just wait til this weekend and take a sample while transferring to bottling bucket?

 

[PapaFoxtrot]

Is it possible this brew is finished? It has been 8 days since pitching and hardly any airlock activity anymore.

I've done CTC prob'ly five times now. One week of furious activity is about right. I usually let it go two weeks in primary and bottle condition for two weeks. It hits its prime(IMO anyway) after about 4 weeks in the bottle.

Sounds like you're doing fine.

 

[Puddlethumper]

Is it possible this brew is finished? It has been 8 days since pitching and hardly any airlock activity anymore. I don't have a thief to get a sample to check gravity. I guess I could use the racking cane and siphon off a little to check it. Or should I just wait til this weekend and take a sample while transferring to bottling bucket?

The only way to know for certain is to take an SG sample. If you don't have a hydrometer I would strongly suggest that you invest in one, a sampling jar and wine thief as absolutely necessary brewing tools.

With that in mind: Airlocks lie. Do not, under any circumstances, form opinions or make decisions based on airlock activity. Period. If you can't take gravity samples then do increase the temperature by a couple of degrees (70-72F) and leave the beer alone for another week. In most cases the beer will have finished and be safe to bottle. Better yet, buy a hydrometer and sample jar and find out what the gravity is. Then post your recipe, fermentation time and temp and gravity reading here. There are some pretty knowlegable people here who can help take a guess with you.

Cheers!

 

[snail71]

Bottled this one up on Saturday. I grabbed a sample in the test jar while transferring to bottling bucket. FG down to 1.005. I could not believe how great this tasted straight out of the fermentor. I had a huge amount of trub. So much that I only ended up with 46 - 12 ounce bottles. I can't wait for this bottle condition so I can try it carbed up.

 

[snail71]

Finally got to drink my first brew. It turned out great . What's even better is that SWMBO liked it as well and she usually only goes for fruit beers or something like Mich Ultra. I will be brewing this one again for sure.

 

[HomeDrewBrew]

Would Pale Ale malt be a wise choice with this recipe?.
Just curious if anyones tried it at all for the 2 row sub.

 

[Puddlethumper]

Would Pale Ale malt be a wise choice with this recipe?.
Just curious if anyones tried it at all for the 2 row sub.

It would be an interesting experiment. Pale Ale Malt is usually a little darker than Domestic 2 Row and will have a little more candy/sweetness to it. The resulting beer would probably be a little sweeter and a point or two darker. I'm not sure I would care for it in this recipe because part of the appeal is the dryness that lends a sort of refreshing crispness to the beer. But the old YMMV jumps up here as everyone has their own take on what they like so it may produce a wonderful beer for some palettes.

If you decide to make up a batch please post the results here as I, for one, would be very interested in the outcome.

Cheers!