Blonde Ale Miller Lite (Really Triple Hopped)

[binaryc0de]

haha... My father-in-Law (a non-drinker) saw my chiller and thought I was distilling. Which I believe is illegal in my state without a permit, but oh well.

 

[BigB]

LOL. Funny, I think they do I think I am up to something illegal everytime I brew... well at least they used to... Until one day a very good friend of mine who is a police officer stopped by on duty with a marked patrol car and stood around for about 15 minutes while I brewed. He then came back a little while later after work and had some brews while I finished up brewing. The neighbors don't stick their nose through the blinds anymore!

 

[Blauvelt]

I made this damn beer. It would have been utterly fantastic if I had of used a different yeast or fermented at lower temps. This is my first negative beer when using Nottingham yeast. I must have fermented it too high because it smells very strange and it tastes like I just dumped a tablespoon of ground cloves into my glass.

I was really looking forward to this beer and I am a little disappointed by the yeast. It is far from undrinkable and still a very good beer, but I shouldn't have cheaped out on the yeast. My lhbs was out of US-05.

I have made IPA's and 1 stout with nottingham yeast and not noticed the weird esters/phenols. Has anyone tried a Nottingham for a lighter beer like this and had good results?

 

[Schlenkerla]

I made this damn beer. It would have been utterly fantastic if I had of used a different yeast or fermented at lower temps. This is my first negative beer when using Nottingham yeast. I must have fermented it too high because it smells very strange and it tastes like I just dumped a tablespoon of ground cloves into my glass.

I was really looking forward to this beer and I am a little disappointed by the yeast. It is far from undrinkable and still a very good beer, but I shouldn't have cheaped out on the yeast. My lhbs was out of US-05.

I have made IPA's and 1 stout with nottingham yeast and not noticed the weird esters/phenols. Has anyone tried a Nottingham for a lighter beer like this and had good results?

I have, but not this light. How old is your beer? I'd let it cold condition for a little while. I take it you did the AE in the 2ndary. Right?

 

[munche]

I'm going to brew a scaled up version of this this weekend:

Miller GD (3x Hops) - Lite American Lager
================================================================================
Batch Size: 5.000 gal
Boil Size: 5.750 gal
Boil Time: 0.000 s
Efficiency: 75%
OG: 1.043
FG: 1.009
ABV: 4.5%
Bitterness: 22.6 IBUs (Tinseth)
Color: 6 SRM (Mosher)

Fermentables
================================================================================
Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Corn, Flaked Grain 2.500 lb Yes No 80% 1 L
Pale Malt (2 Row) US Grain 3.000 lb Yes No 79% 2 L
Pale Malt (6 Row) US Grain 2.500 lb Yes No 76% 2 L

Hops
================================================================================
Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Cascade 6.0% 1.000 oz Boil 1.000 hr Pellet 22.6
Cascade 6.0% 1.330 oz Aroma 0.000 s Pellet 0.0
Cascade 6.0% 1.330 oz Dry Hop 0.000 s Pellet 0.0


Anyone see any glaring reason this will come out bad? Should I up the hops a bit more?

 

[Schlenkerla]

Your version looks good, its slightly higher OG takes it more up there to be like Miller High Life. Your ibu is also higher. Lite is more is more like 16-18 ibu. As it is it will be good, less close to lite though. Depends if you want to make it for the BMC crowd. My original recipe comes from Charlie Papazian.

 

[munche]

Your version looks good, its slightly higher OG takes it more up there to be like Miller High Life. Your ibu is also higher. Lite is more is more like 16-18 ibu. As it is it will be good, less close to lite though. Depends if you want to make it for the BMC crowd. My original recipe comes from Charlie Papazian.

Miller High Life is actually right what I was going for. I'll lose some beer snob cred for this, but I actually enjoy MHL quite a bit, and I figured making a hoppy version of it would be right up my alley. I just figure in a beer that's light it's going to be very sensitive so I'm a bit less gung ho about my hop additions/schedule.

 

[Blauvelt]

I have, but not this light. How old is your beer? I'd let it cold condition for a little while. I take it you did the AE in the 2ndary. Right?

The beer is about 5 weeks in the bottle. I did not do AE in secondary, because I couldn't find it anywhere in the great city of Halifax. I did an extra long mash with rests at 115, 131, 145 and 154. This worked out really well because I got the FG down to 1.002. Underneath all the Nottingham yeast chemicals you can tell it was originally and awesome beer.

I will attempt to cold condition this beer, but It will go quickly if the whole lot is left in the refrigerator. at this point, will cold conditioning make any noticeable difference? how long should I "lager" this?

 

[Schlenkerla]

Try as little as two weeks. You could see a change almost weekly. I think you are right in that it might not last long once it gets some age and some time to lager in the bottle. Believe it not, miracles happen with time.

I once had a pale ale that desolved a fine steel mesh screen. It tasted very metallic. Pretty much undrinkable, but two months later I couldn't detect the off metallic taste. It seemed perfectly normal. Whodathunkit was possible?

Cold conditioning works miracles, although its not usually required for this beer.

 

[BigB]

Here is mine after a second round of carbonation... finally better, but still tastes nothing like Miller and more like Corona.

 

[binaryc0de]

I found out how to make this taste more like corona (Just tried it today)... Just sit a bottle out in the sun for 15 mins or so on a summer day, refrigerate and pure skunk corona

 

[Schlenkerla]

BigB- I wonder if the base malt changes this?

Specificly the brand. Mine have been very similar to miller. There are several 2-row, 6-row varieties. Other variables are quanty used and the kilning. The grain bill is small, so it easily impacted by subtle differences in the grain.

How disapointed are you with the results?

 

[haeffnkr]

Hello,
If I want to make this taste as close as possible to Miller Lite, I would just add Hallertua (spelling?) hops to the mash for 60 minutes and then what, if anything?

How many oz of hops also please?

thanks Kevin

 

[BigB]

BigB- I wonder if the base malt changes this?

Specificly the brand. Mine have been very similar to miller. There are several 2-row, 6-row varieties. Other variables are quanty used and the kilning. The grain bill is small, so it easily impacted by subtle differences in the grain.

How disapointed are you with the results?

I'm fine with the beer. It is a very easy drinker and the the cascade really gives it that extra little kick. I'll make it again. Maybe what I am tasting is the citrus of the cascade and it reminds me of the lime that people throw into corona. I had several people over yesterday and they all thought it was like corona. I honestly cannot remember the base grain... I just go to my LHBS and ask for the grains. It's probably Breiss though.

 

[Schlenkerla]

Hello,
If I want to make this taste as close as possible to Miller Lite, I would just add Hallertua (spelling?) hops to the mash for 60 minutes and then what, if anything?

How many oz of hops also please?

thanks Kevin

Kevin - Reread the first post. I would suggest doing the 90 minute mash (not 60) and use Hallertauer. If you can get a IBU calcuator use it to tweak the hallertauer alpha acids to get 18 IBUs with a 60 minute boil, plus the 5 minute addition.

If you don't have an IBU calculator use this; http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator

You will need to enter the recipe into the system so it can figure it out. You'll understand it all as you do this. Add more or less hops at 60 minutes. Look at the hop package for the AAU number.

This is on the hop section....

Hops

The range of alpha acid content for each hop variety is shown in the following table. When you select one of the hops, an average value will be entered which will help you determine the approximate quantity required. Once you have the hops in hand, change the alpha acid ratings to the value given by the supplier and adjust hopping rates to reach the desired bitterness

 

[kmk1012]

I will be kegging mine on Thursday, I will be cold conditioning for at least three weeks before drinking!

 

[bafroom]

i saw a bad experience with this beer and notty, but that's all i have and my lhbs price their yeasts like gold (or diamonds maybe)...anybody else have any thoughts on using notty?

 

[munche]

i saw a bad experience with this beer and notty, but that's all i have and my lhbs price their yeasts like gold (or diamonds maybe)...anybody else have any thoughts on using notty?

I'd order half a dozen packets of US-05 from the internet and keep them in the fridge if I were you. They last a while.

 

[bafroom]

I'd order half a dozen packets of US-05 from the internet and keep them in the fridge if I were you. They last a while.

yeah, that's my plan, but i've got to deal with the here and now!

so, should i take that to mean that notty is probably a no go?

 

[Schlenkerla]

i saw a bad experience with this beer and notty, but that's all i have and my lhbs price their yeasts like gold (or diamonds maybe)...anybody else have any thoughts on using notty?

If you can get s05 that would be better. I made a very nice light beer with notty. See my Tasmanian Cascade Pale Ale. Notty is not as clean as s-05 but it will clean up with time. Also on the example you are referring to, he did not use amalyse-enzyme in the 2ndary.

 

[bafroom]

alright, thanks for the input. i'll be putting us 05 onto my next order.

i was looking for a nice, light, lawnmower beer for the summer, and this sure looks just about right. i have a beer that's about done, so i may just pitch this right on the old yeast cake and hope for the best. hopefully overpitching will avoid any esters. perhaps we'll see.

 

[Schlenkerla]

alright, thanks for the input. i'll be putting us 05 onto my next order.

i was looking for a nice, light, lawnmower beer for the summer, and this sure looks just about right. i have a beer that's about done, so i may just pitch this right on the old yeast cake and hope for the best. hopefully overpitching will avoid any esters. perhaps we'll see.

Low esters are easy to achieve at lower fermentation temps. Like 68F to 62F. Try using your basement and possibly use a water soak with wet towels draped over the fermenter. Thats the low cost best option.

 

[bafroom]

Low esters are easy to achieve at lower fermentation temps. Like 68F to 62F. Try using your basement and possibly use a water soak with wet towels draped over the fermenter. Thats the low cost best option.

no basement, but i use a cold water bath (the swamp cooler thing wasn't cutting it) and usually ferment in the low 60's with notty. i haven't had any ester issues since i've done that, which was kind of why i was hoping notty might work.
with that said, notty is one of the only yeasts i've really used a lot (over the past 2 years) so i don't have a whole lot to compare it to. i'd always heard/read that notty and us 05 were pretty similar, especially at low fermentation temps.
unless i run into a good reason not to, i suppose i'll probably try this out with notty. worse case scenario is that i can warn others if it doesn't work out so well, right?
again, thanks for your help, i do appreciate it.

 

[mymbtheduke]

Ok, I tried this again with the following:

Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.00 lb Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess) (1.8 SRM) Grain 42.86 %
2.00 lb Brewers Malt 6-Row (Briess) (1.8 SRM) Grain 28.57 %
1.75 lb Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM) Grain 25.00 %
0.25 lb Caramel Malt - 10L (Briess) (10.0 SRM) Grain 3.57 %
0.25 oz Sorachi Ace [14.00 %] (60 min) Hops 13.0 IBU
1 Pkgs US-05 Yeast-Ale

Somehow I ended up with OG 1.041 and FG 1.004 (was 1.009 until AE)

It is three weeks old and a bit bitter. I want to take this to a weekend party so I am hoping the bitterness will tone down by Sat. Thoughts? Maybe I shouldn't have used Ace but it has been in the freezer for over 12 months so I thought what the heck.

The color is dead on to Miller Lite and Coors. The caramel took care of that. The body is also better with the extra pound of 2 row.

 

[Schlenkerla]

Are you kegging? Its usually a bit harsh if its just freshly been force-carbed. Its seems about two weeks is needed to get it just right.

 

[mymbtheduke]

I will wait. Hopefully it will be good on Saturday.

 

[Schlenkerla]

Check it now!!!!!

 

[Schlenkerla]

I will wait. Hopefully it will be good on Saturday.

Well??? Did you try it yet?

 

[mymbtheduke]

No good. My sister liked it but the rest of us did not. The citrus is just a bit to forward. No biggie. The color and body were perfect so I will try again with Haller.

 

[lschiavo]

Here is my attempt. Just served it at my class reunion. The BMC'ers really took to it. I did the all cascade version. A little chill haze but quite tasty. My five-year-old pulled this one for me after I cut the grass. Nice pour for only 5 eh?