Joining us this week, we have Sarah’s brother Drew and our good friend Paul! We will be brewing a recipe that has gained great acclaim on one of my favorite homebrew web sites:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/centennial-blonde-simple-4-all-grain-5-10-gall-42841/
This is a simple 4% blonde ale, which will a) go from grain to glass quickly, b) be an easy drinking summer beer to quaff as we prepare more brews, and c) give a subtle and open platform to judge the quality of Bmore tap water for future brewing. There is nowhere to hide with this beer in terms of brewing sins and off-flavors, so we will have a chance with this beer to assess the water, ingredients, and process. Without adieu:
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: WLP001
Yeast Starter: none (one vial used)
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.041 (corrected to 60* efrom 1.039 at 80*)
Final Gravity:
IBU: 25?
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 3-4
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
7# 2-row
12oz Carapils
8oz Crystal 10
8oz Vienna
.25oz Centennial at 55min
.25oz Centennial at 35min
.25oz Cascade at 20min
.25oz Cascade at 5min
1 tab whirlfloc at 15min, 1 tsp yeast energizer at 15min, 1 campden tablet in the sparge (not the mash) water
Mashed in with ~3 gallons of 160* water for 150* mash at 10:11am; checked at 10:30: 150*; we checked it at 10:45, and the mash temp read between 140* and 145*, so we pulled about a gallon of thick mash and boiled it, returned it to the mash and it raised the mash temp to 150* (WOOHOO spontaneous decoction kinda)
at 11:15a, added 6 gallons of 183* water, sparged and drew off ~7.5 gallons of wort at 1.037 OG (1.018 corrected to 60* from 153*). Started the boil
12:02p -added .3oz Centennial, 12:25 added .3oz Centennial, 12:40 added .3oz Cascade, 12:55 added .6oz Cascade, 1pm flame out, chilled to 80*, transferred and read OG: 1.039 at 80*, pitched yeast into 5.25 gal beer around 2pm. By noon the next day, we had krausen.
8/5/13 – gravity reading at 1.05, giving an ABV of 4.7%. I think it’s time to bottle!
8/16/13 – bottled with Paul, taste was a bit questionable. The batch yielded 40 bottles and 2 flip-top EatWell Softer bottles (11oz?)
9/2/13 – tasted … weird. Maybe like chlorine. (booo). This might be the finding of the experiment. As confirmed by Paul, Drew, and Sarah, at the very least it doesn’t taste right, but Paul independently offered an interpretation of “chloriney” which might be the death of this batch. I’ll sample across time to see if it ages out.