Took my second attempt at a blonde ale over the weekend. It’s the blonde ale recipe from the book “Brewing Classic Styles”. My first attempt left with way off the mark with my gravity readings. I’m scaling the recipes down to an all grain 1 gallon batch. I’ve learned you can’t just scale down proportionally …. it’s doesn’t work like that.
You have to know your specific measurements for equipment loss, grain absorptions, and boil off rate. So I made some adjustments to the second batch and ended up with an original gravity of 1.050, right where I want to be. This picture is right after putting the wort into the first fermentor.
The basic recipe is as follows.
Blonde Ale (all grain, 1gallon)
- 3.2 lbs – 2 Row
- 2 oz – Crystal Malt 20º
- 6 grams – Willamette Hops
- Safale – 04 yeast
Update -12/30/09
Drank the whole batch of these. Probably the best beer I’ve made overall. Still not satisfied with it though. I plan on brewing a third batch of blonde ale in the near future.
This is my first shot at making wine. I used a quart and a half of boiled down raspberries, and added water and 1 extra cup of sugar to make 3 quarts.
I let it sit in the primary fermentor for a week, and racked it into a secondary to clear it out. It’s been in the secondary for over a month. Maybe this weekend I’ll give it a taste.
I used this guys directions, worked like a charm.
He even list the part numbers so it couldn’t be much easier.
One word of warning is he makes an edit half way down the list on the stainless steel ¼” hose clamps. I didn’t read the warning and bought them anyways.
Now I just have to decide what I’m going to brew next.
The latest batch is an American Wheat. Thats the one of the right in the big carboy. This picture is about 12 hours after brewing, so it’s still cloudy because it’s not done fermenting.
It’s a version from John Palmer’s Wheat Recipe in his book “How To Brew“.
I made some slight changes, first I used the details for all grain. then scaled it down to 3 gallons. I used a dry wheat yeast, and cut back on the hops.
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Brew Details
3 gallon batch
All grain – single infusion mash
Grain Bill
3 lb America 2 Row
2 lbs Malted Wheat
Hops
1 oz Liberty (60 minute boil)
Yeast
7 grams wheat (Safale 04 dry yeast)
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Anchor Brewing Company – Liberty Ale
This one took first place for me. A light refreshing ale with enough hops to taste but not enough to over power your sences. I’ll be on the look out for a 6 pack of this.
Abita Beer – Purple Haze
An American Wheat Beer with fresh Raspberry Puree. Clean, with a lightly tart raspberry taste in the front of the mouth, a crisp wheat taste in the back of the throat. Good but not amazing. I might buy this again but wouldn’t go out of my way to find it.
Old Speckled Hen
I haven’t had one of these for a couple of years. although a buddy of mine is considering brewing a batch soon. I enjoyed it, big malt taste with a nice fruity aroma.
Belle’s – Kalamazoo Stout
When I say this is a full bodied beer, I’m not joking around. This one was recommended from a coworker as his favorite beer. I can’t say i enjoyed it that much. If this stuff was any thicker it could power a car.
Pete’s Wicked Ale
ruby colored ale, with a smell of sweet roasted malts, a hint of caramelized malt, and a hint of nuttiness.
Magic Hat – Lucky Kat IPA
A Hoppy IPA coming in with 58 IBU’s. I really liked this one second to Liberty Ale. My advice get this one as cold as you can, it taste better, it’s cleaner and crisp. As it warms up the flavors start getting a little muddy for me.
Sam Adam’s – Cream Stout
This is the first time I’ve had a cream stout. I like the roasted chocolate and caramel malts. It pours a dark mahogany color, with a nice head.
I found a recipe for a clone of Magic Hat #9 in the book Clone Brews. I couldn’t resist making this Apricot Ale. I made a few changes, like instead of cascade hops I used Columbus hops, thats what I had. And I didn’t use Irish moss.
I made a 3 gallon batch which should give me about 22 bottles.
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Grain Bill
5 lb British 2 Row
5 oz Crystal Malt
3.5 oz Wheat Malt
Hops
1 oz Tettnanger (60 minute boil)
.15 oz Wilamette (last 15 minutes of boil)
.15 oz Columbus (last 15 minutes of boil)
Yeast
5 grams American Ale (Safale dry yeast)
Other
1.75 oz Apricot Extract (add to second fermentor)
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Just got this book from amazon. I’ve had my eye on it for awhile thanks to this guy.
It opens the door on creativity about what you can and can’t brew. It’s easy to get stuck in the mind frame of you have to use barley as your base malt. This book is opening my imagination to what could be possible.
However this book is not a good source for recipes! I feel a lot of them are inaccurate. But the author comes from a historical point of view not from a brewing point of view. So if your goal is accurate historical recipes, this is not the book for you.
I happen to love the the flow of the book. It takes a bigger focus on the cultures that these ancient beers come from, and how these cultures were influenced by making them.
When I’m finished with the book I plan on brewing something inspired by the book.
It’s been a couple weeks since I bottled the blackberry Wit, so I cracked one open last night, took a drink and poured it down the drain. It was horrible, like a alcoholic sour patch kid!
Needless to say I was very disappointed, I felt like I had a good brew. I was looking for what went wrong and I think I put my fruit in at the wrong time. I put the blackberry jam in the boil, and them put whole blackberries in the fermenter.
From what I’ve read you need to wait till the primary fermentation is done then rack the wort into a secondary fermenter with the lam and whole berries. By adding them into the primary fermenter all the sugars from the berries are ate by they yeast leaving a sour taste.
I cleaned out my grain bin the other night. I really wanted to brew so I used a little bit of whatever I had left.
I know techincailly I didn’t brew a Weizenbock, but it’s similar, I think.
Grain Bill:
1 lb red Wheat (Unmalted)
.5 lb Marris Otter
.5 Cups White Wheat Malt
.5 Cups Special B
.25 Cups Roasted Barley
Hops:
4 grams Styrian Goldings
Yeast:
Safale – American Ale
A buddy at work just gave me a Hallertau plant.
Hallertau is a noble hop most commonly used for brewing beer. It’s the common hop found in German wheat beer, and might just be my favorite.
The term noble hops traditionally refers to varieties of hop which are low in bitterness and high in aroma
The hop plant is a vigorous climbing herbaceous perennial, usually grown up strings like green beans.
It probably won’t produce any hops this year, but man I can’t wait till next spring.
