Busted out a 10 gallon batch last night as the leaves fell around me on a warm Minnesota Autumn evening!
For this beer I took my inspiration from Northern Brewers: Cream Ale kit. This kit was the fifth batch of beer I ever brewed almost 3 years ago now. It turned out really well and the toasty, bready quality was something that I really loved and still remember. I switched it up a bit in that I used Simcoe instead of Cluster hops and I FWH'd it as I thought the fruityness of the Simcoe would work well with both yeasts, but still hopefully let the biscuit and honey malt shine. We shall see!
Here are the details:
Crushed the grains really fine (thought I'd get better efficiency but didn't)
Mashed 10 gallons of Nordeast Mpls tap for 60 minutes at 153 degrees
Sparged 6 gallons of Nordeast Mpls tap for 15 minutes at 169 degrees
Used 5.2 stabalizer
Collected 13.5 gallons
malt & fermentables
Original Gravity
1.040
Final Gravity
1.007 - American Ale @65 degrees
1.009 - Belgian Ardennes @65 degrees
1.009 - Belgian Ardennes @65 degrees
Color
5° SRM
Mash Efficiency
68%(crap!)
My tap water is actually still really warm because of the unusually warm fall weather in Mpls, so I could only get the wort down to 77 degrees. I decided to put the carboys in my lagering chamber. I taped the temperature probe to the side of one carboy and set the Johnson Temp control to 65 degrees with the lid slightly open. I'm hoping that I have a nice solid fermentation going in both vessels when I get home from work today.
I pitched each carboy with different yeast as glorified yeast starters. I've been wanting to brew a Houblon Chouffe type beer for over a year now, so I pitched Belgian Ardennes 3522 yeast onto 5 gallons to get a nice supply ready for my Belgian Tripel/DIPA that I'll be brewing in a few weeks. I also pitched American Ale II onto the other 5 gallons and I'll most likely be brewing another version of The Chronic in a few weeks. ***Update..American Ale II didn't get started (old smack pack) after 24 hours so am pitching 1056 tonight!
Rant: Most of you are brewing Stouts right now, but me, me...I'm brewing a session beer. I also have a bunch of ECY (East Coast Yeast) I recently acquired so I'll be brewing a bunch of sour beer very soon. In planning is a 10 gallon batch of Lambic (half on ECY Lambic Blend and half on my 3rd generation yeast cake from my Flanders Red Project). Also, I will brewing another Flanders 5 gallon batch and Pitching ECY Flanders Blend. Then, I'll be doing a 10 gallon split batch of Saison, half with the American Farmhouse blend (The Lost Abbey blend) and half with the ECY Saison Blend!
I'm not too familiar with the Cream Ale style, do you have any commercial examples you recommend?
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm jealous of your ECY brews coming up.
I guess the best example I can think of is New Glarus Spotted Cow. You can literally find Spotted Cow in every bar, restaurant, gas station, anywhere they can sell beer in Wisconsin you'll see Spotted Cow.
ReplyDeleteCream Ales will never get rave reviews on Beer Advocate, but they are a nice easy sessionable beer. I like this one because it's simple and biscuit and honey mail have that bready aroma and flavor kinda like a small light Biere de Garde.
It's a good beer to get non-craft beer drinkers to start thinking about real ale! I'll most likely keg these up and serve them at parties and drink them as fresh as possible and by the pitcher!
I'm sooo frickin pumped about my ECY's as well. I really wanna get my hands on the newest one, ECY20 BugCounty, which they say is the Mother Bugger!
Houblon Chouffe type beer! Awesome, that sounds amazing. Are you planning to blend 2 beers or ferment an IPA with the Belgian yeast? Thats what Im doing right now with a Belgian Tripel/IPA. Really looking forward to trying it. Cheers,
ReplyDeleteBB
Blending the beers I mean, not fermenting an IPA with a Belgian.
ReplyDeleteI love that damn Houblon Chouffe, although for some reason I feel like they changed their recipe. I first had it a year or so ago, and then revisited it a couple months ago and it didn't have the same hop punch I had remembered. I won't be blending, I plan on brewing it as a Belgian Triple but then using a lot of late addition hops and dry hops that (hopefully) compliment the Belgian Ardennes yeast!
ReplyDelete