Cream Ale, next up.

I tried one of these a few months back with mixed results. Mostly I had some carbonation issues. Not sure what went on, but I'm ready to take another stab at it. I got lots of great feedback on my Amber Ale recipe, so figured I'd get some feedback on this one BEFORE I buy the ingredients

Making 3.5 gallons (mash plus a little DME to hit OG)

5lbs American 6-row
0.25lbs Vienna
0.25lbs Flaked Corn
1lb Light DME

I was planning a stepped mash for this one to get the corn fully converted and a good full fermentation, but I don't know if I really need it:
30 min @ 122F - Protein Rest
15 min @ 140F - Beta Rest
40 min @ 158F - Alpha Rest

For hops, I'm thinking Cascade, but am open to good suggestions that would compliment a lighter/drier malt flavor. I'm trying to go for a soft bitterness, and a fullish hop flavor, tending towards floral. Also, going to do a short boil here:
0.5 oz @ 45 min
0.5 oz @ 10 min

Nothing fancy with the fermentation. Wyeast American Ale (I've got the dregs from the Amber, and going to try to re-pitch). Not going to rack into secondary, but I do want to try clarifying with gelatin to see if I can get 'er to sparkle.

Looks good to me man. I'd not bother with step-mash, though. It's up to you, of course, but I'd just do 60 min at 150-152 and mash out.
Cascades are good for a cream ale IMO. My first all-grain brew was cascade cream ale, and I used a full oz at 60 and 10 min. Turned out great With your lower volumes, I think your current recipe is pretty good.

BTW, I'm getting ready to mash out an American Pale Ale, I'm brewin' right now. Finally, a brew day! And also gonna keg two beers tonight as well.

It's been several weeks of my Amber Ale yeast dregs sitting in the fridge, so I thought I would give them a little wake-me-up snack. I disolved about 3 tbsp of DME into 2 cups of water, sterilized and pured it on. WOW! They are still very much alive in there. I damn near overflowed my little 1/2gal starter container.

Finally brewed this recipe today!!

Ended up with 3.75 gal at 1.060 OG.

Should be 15.4 IBU by my calculations, and colored about 4 or 5 SRM.

Given the large population of yeast going in, I'm expecting a fast and fermentation. This may go in the bottles as early as Labor Day.

AstoriaBrewer wrote:I tried one of these a few months back with mixed results. Mostly I had some carbonation issues. Not sure what went on, but I'm ready to take another stab at it. I got lots of great feedback on my Amber Ale recipe, so figured I'd get some feedback on this one BEFORE I buy the ingredients

Making 3.5 gallons (mash plus a little DME to hit OG)

5lbs American 6-row
0.25lbs Vienna
0.25lbs Flaked Corn
1lb Light DME

I was planning a stepped mash for this one to get the corn fully converted and a good full fermentation, but I don't know if I really need it:
30 min @ 122F - Protein Rest
15 min @ 140F - Beta Rest
40 min @ 158F - Alpha Rest

For hops, I'm thinking Cascade, but am open to good suggestions that would compliment a lighter/drier malt flavor. I'm trying to go for a soft bitterness, and a fullish hop flavor, tending towards floral. Also, going to do a short boil here:
0.5 oz @ 45 min
0.5 oz @ 10 min

Nothing fancy with the fermentation. Wyeast American Ale (I've got the dregs from the Amber, and going to try to re-pitch). Not going to rack into secondary, but I do want to try clarifying with gelatin to see if I can get 'er to sparkle.

Wow, good stuff.

Dimik wrote:Looks good to me man. I'd not bother with step-mash, though. It's up to you, of course, but I'd just do 60 min at 150-152 and mash out.
Cascades are good for a cream ale IMO. My first all-grain brew was cascade cream ale, and I used a full oz at 60 and 10 min. Turned out great With your lower volumes, I think your current recipe is pretty good.

BTW, I'm getting ready to mash out an American Pale Ale, I'm brewin' right now. Finally, a brew day! And also gonna keg two beers tonight as well.

Don't you need the step-mash for 6row? I'm really still mostly an extract guy, but I'm getting into AG slowly, starting with BIAB, but I thought only two row you could do the one temp infusion.

I did end up doing a step mash here, but I dropped the protein rest and reduced it to two: 140F & 158F. About 30-45 min at each. Had to do a decoction because I mash in a 2gal cooler and I didn't have the head room for more water. Checked for starch with tincture of iodine after about 90 min total mash time, and it came up clean.

Bottles have been carbonating all week, so it should be ready for drinking this weekend!

Nice, I really want to make a cream ale soon. Just bottled up this baby! Tasted pretty good, I really want to nail down a great APA. Efficiency was a bit low due to a weird sparging.

malt & fermentables
% LB OZ MALT OR FERMENTABLE PPG °L
65% 8 0 British Pale (Maris Otter) 37 3
29% 3 8 Munich Malt 37 9
6% 0 12 Crystal 60L 34 60
12 4
Batch size: 5.0 gallons
Original Gravity
1.061 measured
(1.066 estimated)
Final Gravity
1.017 measured
(1.017 estimated)
Color
12° SRM / 23° EBC
(Copper to Red/Lt. Brown)
Mash Efficiency
68% measured
(75% used for O.G. estimate)
hops
USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA
boil 60 mins 1.0 Simcoe pellet 13.0
boil 30 mins 0.5 Cascade pellet 5.5
boil 15 mins 0.5 Cascade pellet 5.5
boil 5 mins 1.0 Cascade pellet 5.5
boil 1 min 0.5 Cascade pellet 5.5
Boil: 6.0 avg gallons for 60 minutes
Bitterness
64.4 IBU / 13 HBU
ƒ: Tinseth
BU:GU
0.98
yeast
American Ale II
ale yeast in liquid form with high flocculation
Alcohol
5.9% ABV / 5% ABW
(6.5% est. ABV / 5% est. ABW)
Calories
218 per 12 oz.

tabasco wrote:

Dimik wrote:Looks good to me man. I'd not bother with step-mash, though. It's up to you, of course, but I'd just do 60 min at 150-152 and mash out.
Cascades are good for a cream ale IMO. My first all-grain brew was cascade cream ale, and I used a full oz at 60 and 10 min. Turned out great With your lower volumes, I think your current recipe is pretty good.

BTW, I'm getting ready to mash out an American Pale Ale, I'm brewin' right now. Finally, a brew day! And also gonna keg two beers tonight as well.

Don't you need the step-mash for 6row? I'm really still mostly an extract guy, but I'm getting into AG slowly, starting with BIAB, but I thought only two row you could do the one temp infusion.

As far as I know, all grains are so modified that step mash is not needed, especially with American grains. Unless you malt wild barley, or manage to find someone who grow unmodified cultures, step mashing is unnecessary.
I may be wrong, however, but I use 6-row often enough and never stepped.

Dimik wrote:

tabasco wrote:

Dimik wrote:Looks good to me man. I'd not bother with step-mash, though. It's up to you, of course, but I'd just do 60 min at 150-152 and mash out.
Cascades are good for a cream ale IMO. My first all-grain brew was cascade cream ale, and I used a full oz at 60 and 10 min. Turned out great With your lower volumes, I think your current recipe is pretty good.

BTW, I'm getting ready to mash out an American Pale Ale, I'm brewin' right now. Finally, a brew day! And also gonna keg two beers tonight as well.

Don't you need the step-mash for 6row? I'm really still mostly an extract guy, but I'm getting into AG slowly, starting with BIAB, but I thought only two row you could do the one temp infusion.

As far as I know, all grains are so modified that step mash is not needed, especially with American grains. Unless you malt wild barley, or manage to find someone who grow unmodified cultures, step mashing is unnecessary.
I may be wrong, however, but I use 6-row often enough and never stepped.

I believe you, I've just read otherwise. I've read alot of things that are overkill, though, so I'm not surprised. Thanks for the info.

tabasco wrote:

Dimik wrote:

tabasco wrote:

Dimik wrote:Looks good to me man. I'd not bother with step-mash, though. It's up to you, of course, but I'd just do 60 min at 150-152 and mash out.
Cascades are good for a cream ale IMO. My first all-grain brew was cascade cream ale, and I used a full oz at 60 and 10 min. Turned out great With your lower volumes, I think your current recipe is pretty good.

BTW, I'm getting ready to mash out an American Pale Ale, I'm brewin' right now. Finally, a brew day! And also gonna keg two beers tonight as well.

Don't you need the step-mash for 6row? I'm really still mostly an extract guy, but I'm getting into AG slowly, starting with BIAB, but I thought only two row you could do the one temp infusion.

As far as I know, all grains are so modified that step mash is not needed, especially with American grains. Unless you malt wild barley, or manage to find someone who grow unmodified cultures, step mashing is unnecessary.
I may be wrong, however, but I use 6-row often enough and never stepped.

I believe you, I've just read otherwise. I've read alot of things that are overkill, though, so I'm not surprised. Thanks for the info.

It's actually dependent on the Kolbach index, which is batch dependent. I think if it's 40-48% it's fine for infusion mashing. (See New Brewing Lager beer, or the October BYO). If you're buying a sack, you might want to get a spec sheet. If you're not, you might want to ask your brewshop if they can give you a spec sheet.

That said, I think it's a fair assumption that all American and English malts are sufficiently modified unless you specifically bought them to be otherwise. Continental pilsener malts are often sufficiently modified, but they may not be so it's not quite a safe assumption. Probably depends more on brand than batch in that case.