First, a little background on the cranberry ale, this is the second cranberry ale I am attempting. The first cranberry ale was a standard pale ale recipe that I added crushed cranberries to the primary fermenter. It turned out all right, but I wanted to change it up a bit. The wheat base I thought would help the cranberries shine through. As for the blonde ale, I wanted to have my hand a simple pale ale. A blonde is type of pale ale, that has the appearance of a straw-blonde.
Cranberry Wheat Ale:
6 Gallons
IBU: 21.55
ABV: 7.2%
Ingredients:
Grains:
5 lbs Red Wheat, 3.3L
5 lbs 2-Row - Pale, 2
2 lbs 2-Row - Pilsen, 1L
1 lbs Light Crystal, 10L
Hops:
1 oz Vangard (AA 5%) @ 60 minutes
0.25 oz Vangard (AA 5%) @ 5 minutes
Additions:
1 tsp irish moss @ 10 minutes
0.5 oz orange peel, bitter @ 10 minutes
0.5 oz Crushed Juniper berries @ 5 minutes
66 oz crushed cranberries
Secondary Fementer:
0.5 oz crushed juniper berries
6 oz crushed cranberries
Note: These are to be added once the beer has been transferred to the secondary. Let it sit in the secondary for at least 2 weeks or until flavor is achieved. Will be updating this beer. I just wanted to add in here that there will be some secondary additions.
Yeast:
WLP300, Hefeweizen
Note: Made starter day before.
Mash: 2-step protein develop (90 minute mash)
Protein rest: 3.25 gallons (13 quarts) of 130F water added to grains. Let sit for 30 minutes. Target to get a temperature around 122F to get the grains to extract necessary proteins for fermentation and head retention.
Mash: Add 1.625 gallons (6.5 quarts) of 212 F water added to the mash. Stabilize to 152F let sit for 60 minutes.
Sparge: Mash out after 60 minutes and sparge with 3.5 gallons of 181 F water.
Target pre-boil gravity and yield: 1.059 of 8.3 gallons
Actual yield: 1.037 of 6.5 gallons.
Boil for 60 minutes, add hops and additions per schedule. Post boil gravity reading 1.045 and 5 gallons of wort.
Note: For the future, I would place the bucket in an ice bath after 30 minutes to cool it faster. It took 5-6 hours before the wort cooled to pitching temperature.
Once cooled, I added the yeast starter and placed in the beer closet.
Blonde Ale #1
Note: This recipe is called Blonde Ale #1 because I plan to duplicate this recipe but with different hop additions to see the difference in the flavors that will be imparted.
5.5 Gallons
IBU: 22.3
ABV: 4.6%
Ingredients:
Grains:
7 lbs 2-Row - Pale, 2L
0.5 lbs Vienna, 4L
0.75 lbs CaraPils, 1.5L
0.5 lbs Light Crystal, 10L
Hops:
0.5 oz Challenger (AA 7%) @ 60 minutes
0.25 oz Challenger (AA 7%) @ 30 minutes
0.25 oz Cluster (AA 7.9%) @ 20 minutes
0.25 oz Cluster (AA 7.9%) @ 5 minutes
Additions:
1 tsp irish moss @ 10 minutes
Yeast:
Wyeast 1056: American Ale
Note: No Starter.
Mash: Single step Infusion (60 minute mash)
Mash: Strike 3.5 gallons of 163 F water added to the mash. Stabilize to 158F let sit for 60 minutes.
Sparge: Mash out after 60 minutes and sparge with 4 gallons of 181 F water.
Target pre-boil gravity and yield: 1.047 of 8.3 gallons
Actual yield: 1.035 of 6 gallons.
Boil for 60 minutes, add hops and additions per schedule. Post boil gravity reading 1.035 and 5 gallons of wort. I added 1/2 gallon of cold water post boil to bring it up to 5.5 gallons. This brought down the gravity and for the future, I wont add water to make up for lack of wort.
Cool to pitching temperature and pitch yeast.
I designed a wort chiller that I thought would be good. I had a tube in a bucket of ice water. It turns out, there needs to be a longer tube to be a more effective heat exchanger. I will stick with the immersion wort chiller for now. I had to let it cool naturally which also took a while to cool (~5 hours).
So how did I accomplish a double brew day by 2pm? Well I started at 6am, cleaned all the equipment. At 8 am I started the mash for the cranberry wheat. Once I mashed out, I had heated up strike and sparge water for the blonde ale. After the mash out, the water was place in the hot liquor tank (the top water cooler in the picture at the beginning of this post.) As the boil started for the cranberry wheat, I started the mash for the blonde ale. Because I did not cool the cranberry ale and added it directly to the bucket fermenter on top of the cranberries, I was able to mash out the blonde ale immediately following the end of the boiling of the cranberry wheat ale.
Some notes and final thoughts on this brew day.
My "new" chiller attempt: I made a new chiller for the blonde ale to chill. I wanted to make a chiller that cooled my wort very quickly. I took a bucket and fashioned a ball valve on the bottom similar to the mash ton. I then had a coil of plastic tube coil up to the top. Filled the bucket with ice water and attached the racking siphon to the inlet and siphoned the hot wort through. It definitely needs to be re-engineered and will be another project I will work on. I was attempting a heat exchanger but it didn't turn out too well. It was still pretty hot when it came out. Needs some work. Until I finish the chiller I will have to resort to my old wort chiller.
Cooling the wort: For the cranberry wheat, after about 30 minutes, I should have put it in an ice bath to cool it down faster rather than just waiting on it to cool naturally.
Mashing: To increase efficiency, for the future I will try to mash with slightly more water and try to keep the temperature closer to 152-155F. The yield for the blonde, did not mash out too efficient.
Better Bottle: Do not use as a hot liquor staging area. The 5 gallon better bottle melted to a 3 gallon better bottle when added the strike water to hold for the blonde ale while the cranberry wheat mashed out.
Other than that, everything turned out good or so I hope. We shall see how these beers turn out. Until next time, cheers!
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