August 13, 2007: Company Cream Ale
Company Cream Ale
This a light-bodied cream ale ( ale-equivilent to light American lager ). A full description will be added after tasting. I am shooting for a crisp, clean finish with a light mouthfeel–something that is easy drinking. This beer should turn out like a big version of Rolling Rock. I have never brewed a beer that is this high in gravity or mashed at such a low temperature. I hope that the desired balance comes out. The color is very, very light, around 3-4 SRM.
In this beer, one of the key flavors is DMS. The boil length was reduced to allow for some DMS to remaining the wort. DMS has a half-life of 40 minutes.
Grain Bill
6 lbs Pale 2-row
6 lbs Pilsen ( 2-row) malt
1 lbs Flaked Corn ( maize )
1 lbs 2 oz Table Sugar
OG: 1.066 @ 70% efficiency
Mash: Multi-step
A multistep mash is required because a large portion of the grist is pilsen malt, a moderately modified malt. With a 5-gal capacity igloo-style cooler, multi-rest mashing can be a challenge. If I had more space, I would have conducted the first step with a greater water to grist ratio. After about 40 minutes, I had to draw off one quart of wort from the mash and heat it up to 190 degrees to adjust the mash temperature. I performed a batch sparge and collected seven gallons of wort in total. Be sure to exclude the table sugar from all of your mash calculations.
25 minutes @ 120F R = .8
90 minutes @ 149F ( for conversion ) R = 1.3
Hop Schedule: 75 minute Boil
1 oz Amarillo ( 7.6 AAU ) @ 70 minutes
1 oz Amarillo ( 7.6 AAU ) @ flameout
Yeast and Fermentation
I just used a pack of Munton’s Ale yeast that I rehydrated for 30 minutes before adding to the wort. Visible activity in the airlock was apparent in about three hours ( not bad for dry yeast!) I am going to ferment this as close to 65F as I can, which is some temperature around 70F–It’s in a cold water bath.
Additional Notes:
Due to the capacity of my brewpot, I had withhold about 2 gallons of the wort until after the hot break. The extra wort was added back in at 70 minutes.
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