Cream Ale Recipe
We ran a content poll a few days back and readers want to see more recipe posts…among other things. Here’s a cream ale recipe I created last spring.
4 lbs. American 2-row Pale
0.25 lbs. American Caramel 10°L
3 lbs. Dry Extra Light Extract
0.50 lbs. Flaked Corn
0.5 oz. Cluster Pellets boiled 60 min.
0.5 oz. Cascade Pellets boiled 15 min.
WYeast 1056 American Ale
I followed a partial mash procedure for this recipe. The American 2 row malt was placed in a gallon size ziploc bag and Mike and I crushed it using a rolling pin. Since there was 4 pounds of the stuff, we had to crush it in shifts. We placed the 2 row in 2 gallon cylindrical beverage cooler along with the caramel malt (I crushed that too) and the flaked maize (yeah, corn). 5.5 quarts of 160 degree water was poured into the cooler to reach the mashing temperature of 149 degrees. The grains sat in the cooler for an hour. After an hour was up, I took the cover off the cooler. Mike has a sweet strainer which I placed over the top of my kettle. I poured all the contents of the cooler into the strainer; the liquid past through to the kettle and grains stayed in the strainer.
Nice.
While the mash was resting, I heated 2 gallons of water in another pot to 170 degrees. I poured this water over the grains in the strainer slowing. Mike told me this step was called ‘rinsing the grains’. I filled the kettle with water to get it to the 5 gallon mark.
The boil lasted for 60 minutes. I added the hops at the beginning of the boil and with 15 minutes to go. We used the wort chiller to cool the wort to 70 degrees and I added the smack pack of yeast.
Primary fermentation lasted for 1 week and the beer was cold conditioned in Mike’s fridge for 2 months.
O.G: 1.040
F.G: 1.009
The beer was light in color, very clean tasting but more flavorful compared to say a Bud Light. It wasn’t as clear as I wanted it to be, so next time I will boil it for 90 minutes. Also, I will probably use only Cluster hops in the future.
I will put up a style profile for Cream Ale soon.
on October 3rd, 2007 at 11:33 am
Why would you only use Cluster in the future? I enjoy the clean bitterness of Cascade but did it give the beer too much of a pine flavor/aroma? Also, did you use any fining agents? Do you think this would help with the clarity issue?
on October 3rd, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I would use only Cluster in the future for a few different reasons. From the research I have done on the style, this is one of the only styles created in America…so I thought Cluster would make it more “American” because it’s the variety with the longest history of it being grown here in the States. So, it’s more of an authenticity thing than a taste thing. When I post my style profile, we’ll learn that not much is known about cream ales because a lot of the information about how they were brewed and what ingredients were used was lost due to Prohibition….so even my authenticity platform is shaky.
The second reason is that I feel Cascade is used a lot by microbreweries and home brewers and I wanted to do something different.
It would be interesting just to understand the Cluster hop profile to see if I like it since I really don’t have much experience with it (that I know of).
Lastly, The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) style guidelines states that the hop aroma should be low to none. The Cascade hops may produce too much aroma…but I could probably control that by when I put them into the boil. So, maybe this is a moot point…since the guidelines are based on what little we know of the style.
I used some Irish Moss in the boil when I brewed it last spring. I guess it didn’t work well enough. When I brew this beer again, I’ll take the 90 minute boil approach like I mentioned. If I still have clarity problems, I probably break down and add PolyClar to the secondary fermentation vessel.
on October 5th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
[…] for themseleves. Beer styles seem to be based on what people had around them. If you look at my cream ale recipe, I use flaked maize. You can’t get a more American grain than that, right? Heck, if I […]