I am planning on doing my first all grain batch in the next week or so and wanted to do something that would be good for tailgating. The people I tailgate with range from beer lovers to Natty Light drinkers and I wanted to try to get something that would be good for as many as possible, and was thinking a lighlty hopped golden would be the ticket. Any body have any recipe’s I could work from, or ideas of what is needed?
Light colored light flavored beers are not easy to get right in my opinion. I’d go with a tried and true APA.
Nov/Dec 2011 Zymurgy has a recipe for English Summer Ale in the Express Brewing article . I recently made it, and it was a big hit with both my craft beer drinking friends as well as the Coors Light drinkers.
Don’t have a recipe in front of me but golden ale is pretty easy. 2 row base (you can blend in some maris otter if you like), little 20L crystal, maybe a bit of Munich or Vienna, blend it all on your recipe formulator till you get the color you want, bitterness around 18-24 BUs and a noble type aroma hop. American Ale yeast or German Ale yeast. Ferment on the cooler side. Bingo!
I am guessing this is due to the lack of hop and malt flavor that may otherwise coverup slight off flavors in a bigger beer?
I think light flavored beers are easy enough. Three rules. Pitch enough yeast. Aerate well. Pitch and ferment cool. Oh, and #4) monitor pH. Depending on your water you may need to acidifying your mash some. Little lactic acid and calcium chloride will do the trick. Kind of on the same lines: Water could be an issue and RO water may be necessary to blend with your tap or build from scratch, depends on your source. For me, to make a good pale beer I’m best off blending my tap 40:60 Tap:RO (have to add a little calcium back). But I can get the pH right and make a passable very pale beer with acid and calcium chloride and 100% tap water.
Nailing your pH will help assist in crystal clear beer for any style, but it becomes very critical with very pale beer.
I think light flavored beers are easy enough. Three rules. Pitch enough yeast. Aerate well. Pitch and ferment cool. Oh, and #4) monitor pH. Depending on your water you may need to acidifying your mash some. Little lactic acid and calcium chloride will do the trick. Kind of on the same lines: Water could be an issue and RO water may be necessary to blend with your tap or build from scratch, depends on your source. For me, to make a good pale beer I’m best off blending my tap 40:60 Tap:RO (have to add a little calcium back). But I can get the pH right and make a passable very pale beer with acid and calcium chloride and 100% tap water.
Nailing your pH will help assist in crystal clear beer for any style, but it becomes very critical with very pale beer.
When you say RO water, what does that mean? I never use my tap water because I am not a fan of the flavor. for my extract batches I have always used distilled, but I know that is a bad idea for full grain so I was just planning on getting spring water, but I really have no idea the chemical makeup of what I buy. I was hoping my lhbs could give me an idea.
Reverse Osmosis water. You can get this from some grocery stores or from a home RO machine/filter. On a basic level, it removes ions and minerals to a somewhat trace level.
Hey man,
Here’s a recipe I made. It’s pretty simple and it tastes great. The weight in parentheses is for a 5.50 gal batch.
Mash temp: 150 degrees
90% Pilsnen Malt (8lbs 8.4 oz)
5% White Wheat Malt (8 oz)
5% Aromatic Malt (8 oz)
75 min boil
@ 65 1.00 oz Saaz
@ 20 .5 oz Saaz
@ 10 irish moss
OG: 1.048
Pitch WLP 029 (Kolsch Yeast) or a similar strain
FG: 1.010
Yeah, RO is similar to distilled. Little more mineral content depending on the RO system that is being used. Heck of a lot cheaper than distilled. But if you are using distilled you should be able to use some simple calculations to get your water up to what you need for a pale, clear colorer beer. Main thing you want to target is about 50 ppms of calcium. You want to have at least that for yeast health and enzyme activity. I don’t think you will have any problems making a nice Golden Ale with this route.
Nestle Pure life is very good commercial water if you want to use RO.
That’s a pretty solid, easy recipe. I’ve brewed something similar several times. +1 to RO and Bru’nWater.
So I did a little research and was able to track down my city water report. If I were to mix this with RO water would I be able to survive without adding anything else? I think I will geve JDS357’s recipe a shot.
ALKALINITY, TOTAL 306 mg/L
BICARBONATE AS HCO3 346 mg /L
CALCIUM 80 mg /L
CONDUCTIVITY @ 25 C 917 UMHO/cm
HARDNESS, TOTAL (AS CAC03) 317 mg /L
IRON 0.2 mg /L
IRON, DISSOLVED 210 μg /L
MAGNESIUM 26 mg /L
MANGANESE 9.5 μg/L
PH 7.6
TDS 577 mg /L
GROUNDWATER TEMPERATURE 50 ‐ 60 deg F
AMBIENT AIR TEMPERATURE 0 ‐100 deg F
ALTITUDE 4,250 ft
With that kind of alkalinity, I’d guess you need to go with all RO water and not use any of yours. BTW, there is a lot of important info missing from your water report.
Agreed.
Sulfate and Chloride is a prerequisite for good brewing water, especially the ratio of the two.
Kinda tangential, but these days I think less about the ratio and more about the values themselves.
[/quote]
BTW, there is a lot of important info missing from your water report.
[/quote]
Agreed.
Sulfate and Chloride is a prerequisite for good brewing water, especially the ratio of the two.
[/quote]
Well I guess I will look into it further to see if I can find the rest of the info.
On another note though, I decided to change up my planned recipe, and do a bit of a Dead Guy Ale clone I found on this site. What do you think?
8 lb. Maris Otter Pale 2row
1 lb. Munich
1 lb. Crystal 20
1 oz. Perle for 60
.5 oz. Saaz for 10
.5 oz Saaz for 1
Mash temp of 150 for 60 minutes.
Assuming I can get 70% effeciency I should have an OG of 1.051 and a FG of 1.010
Any suggestions on a good ale yeast for this?
I believe rogue uses pacman