New Year's Brewing (1)

New Year's was to be a Double Feature. The double feature wasn't meant to be as the Cream Ale wasn't yet finished. I had a low OG and a sloooooow primary. As a result the cream ale was all mine.

Cream ale is an interesting beast. BJCP gets it right when they call the cream ale "(a)n ale version of the American lager style." Instead of adding maize I opted for cane sugar as my adjunct. I hoped the simple sugars in sugar would yield a speedy fermentation but, in my experience, that was not the case here: Primary fermentation never seemed to end.

I did sample the brew between primary and secondary and between secondary and keg... if ever a beer could taste like likker this was it! Tasted like straight rocket fuel. I let the beer cold condition in the keg for a month before I pulled a second taste. Thankfully the cold aging helped immensely.

Appearance -- Crystal clear and straw yellow (the picture below is off due to the camera's flash). Thin white head that dissipates quickly. The reduced head may be caused by low CO2 head pressure in the keg as I've turned off the CO2 to that keg while I force carbonate a hefeweizen.

Smell -- What smell there is reminds me of field (dent) corn and apple cider. The cider comes from the massive amount of white cane sugar I added to the boil. Big surprise: no hop aroma.

Taste -- Lots of mouthfeel, which is unusual for this style of beer (could be due to low carbonation). Very slippery (fusels?). Lots of apparent sweetness and some residual, well-balanced, bitterness from the Cluster. Some fruity, cidery flavors and a hint of alcohol heat.

Drinkability -- Very drinkable and incredibly easy to have one too many. I'm sure there are some fusel oils as the next day can be quite rough after only two glasses.

Batch Name: Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper Cream Ale

Date Brewed: 20-Dec-08

Original Gravity: 1.057

Final Gravity: 1.005

Alcohol: 7.0%

Fermentables: Quantity: UOM: Desc:

7 lbs. 2-Row Malted Barley - Pale (Rahr, USA)

4 lbs. Granulated Sugar

0.75 lbs. Honey Malt

0.25 lbs. Biscuit Malt

Yeast / Other: Quantity: UOM: Desc:

1 Pkg. Wyeast 1056 American Ale

1 tsp. Irish Moss

0.75 tsp. Gypsum - Calcium sulfate

0.25 tsp. Salt - NaCL

Hops:

Hop Variety: Alpha Acid %: Quantity: Min. Boil: HBU Total HBU: 31.86

Cluster 7.7% 1 oz. 60 31.862

Brewing Notes: Dec 20, 2008

I tried to perform a step infustion mash which included protein and saccharification rests along with a

mashout. I also altered the distilled water chemistry by adding gypsum and noniodized salt.

Protein - 20 minutes - @123F - Inufused @133 - 9.20 qts H2O (Ratio 1.15)

Saccharification - 30 min - 155F - Infused @Boiling - 5.87 qts H20 (1.88)

Mashout - 10min - 170 - Infused @Boiling - 7.09 qts H20 (2.77)

***There was no sparge!***

Collected appx 4.5 gal of wort @ what I thought was 1.024. Started boil added hops at 60 minutes. After 15

minutes I stopped the boil and added 4 lbs of granulated sugar before restarting boil. Added Irish moss at 15

min.

Left overnight to cool in garage.

December 21, 2008

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Transferred wort to primary. Appx 3.5 gallons of wort. Took gravity measurement: 1.090!11!!! Added water

to reach 1.057

Airated and added Wyeast 1056.

January 10, 2009
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Transferred to secondary.

January 17, 2009
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Kegged at 25 PSI