Home Brew Forum

Yesterday I did a new style for me, Cream Ale. This kind of stuff in not normally by bag but I needed an entry in a light hybrid style for a contest in August plus this type of beer can be a technical challenge so I thought I would give it a try. There are not very many people in our club that make this stuff and there are not a lot of commercial examples of this style here in Texas so that gives me some wiggle room (in other words, I can screw up a little and most people will not notice). The formulation was pretty simple, German pils malt and American 6 row malt in equal proportions, a couple of pounds of corn grits and 1/2 a pound of corn sugar to dry things out. Did a ceral mash on the corn grits which can get really gummy but as long as you have enough water and keep stiring, it all works out really well. I have had really good luck with grits doing Preprohibition Pilsners so I thought I would try it again with this style. I think from a flavor persepective they are better than those corn flakes you get at the homebrew shop. I got a big decoction pot for Christmas which is just great for doing this type of thing. Anyhow, I was shooting for an O.G. of 1.048 and ended up with 1.050 and I got the volume I was looking for so I would say that it was a good brew day. I am fermenting with WLP01 at a pretty cool temperature (62F) so I built up a really big yeast cake from my last brew because I want this stuff to attenuate and get as dry as possible. Before heading off to work this morning I checked on things and the stuff is already blowing out the top of the fermenter so things are progessing nicely.

My next effort will be an Alt Bier which is another low temperature ale fermentation where you want maximum attenuation. For this stuff I am going with the obligatory Alt Bier yeast so I can run really cool, maybe somewhere around 58F or so (and again, I am going to build up a gigantic starter). Should be alot of fun, I figure a double decoction and again I will mash for a very fermentable wort. I guess when I get home tonight, I will need to clean up the mess in my fermentation frige because I know that stuff will be all over the place by this evening.

Sounds good what kind of hops? One of the subtler US hops like Liberty, Mt Hood or Sterling i'm guessing? And hang on just a second, I thought you said you didn't use plain corn sugar in your beers, wheres the fancy sugar??

You guessed correctly, I bittered with Liberty and added just a touch of Saaz a minute before flame-out. Actually, I am kind of wondering if maybe the last addition of Saaz is going to get me into trouble, God forbid I end up with any character in the beer. I actually smelled a faint hint of hops when pitching the yeast, surely it will disipate before getting into the keg. I am hoping that fresh ingredients will carry this one since it should be very subtle at best. Really, the only reason I made the stuff at all is for a contest but hope springs eternal that the beer may actually come out well. This kind of thing is also a good exercise to see if my technique is any good since any screwups will for sure end up in the glass. I plan on feeding this stuff to the wives of the club members at the next homebrew club party (or any other Bud/Miller/Coors folk I run into). I suppose I could also use this stuff to tempt the afore mentioned folks to the "dark side", kind of like a teaser.

Ok, that's what I get for saying "never", I deserved that one. For whatever it's worth, my goal here was to dry this stuff out without actually adding any flavor. I bet I have not added corn sugar to a beer in at least 10 years before doing this batch. I still remember my first batch of homebrew, that stuff had at least 50% corn sugar. God that stuff was awful but it did get the job done as I recall.