CAP (check please)

[Gurgeh]

My Kolsch is dissappearing fast.

Actually I've only had one bottle of 'Proper' beer since this has come good...
And as I've force carbonated it and put it in 300ml green bottles, it's handy too.

So as I've just got hold of a sack of MO and some Maize from Reaper, I'll put my intended run of proper beers on hold for a little while, fire up the WLP029 and get another fizzy beer done.

Some advice on the below if you will...

25L @ 1.044

4Kg MO
1Kg Crushed Maize

66C mash 1hr

20IBU of Perle
Heap of mittelfruh last 5 mins

WLP029

I'm a little unsure about 25% adjunct, also am a bit wary of the Perle...

[Aleman]

20% flaked maize not a problem, should convert fine.

Perle - Not a traditional hop in a CAP . . . Generally they use Centennial for bittering and then a 'noble' hop for aroma/ flavouring . . . Certainly the Mittlefruh qualifies here.

It'll be a good beer, just not trad. . . . I don't tend to make Trad CAP's either as I use Pacific Gem as my bittering hop . . . but I still get the blackberry taste from it which is also a characteristic of Centennial

[Stonechat]

That's a lot of flaked maize Gurgeh! Won't it thin the beer down a lot?
Or is this what you want for this beer?

Never used Perle.

Good luck

[Aleman]

That's a lot of flaked maize Gurgeh! Won't it thin the beer down a lot?
Or is this what you want for this beer?

The style is basically what the German immigrant brewers would have been brewing in the US around the 1900's In order to use the US 6 row barley with its high nitrogen content, they had to use adjuncts such as corn and rice to dilute the nitrogen . . . . Yes it does thin the body , but this is a nice crisp beer . . . Trad recipes used up to 30% adjunct . . . . Of course it was prohibition that caused the ruination of this style and led to the American Standard Beer Budmilloors

A decent CAP is nothing like an ASB

[Gurgeh]

20% flaked maize

20% - I meant that

[Gurgeh]

I might employ some Pacific Gem - I've got about 10g left and should only need a bit of that to get 20IBU

I'm not at all worried about making a Trad CAP, it's just that I wanted to do what my crowd would call a lager, without using lager malt or lager yeast or doing lagering (cap seems to fit the bill!)

[mysterio]

Maize/corn has quite a distinct flavour of its own, also the corn sugar will make the FG much lower, the enzymes from the malt will still produced long chained sugars from the maize.

[steve_flack]

It would produce a crisp beer but would lack the flavour the flaked maize adds.

[Aleman]

I'm not at all worried about making a Trad CAP, it's just that I wanted to do what my crowd would call a lager, without using lager malt or lager yeast or doing lagering (cap seems to fit the bill!)

Technically its a CACA then Classic American Cream Ale basically a CAP brewed with ale yeast at lowish temperatures

[mysterio]

The cream ale recipe in Brewing Classic Styles recommends using the Kolsch yeast. The recipe is 2.15kg two-row malt, 2.15 pilsner malt, 450g of flaked rice or corn & 340g of corn sugar & lightly hopped with Liberty hops. I quite like cream ale, it's basically a US version of Kolsch. Very light and lager like with just a tiny bit of fruitiness.

[Gurgeh]

Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou.

[Barley Water]

Interesting discussion about cream ale, I plan on making one latter in the spring. I have a CAP conditioning right now that I did using a cereal mash employing corn grits (easy to get in the southern US in the grocery store and it's cheap to boot). I think that the CAP will be very good if initial tasting holds out and as a plus it is pretty agressively hopped which makes it very different than the usual American lagers. I used 6 row and 20% grits if I remember correctly. Anyway, I plan to do basicly the same type of thing to produce the wort for the cream ale except I planned to cut way back on the hops. I have never used the Kolsh yeast, does it work out pretty well? What I am looking for is a lawnmower beer that is very light in body with just a little hop action and very little in the way of ale type fruitiness.

[Stonechat]

Hi Barley Water, what is a lawnmower beer in the Queen's English, please?

[oblivious]

Hi Barley Water, what is a lawnmower beer in the Queen's English, please?

Also ask him what canoe sex beer is

[Barley Water]

Ok, I guess I used too much yanky slang, the requested definitions are as follows:

Canoe sex beer- F*&$#@ing close to water

Lawnmower beer- see above

The thing is, many of these light American styles are very difficult to brew well. I sometimes like to see if my technique is good enough to tackle a style like this. If you get sloppy or there are holes in your process, you will taste them since there is really no place to hide with a beer like this. Unless you really hate it, that kind of beer can be very refreshing when it's really hot and the beer is really cold (and it can easily get hotter than 105F in the shade here in Texas). You can also give this type of beer to a typical lager drinker since it is not that far removed from what they are used to.

Our club has a contest in August where the object is to brew a great "Lawnmower beer" so I thought I would take up the challenge and try to brew my own version. I thought I would apply what I learned doing a cereal mash on my CAP and try the cream ale style (which I have never done). I am also trying to devlop some lower alchol brews and this should work out well in that regard also. The advantage of doing an ale over a lager is that it shouldn't tie up my equipment for nearly as long.