Centenial Blonde Batch #2

December 21, 2009

Last Friday, I mentioned that I was going to be doing some brewing, which I did do yesterday. It was the first time I had attempted a 10 gallon batch, usually brewing in 5 gallon batches, and things went pretty well.

It took quite a bit more time to get the water to boil off, I ended up with almost 14 gallons of wort to start with, but it ended up only taking an hour or so more than I’m used to. I also ended up with 11 Gallons of wort instead of 10, which was good because after reviewing the recipe, it turns out it was actually for a 11 Gallon batch.

I think I’m going to have to buy a real immersion chiller soon, that would probably cut close to an hour from my brew day.

I was a little worried that the Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast that I had rinsed from a previous batch wasn’t going to be ready in time, but Saturday it just took off, and I was able to use it in one carboy after all. The second carboy has the Nottingham yeast that the recipe calls for.

So my storage room now has 2 carboys full of the delicious Centennial Blonde. I’m curious to see if I can tell the difference in flavor between the two batches, since I used different yeasts.

I’m planning on doing a quick extract American Stout recipe in 2 weeks, and I’m going to put it on the American Ale yeast cake.

The only strange thing is that I still seem to be running a pretty bad efficiency, this time it seems to be 65%, but I keep hitting my Original Gravity targets. So I’m not too concerned with it.

Once I open a bottle of the Centennial Blonde, in about 4 weeks, I’ll have to take a picture.

Of course, this week is Christmas, I hope yours is wonderful!