Cram Ale
Chris
Lawnmowers?
I’ve always found the reactions to a brewing novice asking about creating a macro clone to be quite interesting. The one thing that I almost never see is a suggestion to make a cream ale, though I do see cream ales as kits fairly often. I’ve found myself wanting as much quaffable beer as I can possibly gather going into the summer. I suspect that I’ll have to turn that around and start thinking about the things that will go into those kegs once the quaffing season is over. Until then, I thought a cheap cheap cream ale would do the trick nicely.
Brew day
This was probably my first batch of beer comfortably made by the Brewer’s Friend calculations from start to finish. I was thankful for my 20 gallon kettle when I collected all of the wort, but my end efficiency really did hit the nail on the head. I collected 6 gallons of 1.053 OG wort. As I thought with previous batches, my brewhouse efficiency seems to be around 72-75%. I had a beautiful hot break, and super clear wort after all was over.
Fermentation
As of the finish of the brew day, I still hadn’t learned my lesson with blowoff tubes and carboys. This guy was a severe gusher, especially with the carboy as full as it was. Wanting a super clear beer, I hit it with gelatin on the 27th and three days later packaged the clearest, colorless beer I’ve ever made. Pre-carbonation, I get some big hits of diacetyl butteryness, but it’s pretty nice.
In the end, I collected a full 5 gallons of 1.009 beer. A full keg of ~5.8% lawnmower beer.