Wolf Creek Cream Ale

Bloody hell; I haven't logged a brew since August? I am getting slack.

I made a whole slew of things. Got far enough ahead of myself to cellar things a bit more, which seemed good to me, but since I almost never do the same thing twice it'd be hard to say how much difference it really made. I did drink through most of the aging stuff without replacing it over Christmas though, so its just as well it was there. I'm thinking I did a red and a scotch ale, among a couple of others, but I may be making that up. One of the side effects of having more things in the cellar is that I can never remember whats what; need to label the kegs. In amongst there I had a chat with the Beer Guys at the brew shop about re-using yeast cultures, and did a couple of batches back-to-back that way. Seemed to work pretty well. Apparently it keeps pretty well, but its harder to go from something really hoppy to something less so (or really, to reuse the yeast at all after really hoppy things) and also harder to go from high alcohol to lower.

Oh and back in July I did a batch of red wine from a kit (they were on sale for half price at the shop.) It was fiddly, but seems to have worked pretty well; I'm drinking the first of it as I write this, and I'm not dead yet (bit bland flavoured though.) Re-used screwcap bottles but dipped them in melted wax to seal them better for aging.

So this weekend I'm doing the first of another double batch, re-using the yeast culture. The weather said to make a lager, but they need more keg time, and I've got a bit behind in the brewing over the hols, so I'm going to do a couple of quick-and-easy's first. This is a cream ale (no actual milk sugars in it though; just the name) from the Homebrewers Outpost Wolf Creek Cream Ale full grain recipe. It has corn in it? Weird. Hope its not too sweet.

5 lbs. 2-row pale malt.
3.5 lbs. 6-row pale malt.
1 lb. Flaked corn (maize).
0.75 lb. Cara-Pils Dextrine malt.
3.5 gallons H20 @ ~180 F.

mashed 1 hour @152 F

sparged @ 168 F to ~6.5 gallons, brought to boil, added:

1 oz. Tettnang (4.8% A.A.) for 1 hour.
0.5 oz. Saaz (3.9% A.A.) for 15 mins.
0.5 oz. Saaz (3.9% A.A.) for 5 mins.

initial S.G. 1.040
pitched yeast packet at ~80 F
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Just finished this. It was ok, but kinda pale and bland. I did a cream ale as kind of an experiment - not really knowing what one was - so when it turned out kind of pale and bland, I looked them up; apparently, cream ales are kind of pale and bland. Yay, I made it right?