It was a success! I just finished my first all grain batch, which was a blonde ale as I wanted to keep it simple my first go. I hit my numbers as calculated by brewcipher so I'm pretty pleased. I had intended on using Centennial and Cascade but my LHBS was out of Cascade, as is most places I think, so I went with Centennial and Citra. Hopefully the Citra will be OK. If not, it will still be beer! My pre boil SG was 1.035 and OG - 1.044. Pitched US-05, should finish around 1.010-1.011? I don't know what I was expecting except for it to take longer than it did. It only took me 5 hours from start of burner to completely cleaned up to RHAHB! I plan to do another 5 gallon brew in a couple weeks then try a 10 gallon batch. Figure if I'm dirtying gear, might as well do 10 gallons! To being further down the rabbit hole, Cheers
5 hours for your first all grain batch is great! Congratulation to you. I was surprised by the statement of: "... LHBS was out of Cascade, as is most places I think,..." I did a quick check of two online vendors and they both had Cascade in stock. Why do you think most places do not have Cascade? Cheers!
The two online I checked two day ago were both out. I shouldn't say the LHBS was out, he had a single one pound package, which I didn't want to get that much at first!
As of today both Northern Brewer and Love2Brew have Cascade hops. For many homebrewers (and commercial breweries?) Cascade appears to be an 'old fashioned' hop. Hops like Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe, Amarillo, etc. seem to be getting more 'love'. I would anticipate that Equinox might be the next 'big' hops once it becomes more readily available? Cascade has always been a rock solid hop for me but I will admit that I have over the years gotten away from it. I am thinking that in a few months I might brew a Cascade Harvest Ale; get back to my roots a bit. Cheers!
I had the pleasure of drinking the Sierra Nevada Equinox IPA that was solely hopped with Equinox hops. That beer was very, very good!! http://www.sierranevada.com/beer/specialty/harvest-single-hop-ipa-equinox-hops Cheers!
Was it the Centennial Blonde recipe that you used (below)? It looked like a pretty popular recipe online so I chose it for my first all grain brew and it turned out better than I ever could have expected. I'm very curious how your brew turns out with the citra substitution. I'll definitely be brewing it again, and while I'd like to play around and tweak some things, I'm afraid that it can't get much better than it already is. 14.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) 1.25 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) 1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) 1.00 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) 0.50 oz Centennial [9.50%] (55 min) 0.50 oz Centennial [9.50%] (35 min) 0.50 oz Cascade [7.80%] (20 min) 0.50 oz Cascade [7.80%] (5 min) 1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) (Hydrated)
Anteater, yes it was similar to that grain bill, but by half as I did a 5 gallon batch. My hop schedule was slightly different, 55, 30, 15, 5 totaling 27 tinseth IBU's. I'll let you know how it turns out with the Citra. That's what is great about AG, tweaking one thing at a time to really get an idea of how it changes the final outcome of the beer. What would you compare your results to, taste wise?
It may be old fashioned, but Cascade has the largest acreage of the aroma hops and is used most by craft brewers. It will be interesting to see which variety overtakes it, if ever.
