Cream Ale Recipe (All Grain)

 Following on from our recently published Cream Ale Recipe Creation Guide - here's our Cream Ale recipe.

Notes

A really simple recipe here, and a bit of a change of pace from the typically hop forward style beers we've been brewing lately. Time for something, clean, crisp and refreshing.

The gist of this recipe was taken from the Brewing Classic Styles book by John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff. We've got a mix of American 2 row ale malt and pilsner malt for the majority of the grist, with a little under 7% making up the corn based adjunct (flaked maize) and a little bit of corn sugar (dextrose) to promote a higher attenuation and dry finish.

We haven't used noble hops in a while so we opted for Hallertauer Mittelfrüh - a popular and relatively low alpha acid option which should give some nice floral and slightly spicy notes.

For yeast, we're going with SafLager W-34/70 - our first time using this yeast but looking forward to seeing how it performs. Yes, this is an ale style, and yes, this is a lager yeast, so technically it isn't really an ale, but the idea is to ferment the lager yeast warmer to promote some slight fruity esters and character. This style allows a lot of flexibility (as we outlined in the Recipe Creation Guide) - so feel free to swap out for any other high attenuating, clean yeast variety.

We've also gone back to a 60 minute boil to try and extract a decent bitterness from the low AA hops.

Vitals

Batch Volume: 23L 
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75%

Original Gravity: 1.044
Final Gravity: 1.006
IBU (Tinseth): 17
BU/GU: 0.37
Colour: 6.7 EBC
Expected ABV: 5.0%

Mash

Temperature: 65c - 60 minutes
Mash Out: 75c - 10 minutes

Malts

2.0kg - Gladfield American Ale Malt (44.4%)
2.0kg - Gladfield Pilsner Malt (44.4%)
0.3kg - Gladfield Malted Maize (6.7%)
0.2kg - Corn Sugar - Dextrose (4.5%)

Hops

60 Minutes - Hallertauer Mittelfrueh (14.5 IBU)
5 Minutes - Hallertauer Mittelfrueh (2 IBU)

Yeast

Fermentis Saflager W34/70 (2 packets - dry)

Fermentation

20°C - 14 days

Carbonation

2.4-2.9 CO2-vol

Water Profile

Brewfather "Balanced" Water Profile

Ca2+ (Calcium): 48
Mg2+ (Magnesium): 10
Na+ (Sodium): 12
Cl- (Chloride): 69
SO42- (Sulfate): 71
HCO3- (Bicarbonate): 37

Want to see how it turned out? Follow the link to our BrewZilla Brew Day run down for our Cream Ale below.

Related Articles

Cream Ale - BrewZilla Brew Day

Cream Ale - Recipe Creation Guide

Cream Ale - Tasting Results