McBee’s Blonde Ale was the first all-grain BIAB I attempted, and only the third overall brew day. There is much to learn judging by the result.

I carbed to 2.5 volumes per the style guide. Instead of corn sugar I used DME which was boiled for five minutes and then racked on top of. I believe I used 5.6 ounces per BeerAlchemy’s suggestion. After 17 days of room temperature carbing the beer is still only moderately–like milk stout levels–carbed. Revy over at HBT shouts in nearly every thread on the question that 21 days is the minimum wait time for carbing at room temperature but the Nutter hit it at a mere 13 days.

Head retention is for crap which is definitely against style. A vigorous pour nets only about a finger of head that dissipates to a mere film after half a minute or so. It does bubble and there were ribbons for the entire time I had it in the glass–nursed it for almost half a hour, so I think it is moderately carbed and I’m not sure it’s going to get any better.

The head retention is kind of surprising given I mashed this one pretty hot–post strike temps were about 157˚/158˚F and after an hour it had drifted down to 152˚F or so. This should have left us with a whole mess of unfermentable sugars and a heavy body–both are factors in head retention. Neither of these things are really to style either but I was still pretty clueless about mashing temps at the time. If I were to do this again I’d try mashing at about 151˚F and hold steady for 90 minutes. I’d also stir every 15 minutes, not something I did with this batch. Finally, I mashed out at 170˚F like you’re supposed to but I didn’t rest at that temp for 10 minutes like you’re supposed to.

The short of the mash is that I didn’t mash at an appropriate temp for the style and I didn’t mash out properly. Both of these are fixable in the future. I’d also go back to using corn sugar for carbing–it’s faster and flavorless.

The beer itself is drinkable but nowhere near as exciting as the Black Squirrel Nutter. It has some hoppy overtones that strike me as a little odd, but I’m also not a huge hophead. In my darker moments I swear there is some DMS lurking at the back of the flavor profile but I’m also hypersensitive to this. I’ve brewed four times and chucked half of the batches due to DMS issues. I think increased boil times–we’re doing 90 instead of 60 from here on out–and throwing the new immersion chiller into the mix should address this. The Toasted Otis batch smelled wonderful until I tried to pry the lid off the bucket. At that time a whole mess of condensate dripped into the beer and since then it has reeked of DMS. Pretty sure it was pitched kind of hot so adequate chilling should definitely help here.

It’s not the clearest beer but it isn’t a lager so a little cloudy just comes with the territory. With the last batch I introduced a paint strainer bag between the kettle and the fermenter to help strain out hops and trub. This should help clarity moving forward. As for the recipe, I think I’d use less biscuit malt and use more honey malt, add some carapils, and boil for longer just to be sure there aren’t any hidden DSM tones creeping in the background. Chances are I’d use a little less bittering hops and a more citrus/floral flavoring hops addition.

I’ll probably label these in the next few days, put a sixer in the fridge and let the rest age out a little more in the basement. I also need to get another beer in the pipeline shortly as the Toasted Otis was ruined. Pour pictures and special deliveries to the crew to come.