Murican Blonde Ale

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: 1056 (or many other ale yeast)
Yeast Starter: yes
Batch Size (Gallons): 6.5
Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: 1.011
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
IBU: 20
Color: 3.8 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 12 days, free rise from 65-70
Tasting Notes: Just a really nice, basic, easy drinking blonde ale. Great on a hot day or when you want something simple. Also, an automatic favorite for the BMC drinkers.
This beer serves two purposes for me.
1.) It is just a great beer to have on tap. Easy drinking, low ABV., and a crowd favorite.
2.) I use this beer to "make yeast." I generally run yeast through many beers, and I use this beer as a low hopped, low gravity way to generate a lot of yeast for other beers. There are no dry hops, low kettle hop, I let the trub settle out in kettle as much as possible - and as a result I end up with nice, clean yeast a the end of fermentation. After racking it to keg, I leave a quart or more of beer behind and swirl the yeast up into suspension and pour it off into sanitized pint mason jars. I can generally get 4-6 pint jars of slurry. Store them in the fridge and then pull them out and make a starter when I need one. I usually make another blonde ale with the 6th jar, and collect another 6 jars of yeast. I can routinely brew 15-20 beers pretty easily off of one pack of yeast.

Grain Bill:
I will include % of grain bill and amounts I use for 6.5 gallons.

Shoot for approximately 1.040-1.045 OG
Looking for 3.9-4.2% ABV or so

45% Rahr 2 Row (4.5 lbs)
45% Golden Promise (4.5 lbs)
4% Wheat (.5lbs)
4% Flaked Barley (.5lbs)
2% Honey Malt or Cara 20 (.25 lbs)

Mash @ 155 for 60 minutes.

** You could probably simplify this grain bill to all 2 row or all Golden Promise for the base (or pilsner).

Hops:
1 ounce of Liberty @ 30 minutes
1 ounce of Liberty @ Flameout

Water:
Use 100% RO Water for mash and sparge.
Shoot for around 50/50/50 on Calcium/Chloride/Sulfate

I add .3 grams/gallon gypsum and .3 grams/gallon CaCl to mash and sparge water.
I add .5 ml of Lactic Acid per gallon of mash water
I add .1 ml of Lactic Acid per gallon of sparge water

B'run Water Numbers for me:
Ca: 48
Mg:0
Na:8
Sulfate:45
Chloride:55
Bicarbonate:16
pH:5.30

Water - the simple version:
Use 100% RO water
Per 5 gallons of mash water and per 5 gallons of sparge water.
Use a 1/4 tsp. for measuring.
Add a heaping 1/4 tsp of both gypsum and CaCl to both mash and sparge.... This is approximately 1.5 grams of both gypsum and CaCl to both mash and sparge.
Add lactic acid as listed above (or, add 2-3 ounces acidulated malt to grain bill.)
That will basically get you right in the ball park

Yeast/Fermenation:
I use a lot of different yeasts with this beer - basically any yeast I want to build up to use in multiple beers. However, for the beer itself - I think 1056 works best.

That said, other yeasts I have use in this on a regular basis are: Conan, 1968 and 1318.

I generally start it around 65 and let it free rise to 68-72.

I usually keg it around day 12 or so.

Other Notes:

I started brewing this purely to make yeast - but, it is probably the second most "popular" beer I brew among my basement regulars. Anyone will like this beer from strict BMC drinkers to more seasoned craft beer drinkers.