Amber ale assistance

Treehead_Woodfist · 04-12-2009, 03:57 AM

Hi! I will be brewing my first amber ale soon and am looking for some feedback on my recipe:

6# Amber dry extract
1# Extra Light extract
1# Honey malt (grain)
1# Caramunich malt (48L) (grain)

.25 tsp Irish moss

1 oz. Perle (8.2%) 10 min.
1 oz. Argentine Cascade (3.2%) 2-5 min.

1 oz. Sweet orange peel (5 min. during wort cool-down)

Fermentis Safale US-05 yeast

I'm mainly concerned with proportions and whether I am trying to do too much with the flavors in this beer

. Any feedback would be great! Thanks.

**david_42** · 04-12-2009, 02:12 PM

Way too much honey malt, I'd cut it to 4 ounces.

Bittering hops??

Also, Argentine Cascade is radically different from American Cascade. If you are looking for a citrus aroma, you might want to use it for flavor and the Perle for aroma.

Treehead_Woodfist · 04-12-2009, 04:51 PM

Agh, I was afraid of that. Unfortunately I had the honey and caramunich milled together into one bag so I cannot easily cut down the proportion of honey malt. If I cut the amount of the grains in half would that still be better than using a pound of each?

As far as the hops go, I'm not really sure what I am doing haha. I don't want too much bite from hops and a lot of amber ale recipes I looked at stayed away from bittering hops so I just decided not to bother. Any ideas on how the flavor would differ depending on whether I used Perle or Argentine Cascade? I am more worried about flavor than aroma for this brew.

Thanks for the feedback!

Bob · 04-12-2009, 04:55 PM

In a word, "Buh?" Of course they used bittering hops. Perhaps not much, not very high IBU, but 'stayed away from bittering hops'!?

Something does not compute. Please post the recipes upon which you based yours, because I'm convinced you misread something.

Bob

Treehead_Woodfist · 04-12-2009, 05:10 PM

I looked mostly at the American Amber Ale recipes on Brew-monkey.com and a few random ones that I googled. Definitely misunderstood what the brewers were doing with their hops; they do use bittering hops, just with relatively low alpha-acid %. I kinda forgot the boiling time has a lot to do with it! So, say I boil my Perle hops for 45 min. and the Argentine Cascade for 5 min. Thoughts?

Bob · 04-12-2009, 07:10 PM

That works far better in my head. +1 to reducing the honey malt to 4 oz. That stuff can go over the top REALLY quickly.

Bob

**rasherb** · 04-12-2009, 08:18 PM

Honey malt needs to be converted doesn't it?
Steep for 30 min @ 150 to convert.

Personally, I like lots of honey malt. 1# might be just right if you are not steeping for long.

You might try
1/2 oz pearle at 60 min bitter
1/2 oz pearle at 30 min flavor
1 oz cascades at 10 min aroma

Treehead_Woodfist · 04-13-2009, 02:20 AM

Yes, the honey malt requires steeping along with the caramunich. I've never used honey malt or recognized it in a beer so I am not sure how much is too much, or what too much even tastes like. I'll probably stick with .5# for this brew and adjust it from there.

I like the hop recommendation; I was thinking about it earlier and decided to go with something similar.

So here is what the recipe is looking like now:

6# Amber dry extract
1# Extra light dry extract
.5# Honey malt (grain)
.5# Caramunich (grain)

.5 oz Perle (50 min.)
1 oz Argentine Cascade (20 min.)
.5 oz Perle (3 min.)

1/4 tsp Irish moss (10 min.)

1 oz. Sweet orange peel (5 min. during wort cool-down)

US-05 yeast