macharles

Recipes 

I brewed a brown ale calling for the following ingredients:

- 2 lbs pale ale malt
- 2 lbs amber malt
- 0.5 lb crystal 60L malt
- 0.25 lb chocolate malt
- 4 lbs pale LME

When I went to the brew store they did not have amber malt and gave me Brown malt instead, telling me that it would work the same way. As a beginner homebrewer I don't know what is the effect of doing this replacement. Does anyone know how the beer flavor will be affected? fermentation time? etc...Whaterver you can add.

Thank you

Kayos

Recipes 

Hmmmmmm...

amber malt:
Roasted specialty malt used in some English browns, milds and old ales to add color and a biscuit taste. Intense flavor - so limit use. Low diastatic power so must be mashed with well modified malts.


brown malt:
Imparts a dry, biscuit flavor. Used in nut brown ales, porters and some Belgian ales


Sounds like brown is bettter than amber if you are steeping anyway.


Just for clarification, these weren't supposed to be extracts but grains for steeping, correct?

macharles

Recipes 

Yes, these are all grains except for the LME.

thanks

sause

Recipes 

BTW Brown Malt needs to converted too. But you have 2 pounds of 2-row so your good to go. Get mash(steep) the grains at ~152 for about 45mins. You could sparge(rinse) the grain when you get done.

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david_42

Recipes 

I'd agree, it will be an improvement.

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macharles

Recipes 

Thanks guys for all the input.

FYI: I just racked the brown ale into the secondary. It spent 8 days in the primary and it showed no fermentation activity at all. I measured the FG to be 1.023 (OG: 1.042), which is about 2.5% alcohol by Vol. I know this FG is high, the interesting observation was that when I racked the beer into the secondary, it immediatelly started to show activity again! don't know how to explain this. But, I hope the FG goes down with this extra activity. Any idea or inputs ? I'll keep you posted on this batch.

thanks!!!

Kayos

Recipes 

Pretty common. You just woke up the yeast a little. Sounds like a good thing, too. Let it sit for 2 weeks in the secondary and it will be ready.

macharles

Recipes 

After 12 days in the secondary the specific gravity actually went down all the way to 1.01 giving approximately 4.2% alcohol by vol. I bottled the beer and added carb tablets to carbonate. After a week I opened the first bottle and the beer was absolutely flat. Should I leave it for another week to see if it carbonates?? Any ideas of what's going on?? Please let me know.

Thanks

Mike

Kayos

Recipes 

Leave it be at room temp for 3 weeks. That is when you should try one and tell us how carbinated it is.