My first receipe: Amber Ale

I'm a noob on homebrewing (6 batches cooked), specialy on formulating my own receipe. I was playing with hopville.com and came up with this receipe so I need some opinions and recomendations for it.

Name: Ea, Puñ...! Amber Ale
Batch size: 5 gallons
Boil size: 3 gallons for 60 minutes
TOG 1.057
TFG 1.015
ABV 5.6%
Bitternes 37.8 IBU

Malt: 7 pounds Amber LME
Specialty Grain: 12oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L
Specialty Grain: 4oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L

Specialty grain will be boiled for 30 minutes at around 150F



Hops
boil 60 mins 0.5oz Citra pellet
boil 40 mins 0.5oz Falconer's Seven Seas pellets
boil 30 mins 0.5 Citra pellets
boil 5 mins 0.5 Falconer's Seven Seas pellets
dry hop 7 days 1.0 Citra Pellets or leafs

Yeast
Safale US-05 Dry Yeast

Batch will be fermenting in primary for 14 days. Then it will be transfer to secondary for 2 more weeks. At the beggining of the secon week at secondary, 1 oz of citra will be added for dry hopping.

Batch will be bottled after 1 month of primary and secondary fermentation and leave to bottle conditioning for 2 more weeks (maybe less if I cant resist the urge :rockin

Well there it is, hope you find it exelent

As far as the malt, I wouldn't use amber malt extract. The reason is that it's amber because it's got crystal malt in it already, so you're doubling up on the crystal malt. You just don't really know what's in the extract, so it's hard to guess how much sweetness you're going to get out of it. I'd change the fermentables to this:

Malt: 7 pounds Light or extract light LME
Specialty Grain: 12oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L
Specialty Grain: 4oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L

Just put the crushed grains in a grain bag and steep at 150-160 for 20 minutes and then remove them before you proceed with boiling.

I'd change the hops, too. Remember that hops added before 20 minutes of the end of the boil contribute to bitterness but very little to flavor, so you'd have a bitter beer there with very little hops flavor or aroma. It's a "waste" of Falconers Flight and citra to add them all early in the boil like that.

How about something like this:
boil 60 mins 1 oz bittering hops (pick one, but I'd probably get something neutral rather than one of these. Use citra if you have more for later in the boil).
boil 15 mins 0.5oz Falconer's Seven Seas pellets
boil 5 mins 0.5 Citra pellets
boil 0 mins 0.5 Falconer's Seven Seas pellets
dry hop 7 days 1.0 Citra Pellets or leafs

Thanks for the advice, will change the hop schedule as you said but will use citra for the 60 minutes. Also will use the light LME. So how off I was from what I wanted? Does it sound tasty Amber Ale?

gavilan said:

Thanks for the advice, will change the hop schedule as you said but will use citra for the 60 minutes. Also will use the light LME. So how off I was from what I wanted? Does it sound tasty Amber Ale?

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Oh, yes! I think it looks good and wouldn't change anything else except for those minor tweaks!

Thanks man :rockin:

I'll be brewing this in about 3 weeks, Ill post pictures and updates

Next will be a nut brown ale adding some vanilla in secondary

Yooper nailed it! If you have time I would suggest saving falconers and citra for only flavor/aroma/dry hopping and find some magnum or nugget for bittering

Looks good but I'm wondering where you'd get 7 lbs of LME. Of course you can get it, but are you going to measure it an extra pound because it usually comes in a 6 lb jug? Perhaps consider using two 3 lb bags of DME, much easier. You'd get pretty much the same gravity. One early and one late, which will help because you're doing a partial boil.

FYI, Yooper is a lady

Oh and read up on long primary (no secondary). On a beer like this you'd be in great shape just leaving in primary for 3 weeks then bottling. Dry hop right in there. I've gone to that and really don't plan on using a secondary ever again.

The store where I buy the stuff can sell me an extra pound of LME, I alreday asked. If not, I just buy the extra pound of DME. I will do secondary, Have had better result the couple of times I've used it. Have 2 nice 5 galons crystal carboys that need to be used.

Have a similar enough recipe myself nearly a month in primary and dry hopping for two days now. It'll be bottled in 8 days time hopefully.

How did yours turn out?

Havent had the time to buy or brew it yet. Hopefully, ill buy it and cooked it in the next 2 weeks. Let me know how your turn out.

This is my final receipe for this batch. Changes were due ingredients availability, specially the citrta hops witch he didnt have any

Name: Ea, Puñ...! Amber Ale
Batch size: 5 gallons
Boil size: 3 gallons for 60 minutes
TOG 1.057
TFG 1.015
ABV 5.6%
Bitternes 37.5 IBU

Malt: 7 pounds Briess CBW Golden Light LME
Specialty Grain: 12oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L
Specialty Grain: 8 oz Caramunich Malt 40
Specialty grain will be boiled for 30 minutes at around 150F



Hops
boil 60 mins 0.75oz Warior pellet
boil 15 mins 0.5oz Falconer's Seven Seas pellets
boil 05 mins 0.5 Falconer's Seven Seas
boil 0 mins 0.5 Falconer's Seven Seas pellets
dry hop 7 days 1.0 oz Amarillo in leafs

Yeast
Safale US-05 Dry Yeast

Will cook this Saturday:rockin:

I'm sure you already know this but just to make sure, you only want to steep those speciality grains (like a tea bag). You have the temp right though so I assume it was just a choice of words but better safe than sorry!

I bottled mine last Friday night and even my sceptical housemate had a sup and proclaimed "well it's not as bollox as your usual attempts" which coming from him translates as "oh ye gods what is this orgasmic nectar???!!!"

My first brew (it's the only one i've made thus far) was very similar to this. You have more malt (i though mine was a bit weak malt wise), and it used willamette hops. The Falconer's Seven Seas sounds awesome and I bet this will be an excellent beer!

Let us know the result!

Brew it this past friday, smelled and tasted very good. OG was 1.056. Fermentation is going great . I live in a hot/humid place so I was worried about the temp. Its usually in the high 80's low 90's this time of year but it rained and temp drop to the 70's. I think it will be a hell of a beer, going by the smell and taste of it. :rockin:

Fyi: 1lb of DME doesn't equal 1lb of LME. You need less DME than LME for an equivalent amount of sugar (thus gravity and eventual alcohol).

1 lb won't make a huge difference but just something to keep in your back pocket.

I think i overcarbed mine (120g for 19 Litres) as it's already well carbed and it's only been bottled 1 week. Conditioning temps approx 18 Celcius which is nearly ideal temps for US-05 so hoping there's an outside chance it just carbed real quick!

I need some feedback, Im going to leave it in primary for 2 weeks (have always done that with great results) and was thinking betwen 1 week in secondary to clear a bit and then another week for dry hopping. Should I just go staight from 2 weeks prymary to dry hop for a week in secondary?

gavilan said:

I need some feedback, Im going to leave it in primary for 2 weeks (have always done that with great results) and was thinking betwen 1 week in secondary to clear a bit and then another week for dry hopping. Should I just go staight from 2 weeks prymary to dry hop for a week in secondary?

Click to expand...

I would go straight to secondary. Our just dry hop in your primary and not bother with the transfer!

gavilan said:

I need some feedback, Im going to leave it in primary for 2 weeks (have always done that with great results) and was thinking betwen 1 week in secondary to clear a bit and then another week for dry hopping. Should I just go staight from 2 weeks prymary to dry hop for a week in secondary?

Click to expand...

Don't bother with secondary. If you have the time primary for three weeks and then just chuck in your hops for a week or two on top of that. That's what I did and I opened one last night (for quality control purposes of course...) and it tasted really, really good.

If you're worries about clearing, cold crash it before bottling and then when racking to a bottling bucket, tie a muslin cloth/grain bag at the 'out' end of the siphoning tube. Then make sure the bottles are bought back to fermenting temps so the yeast can eat the sugar and produce carbonation.

No matter how cold you cold crash, there'll be plenty of yeast left in suspension for bottle conditioning and carbing.

Thanks for the reply. Ill stick with the secondary, have always done it with great result. Why fix something it aint broken? But ill jusy leave it a week in secondary with the dry hopps and then bottle. It is still bubling a bit and it smells great. Will keep you guys informed

Brandon, can you post your receipe?

If by Brandon you mean me? No probs, I use metric so follow the link here and hopville will let you switch between metric and US measures: http://hopville.com/recipe/1199274/american-amber-ale-recipes/4-3-gun-salute

very tasty and delicious Amber Ale. It rocks as my summer beer :rockin:. Will do it again but will go bigger.