Amber Recipe feedback

I'm looking for a little feedback on this recipe - Would like to end up with a moderately sessionable amber with medium body and good hop backbone. I've never used biscuit so I'm not sure how it will pair with the munich and crystal malts also in the recipe. Thoughts?


Last Collaboration Amber
American Amber Ale
Type: All Grain Date: 8/17/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal Brewer: Craig
Boil Size: 7.48 gal Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min Equipment: My Equipment
End of Boil Volume 5.98 gal Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0
Taste Notes:
Ingredients


Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
7 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 59.6 %
2 lbs Munich Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 2 17.0 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.4 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 4 6.4 %
8.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.3 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.3 %
4.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 7 2.1 %
0.50 oz Mt. Hood [6.00 %] - First Wort 60.0 min Hop 8 11.1 IBUs
0.75 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 9 35.2 IBUs
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 10 -
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 10.0 mins) Other 11 -
0.50 oz Mt. Hood [6.00 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days Hop 13 0.0 IBUs

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.062 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.016 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.0 %
Bitterness: 46.3 IBUs Calories: 151.6 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 22.8 SRM
Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body Total Grain Weight: 11 lbs 12.0 oz
Sparge Water: 2.43 gal Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 17.63 qt of water at 164.0 F 154.0 F 60 min
Mash Out Add 8.22 qt of water at 201.6 F 168.0 F 10 min

Sparge Step: Fly sparge with 2.43 gal water at 168.0 F
Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).
Carbonation and Storage

Carbonation Type: Keg Volumes of CO2: 2.3
Pressure/Weight: 12.54 PSI Carbonation Used: Keg with 12.54 PSI
Keg/Bottling Temperature: 45.0 F Age for: 14.00 days
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage Storage Temperature: 40.0 F

Just my personal preference, but I generally only use biscuit malt in malty, high-body beers without a lot of hop character. It makes the beer (ales especially) taste like bread. For my tastes, this characteristic goes better in porters and wees. But as I said, that's just my personal preference.

Also, you might want to cut the 120 in half. That'll put you well out of the color range, but will also take away some of the dark crystal grain sharpness that might otherwise detract from some of the other ingredients in the malt bill, specifically the Munich.

Happy brewing!

I like the biscuit malt- it gives a "dry" finish to a slightly sweet beer and so I'd keep that.

What I would change is to use less bittering hops (the 46 IBUs from the FWH and the 60 minute hops is too much) and add more flavor/aroma hops.

More like this:
0.75 oz Magnum 60.0 min
.5 oz Mt Hood- 15 minutes
0.50 oz Mt. Hood 0 min
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 5-7

I'd also either cut out or significantly reduce the roasted barley. It's very strong, and I don't like roasted flavors in my ambers.

Yooper said:

I like the biscuit malt- it gives a "dry" finish to a slightly sweet beer and so I'd keep that.

What I would change is to use less bittering hops (the 46 IBUs from the FWH and the 60 minute hops is too much) and add more flavor/aroma hops.

More like this:
0.75 oz Magnum 60.0 min
.5 oz Mt Hood- 15 minutes
0.50 oz Mt. Hood 0 min
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 5-7

I'd also either cut out or significantly reduce the roasted barley. It's very strong, and I don't like roasted flavors in my ambers.

Click to expand...

This is a good plan all the way around. Going less bitter will better compliment the use of the biscuit. And while I do like the idea of using roasted malt in this context, I'd probably cut it back to two ounces.

If you're talking style guidelines, I think you're probably well blurred into the American Pale Ale territory. Not that I consider that a bad thing, but just FYI if you're expecting something a little more mellow, as most amber ales are.

I'd cut the roasted entirely. I don't think it has a place flavor-wise in an amber ale, and you're already WAY outside the color range for an amber.

I personally think it's a bit heavy on Crystal, but the Biscuit will help cut that. I think with your OG and with all that Crystal, though, the IBUs will be okay, but agree with Yooper that you should add more flavor/aroma hops. If you shoot to keep the IBUs the same, add a 10 minute addition of something (more Cascade is great in an american amber or pale) and reduce the Magnum by just the amount necessary to offset the IBU addition of the 10 minute charge.

According to Gordon Strong's book, the FWH do add bitterness but less detectable, while they at the same time increase the flavor profile than a typical flavor hop addition at 20 minutes:

"The interesting thing about first wort hopping is the perceived effects. While measured bitterness is tested at perhaps 10 pecent greater than that obtained from a 60-minute boil, the actual perceived bitterness seems lower to me because it has a smooth character."
"Calculate the bitterness as a 60-minute boil, but understand that it might seem lower to some palates."
"The flavors are elegant and strong but seem to be better blended in with the flavor profile than a traditional flavor addition. For recipe formulation purposes, I don't consider FWH as providing any aroma at all. However, I do find a huge hop flavor contribution from FWH. The flavor I get is higher than an equivalent 20-minute addition. Since I think of bittering and aroma hops more in terms of ounces than IBUs, I tend to consider FWH hops as providing as much as 50 percent more flavor than the same amount of 20-minute hops."

Now that I re-read this, I'm reconsidering the flavor hop of Mt. Hood to something else. Anyone have any hops they particularly like in a amber style?

Regarding the roasted barley addition, I was actually going to try and find debittered roasted barley because my only intention to add the roasted barley was for color. However, if some think I would get enough color from the other malts, I really might consider getting rid of it. I'd like to get a nice deep amber color....is this possible without a really dark malt addition?

Craigweiser said:

Regarding the roasted barley addition, I was actually going to try and find debittered roasted barley because my only intention to add the roasted barley was for color. However, if some think I would get enough color from the other malts, I really might consider getting rid of it. I'd like to get a nice deep amber color....is this possible without a really dark malt addition?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't be scared of using regular roasted in this recipe, personally. It gets used in American Ambers all the time. Just keep it around two ounces. From there, you can jockey percentages between the crystal malts to get the SRM into the 12-15 range if that's important to you. Really, I wouldn't consider it that huge of a deal unless I was going to enter it somewhere.

I made an amber with 1 lb of Crystal 120, 1lb crystal 80, and 1/4 lb Victory. It seems that you are about there with the color. As for being in APA territory, there's a decent amount of overlap of the two styles.

I think 4 oz roasted barley is quite a bit for something amber, it is going to give it quite a roasty edge. I would consider dropping that to 2 oz to get a nice bright red/amber ale out of it without having the roast dominate.

Outside of that, its a great recipe. IMO, C120 special B or extra dark xtal is a MUST in an amber ale.

It looks a little like the Fat Tire Clone I was reading about last night.... I actually measured out the grains to brew this weekend.

But your hop additions will be a bit hopper than the below

Here it is from Memory.

8 lbs 10 oz Pale Ale Malt
.5 lbs Munich
.5 lbs Carapils
.5 lbs Crystal 20L or 60L
6 oz biscuit
2 oz Chocolate

.8 oz Willemite (speeling problem) 60 min
.5 oz Fuggle 20 min
.5 oz Fuggle 0 min

MASH 154 for 45 minutes... ( i assume until full conversion )

Happy Brewing....