Critique my recipe.

Instead of typing in my recipe, I figured I’d post some screens shots from Brewtarget of my recipe. It is tailored after the “walkthrough” 5 gallon Amber Ale recipe in the Brewtarget manual. I made my own equipment list because I do BIAB using a 3 gallon drinking water cooler as my mash tun. I add both strike and sparge water when I mash. I used the Mash Designer feature instead of the Mash Wizard for that. What you don’t see is the yeast. I plan on rehydrating a packet of Nottingham for that. I tried to scale it to 2 gallons, but the numbers, OG, SG, ect, didn’t come out right, so I made some adjust so that they were all in the green for style. I added the chocolate malt which wasn’t in the original recipe, for color.

Please take a look at this and let me know what you think, critiques, comments, suggestions, etc.


By stanjohnson at 2012-04-20


By stanjohnson at 2012-04-20


By stanjohnson at 2012-04-20


By stanjohnson at 2012-04-20

I'm not sure how 20% crystal 40L is going to taste. It might be good but I'd use 10% and then 5% of something darker. It's not going to be a real hoppy beer. You might want to up the late additions.

The original recipe only had 2 row and crystal 40L. I'm trying to do a brew with stuff I have on hand. The only other things I have on hand are chocolate malt (which I already added for color), black patent and roasted barley. Are Amber Ales suppose to be hoppier? And aren't late addition hops more for flavor and aroma? I have other hops on hand; Northern Brewer, Kent Golding and Fuggles that I could add. I'm not sure how they would affect the flavor.

How you have the hops is probably fine. It depends on who your making it for. I'd at least add a small dry hop of cascade and lower the crystal top 15%.

Malticulous said:

How you have the hops is probably fine. It depends on who your making it for. I'd at least add a small dry hop of cascade and lower the crystal top 15%.

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I'm making it for myself. I dropped the the crystal to 15% and all numbers are still in the green. Can I use any of the hops I listed instead of cascade for dry hopping without changing the flavor? And how much should I add? I notice if I change the 60 min. hops to .6 and reduce the 5 min. to .1, my ibu changes to 39.0. How would that affect the aroma?

Cascade is a good dry hop. Maybe you could bitter with Northern Brewer?

You could also dry hop with fuggles. it gives more of a subtle, earthy aroma, which works pretty well in an amber IMO.

Thanks for the ideas guys. I hadn't thought about dry hopping. Might just have to give it a try.

Change the 60 minute hop to something different, and use the Cascade for dry hopping. If all you have is 0.9 ozs of Cascade, split it into 3 equal parts and use one for dry, and the others for flavor and aroma.

15% Crystal is still high.

As best as I can tell, you are making a 2 gallon batch, with about 4.5 lbs of grain. At 75% efficiency, you should be getting a higher OG than 1.045; probably closer to 1.060.

Your Crystal 40 has 0 yield and SRM on your grainbill. Change those values to 74 and 40 and then see what you get.

For a 2 gallon batch, your flavor/aroma hops might be fine. Here's how I think about things when designing a recipe:

hoppiness vs bitterness - to me hoppiness has to do with flavor and aroma and not bitterness. I first decide how bitter and how hoppy I want the beer to be, then add in my late additions first to the recipe and "fill in" the remaining IBUs with a 60 minute addition. For late additions, you shouldn't really worry about the alpha acid levels because they have no impact on flavor or aroma. In your recipe, 0.2 oz of flavor and aroma hops would be equivalent to 0.5 oz in a 5 gallon batch. This should give you a moderate amount of flavor and aroma.

As for the crystal malt - I too think that 15% is high, BUT I've come to appreciate that this is a matter of personal taste. Personally, I find I do not enjoy beers with even 10% crystal malts. However there are plenty of people who like even 20%

OK guys. Playing around a bit and with your suggestions:

2 row: 4.0 lbs 91%
Crystal 40: 5 oz which gives me 7% (changed yield and color to 74/40)
Chocolate malt: 1oz 1%

NB: 0.4 oz @60
Cascade: 0.2 oz @15
Cascade: 0.2 oz @5

What difference would NOT dry hopping make? I'm not really looking for a higher ABV. Is 4 lbs of 2 row too much? I don't want too much alcohol flavor.

JLem stated that my current hops schedule will give me a moderate amount of flavor and aroma. I'm OK with that.

It now looks like this:

An American amber needs more than 10% crystal. Caramel flavor is part of the style. Lower than that is more like an APA.

You can make stronger beers with little alcohol flavors. It has to do with the fermentation. Keep it cool.

I think a small dry hop of cascade will make the beer better. In Mojave Red the small dry hop totally changes the hop character of the beer. It has only a little more hops but judges in competitions say to use more.

Thanks for all the help guys.

Malticulous said:

An American amber needs more than 10% crystal. Caramel flavor is part of the style. Lower than that is more like an APA.

You can make stronger beers with little alcohol flavors. It has to do with the fermentation. Keep it cool.

I think a small dry hop of cascade will make the beer better. In Mojave Red the small dry hop totally changes the hop character of the beer. It has only a little more hops but judges in competitions say to use more.

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I dropped the 2 row to 3.8 lbs and upped the crystal to 7 oz which puts it at 10%. I've been reading about dry hopping and some add it to the primary after fermentation is complete while others rack it to a secondary. Is one better than the other? Also, when you say a small dry hop, how much would that be for 2 gallons?

If you dry hop in primary your also dry hopping the yeast cake so you need more hops for the same result. I'd use 3-7 grams. More won't hurt any thing. It's mostly aroma, but aroma is a big part of our sense of flavor.

Malticulous said:

If you dry hop in primary your also dry hopping the yeast cake so you need more hops for the same result. I'd use 3-7 grams. More won't hurt any thing. It's mostly aroma, but aroma is a big part of our sense of flavor.

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Thanks for your help. I think I'm going to brew this one next weekend. I need to read up a little more on dry hopping to make sure I get it right. Wish me luck.

Malticulous said:

If you dry hop in primary your also dry hopping the yeast cake so you need more hops for the same result.

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Never heard this before; where did you learn about it?


Edited - Nevermind, found it in a BYO article.