palmers oak butt brown ale recipe question

I was gonna make palmers brown ale recipe it is:

7 lbs. pale ale malt
2 lbs. victory
.5 crystal 60L
.25 chocolate

My question is, which is prob. dumb, but what is he talking about with the pale ale malt? I know it isn't british pale ale bc where he calls for british it is listed. Is it just 2 row?

Just use any 2-row malt. Domestic would be fine, or if you wanted you could go with Maris Otter.

BrianP said:

Just use any 2-row malt. Domestic would be fine, or if you wanted you could go with Maris Otter.

Click to expand...

Good, cause that is what i just ordered, Thanks!

Also, one more question for those of you that have the john palmer book, on page 200 the paragraph titled " Suggested Recipe" the last part of the paragraph it says: "Of course, if there is another beer style that you prefer, you are welcome to use one of the other recipes from Chapter 20. Be sure to adjust your hopping schedule to take the full volume boil and lower boil gravity into account."

What does he mean by adjusting the hopping schedule? in chapter 20 all of the recipes have the hopping schedule listed, I don't get it?

I think he is referring to people who may be doing partial mash or extract brewing. With more concentrated wort, you need more hops to get the same bitterness. A full boil (less dense) will extract more bitterness per ounce of hops than a boil of lesser volume.

From looking at your recipe I assume you're going all-grain.

I'd suggest trying out BeerSmith or another brewing software since you can pretty easily make recipes, adjust them based on different boil volumes, make your own to suit a certain style, etc. BeerSmith is what I use and it's pretty cheap. They also have a trial period (30 days I think).

one more quick question about palmers recipes, now I am about to make his american pale ale and it calls for a half pound of amber malt i cant find that, what can i use instead?

I was guessing it's Crystal 60. After googling, it appears that is what it is.

From : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mash_ingredients#Amber_malt

"... Amber malt is a more toasted form of pale malt, kilned at temperatures of 150-160 °C, and is used in brown porter; older formulations of brown porter use amber malt as a base malt. Amber malt has a bitter flavor which mellows on ageing, and can be quite intensely flavored; in addition to its use in porter, it also appears in a diverse range of British beer recipes. ASBC 50-70/EBC 100-140; amber malt has no diastatic power."

Good luck with your brewing.

I just kind of made up the water amounts for the pale ale recipe, there was 8.5 gallons of grain so i mashed in with 2qt./lb which was 4.25 gallons then sparged to get 6.5 gallons preboil does this sound right?

2 qts/lb is a little thin. Many people here at HBT mash at 1.25 to 1.5, with 1.5 being quite popular. That allows you to sparge with more water volume which in turn rinses out more of the residual sugars.

BrianP said:

2 qts/lb is a little thin. Many people here at HBT mash at 1.25 to 1.5, with 1.5 being quite popular. That allows you to sparge with more water volume which in turn rinses out more of the residual sugars.

Click to expand...

so, if i mash with 1.5 just adjust to a bigger sparge amount to get to my 6.5 gal preboil volume, I was just wondering if there was a set amount that you had to mash with and if the water volumes were critical for certain styles bc i know in the book palmers brown recipe says to mash with 2qt

Amber malt is more akin to Vienna or Munich. It is a more highly kilned two-row, with its own (weak) enzymes. It would historically have been used as a base malt for some British ales (just like brown malt was the base malt for porter). It would lend a toasty or nutty flavour. I suggest biscuit malt, brown malt (in lesser quantities), or Vienna as a substitute.

It is not like crystal 60, nor would that be an accurate substitute. Crystal 60 will give sweetness and caramel flavour, not the toasty or nutty notes from amber malt.

There's not really an exact formula, since you have to account for grain absorption, dead space in your mash tun, etc.

What I do is drain my first runnings (after vorlauf) into my kettle, which I previously marked with 1/2 gallon increments (you could also mark your mash paddle or stirring spoon like a dipstick). When it's done draining, I know how much I've collected and how much more I need to go. I divide the remainder (the required amount) by 2, since I use two equal sized sparges (better for efficiency). You don't need to worry about additional absorption losses since the grain is already saturated and the deadspace is also as full as it will be later. But heat up a little extra sparge water just in case you miscalculated. I use a smaller kettle that my wife uses for canning to heat my sparge water (I use my kettle for heating the initial strike water).

Also, if you do it this way, you can try first wort hopping - adding your 60-minute hops to the kettle as you drain first runnings and sparge. The hops steep in the 150-ish degree wort and produce about 10% more IBUs, but also contribute a more balanced hop bitterness (search HBT for more info on it). Plus it smells soooo good when you do this.