Potential American Amber Recipe

EXTRACT (sorry tried to edit and put in the title)

Probably steeping too many grains here so ill do a mini-mash.

1 lb Victory
1 lb Munich
1 lb Caramel 40L
.5 lb Medium Crystal 55L

6 lbs Amber Malt Extract from Northern Brewer

1 oz of Sterling at 60 min
1 oz of Willamette at 10 min

Yeast: Wyeast Northwest Ale

Looks pretty good. I might add a little 2 or 6-row in the mash, I've had trouble getting Munich to convert fully in the past, but then again, that was in a full mash with lots of munich.

good call professor.
ive read that it helps to have some in mash somewhere.
this will be my first mini mash, so ill probably post for advice about that too at some point.

You need to have approximately a 2:1 ratio of base malt:specialty malt in a mash, so this would result in a big mash.

The biggest issue I see with this recipe is the amount of crystal malts. Remember Caramel is a crystal malt it just has it's own name. Personally I would drop the caramel altogether and just go with .5lb crystal 55L.

What are you shooting for? This might end up a bit on the sweet side with 1.5# of crystal, but I tend to prefer a drier beer anyway. I'm not positive how the amber LME interplays, you might be pretty close to the right color even using a light extract.

My most recent APA/American Amber used three pounds of Munich and a smaller amount of a light crystal malt, and came out nice and balanced.

yeah, i was thinking i might take out some of the caramel and do half crystal 55, half caramel 40. I bought both whole so i might toast some, unless that seems like a bad idea to anyone.

The Victory will already give you some toastiness.

Unless you already have it I wouldn't use Amber extract. Whats the point? It's just extract with specialty grains with it, which you don't know the % or what kinds.

Stick with pale or extra pale.

Happy brewing!

so this finally got made on saturday.

i couldnt get to the LHBS for 2 row/6 row, thus the mash didnt convert a whole lot of sugar.

it was 6lbs of amber LME (already had it but i wont bother with it next time probably), 1 lb munich, 1lb victory, 1lb british crystal 55l, and a handful of chocolate and roasted barley. I tasted the unfermented wort and it was delicious, OG of 1.042.

Now I know to go with less LME/DME and a 2:1 ratio and it'll be a better beer. Even with the mash being less effective than it could have been I'm totally sold on doing partial mashes.