My first recipe...thoughts?

I was looking all over the Internet for American Red/Amber recipes the past two days, and after entering a bunch in ProMash, I thought, why not try to make one on my own? So, after looking at several recipes, I got some general ideas of what would make for a good beer of this type, and this is what I came up with:

6.5 # Munton's Light DME
1# Crystal 60L
.125# Roasted Barley
.125# Special B Malt

.75 oz. Galena (60 minutes)
.5 oz. Williamette (5 minutes)

Entering these ingredients on Promash, I get a SG of 1.059. 15.8 SRM, and 45.6 IBU. All fall withing the BJCP guidlines of American Amber Ale. It seems to me that everything should work out fine.

Assuming 75% attenuation with the Pacman yeast (conservative estimate, from my experience with this yeast), I'd get a final gravity of about 1.015, with an estimated ABV of 5.76% if I'm calculating this right. I wonder if that's considered too high for this style? It's a chance I'm willing to take, either way...

I'm going to use Pacman yeast that I washed from my Dead Guy clone that I racked Tuesday evening. I'm thinking about adding some Irish Moss, and I saw a suggestion on this forum to add a couple teaspoons of gypsum, which I think I may do as well.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. I do plan on making the trek to LHBS this afternoon, so if anything looks out of whack, please let me know ASAP!

Sounds like a good brew to me. The ABV certainly sounds like it's in the range...especially since the OG is in that range, which is really what matters.

Evan! said:

Sounds like a good brew to me. The ABV certainly sounds like it's in the range...especially since the OG is in that range, which is really what matters.

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Well, duh, I should have thought of that, with the OG being in range. For some odd reason, I had this idea in my head that Amber ales shouldn't be much higher than 5% ABV. I've been reading so much about different styles and what not, that I've been getting numbers crossed a lot.

Anyway, the more I read on this stuff, the standard measuring sticks for a style of brew seem to be more on the OG, FG, IBU and SRM. Like you astutely pointed out, OG and FG kind of take care of the ABV question.

Thanks for your input!