First AG brew, I bought grain..what shoud I make?

Well, I bought some grain this weekend but I am not sure what to make. Here is what I bought.

10# Wyermans German Pale 2 row
3 # Cara Amber
3# American Chocolote

I also have 2 packs coopers dry ale yeast, a package of US-05 and a nice S-04 yeast cake from an IPA. I have 3 ounces of Northern Brewer hops and an ounce of cascade as well.

I was thinking something like

8# German Pale
2# Cara Amber
4 0z chocolate

1 oz Northern Brewer @60
1 oz cascade at 10 minutes or so

some sort of Amber Ale....

I also think I may have enough IBU's and Dark Malt to try an Imperial Stout? Maybe I just play it safe with a simple ale..what do the experts think?

I will be single infusion mashing with a double batch sparge.

You'll need a few extra grains if you intend on doing a stout. I like the recipe you've got there, but it's not an amber. You'd have to go much lower on the cara-amber and the chocolate. Otherwise it'll be fairly dark. You probably have a good American Brown Ale as is.

Maybe I just cut the chocolate out all together and just go with the pale and the amber, to get a lighter ale? I think IBU's will be in the 40-42 range in this configuration according to the software I plugged it into. This is on the low end for a brown ale...so maybe my ingredients are better suited for a simple amber? It looks like I bought a little bit too much chocolate malt! oh well.

8# german pale
2# cara amber

1oz northern brewer at 60 minutes
1 oz cascade at 10 minutes


sounds pretty simple to me, but I bet it would be good. Maybe a nice dry hop in secondary.

I threw some numbers into some software. This looks good to me.

Brewer: - Permo Email: -
Beer: - Style: American Amber Ale
Type: All grain Size: 5 gallons
Color: 29 HCU (~15 SRM) Bitterness: 36 IBU
OG: 1.055 FG: 1.012
Alcohol: 5.5% v/v (4.3% w/w)
Grain: 7 lb. german pale
3 lb. cara amber
1 oz. American chocolate
Mash: 75% efficiency
Boil: minutes SG 1.045 6 gallons
Hops: 1 oz. Northern Brewer (8.5% AA, 60 min.)
.5 oz. Cascade (6% AA, 15 min.)
.5 oz. Cascade (aroma)

I just wanted to point out that CaraAmber is a specialty malt. You seem to be trying to use it as a base malt. I would not suggest using more than 1-1.5lbs. of this stuff. Aside from the fact that using this much CaraAmber will result in a brown beer (not amber), it's a crystal malt and shouldn't be used for more than 15-20% of your grist.

If it were me and I did a basic Amber recipe with what you've got...

9# 2-row
1# CaraAmber
1oz. Chocolate

Cascades are a perfect fit for amber ales.

Here is the modifed recipe - I had to add another ounce of chocolate to get the color dark enough to fit the style

Permo Email: -
Beer: Ringneck American Ale Style: American Amber Ale
Type: All grain Size: 5 gallons
Color: 18 HCU (~11 SRM)
Bitterness: 35 IBU
OG: 1.057 FG: 1.012
Alcohol: 5.8% v/v (4.5% w/w)
Grain: 9 lb. German Pale 2 Row
1 lb. Cara Amber
2 oz. American chocolate
Mash: 75% efficiency
Boil: minutes SG 1.047 6 gallons
Hops: 1 oz. Northern Brewer (8.5% AA, 60 min.)
.5 oz. Cascade (6% AA, 15 min.)
.5 oz. Cascade (aroma)

Here is the modifed recipe - I had to add another ounce of chocolate to get the color dark enough to fit the style

Permo Email: -
Beer: Ringneck American Ale Style: American Amber Ale
Type: All grain Size: 5 gallons
Color: 18 HCU (~11 SRM)
Bitterness: 35 IBU
OG: 1.057 FG: 1.012
Alcohol: 5.8% v/v (4.5% w/w)
Grain: 9 lb. German Pale 2 Row
1 lb. Cara Amber
2 oz. American chocolate
Mash: 75% efficiency
Boil: minutes SG 1.047 6 gallons
Hops: 1 oz. Northern Brewer (8.5% AA, 60 min.)
.5 oz. Cascade (6% AA, 15 min.)
.5 oz. Cascade (aroma)

THis is the recipe I was shooting for. My first AG recipe ever...talk about a GLORIOUS smell in the house. I mashed with 3.5 gallons at 151 degrees that went down to 147 after 60 minutes..single infusion... I then sparged 2 gallons twice (four gallons total) just simply mixing the hot water in and draining.....I had about 6 gallons of wort at the end.

I only have a 5 gallon brewpot so I had to use some smaller pots too...regardless at the end I ended up with 5.5 gallons of OG = 1.45 brew...nice color...US-05 is pitched. It was a great process....and so darned easy.

I think if I would have boiled longer to get down to 5.0 gallons I would have approached 1.050...very close to target.

The worst part is I just noticed now that my digital thermometer wasnn't calibrated correctly..it reads about 10 degrees warm...so I mashed and sparged very cool....but got decent results.


I can't wait for next weekend.....AG rules.

Looks good. Let us know how it turns out.

Did you boil the same amount in each pot? If not, your hop utilization may be a bit different than you think.

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

Looks good. Let us know how it turns out.

Did you boil the same amount in each pot? If not, your hop utilization may be a bit different than you think.

Click to expand...

I was able to fit 6 gallons into my main pot, and I had a little over a gallon of runnings that I couldn't fit in there. So as the main 6 gallon pot evaporated I incorporated the other gallon or so into the main pot during the course of the boil.

I calculated my hop schedule and IBU based on a 6 gallon boil so I should be in great shape. 12 hours later a little pressure is building in the fermenter, so it looks like the US-05 is going to take off soon.

Well, I just racked this to secondary today. I snuck a taste and man is it good. Toasty, roasty with a little bitterness and good aroma. I racked onto an ounce of leaf saaz just because.

US-05 pulled it down to 1.009 in 6 days. I think FG will likely hit 1.007 or so. I am thinking this will end up being like New Belgium Skinny dip with a little more backbone. Nice.

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

Looks good. Let us know how it turns out.

Did you boil the same amount in each pot? If not, your hop utilization may be a bit different than you think.

Click to expand...

I just bottled this brew tonight after 1.5 weeks in Primary and a 1 week saaz whole leaf dry hop in secondary. I had to steal a few tastes as I moved it from secondary to the bottling bucket. It is very good! You get hit upfront with malt, fading to crisp bitterness. It is hard for me to detect aroma before carbonation, but I think this is going to be very similar to a new belgium fat tire, but with a little less alcohol and more hop bitterness and aroma. I mashed super low, so I ended up going from 1.040 to 1.006. That puts the ABV north of 4.4 so it is quite sessionable. All in all, for my first all grain I think it is a home run.

I have two more all grains in primary:

Oatmeal Stout
Apricot Wheat IPA ....sounds good doesn't it?!

The best thing is that on my last two my efficiency was right around 74% which is pretty good for a cooler with some steel hose!