All-Grain Amber Ale Recipe

This is my first amber ale recipe. I want to create a darker amber with nutty, toasted (biscuit), carmel notes, slightly blackened, and subtly hopped with a floral and piney taste. I want this to be pretty dark but still have the composition of an amber which should be an easy drinking ale. My question is, will i get these flavors out of the recipe I created? Is there too much specialty grains? And am I using the right ones? Any help would be appreciated!

Program: BeerSmith

Grains:
10# 2-row pale malt
1# Victory
1# Munich
1# Caramel 120L (hoping for a little raisin flavor)
0.5# Roasted Barely
0.5# Carapils
0.25# Black Patent Malt

Hops:
0.5 oz Centennial @ 60 min
0.5 oz Centennial @ 30 min
0.5 oz Amarillo @ 5 min

Yeast: Wyeast American Ale

Calculated:
ABV 6.7%
SRM 28
IBU 33

With the 0.5 lb of roasted barley and another .25 of black patent I'd say you're going past brown toward porter range. I wouldn't use either of those, and instead go with something like a quarter lb of pale chocolate. That's still going to put you on the darker side of amber I think. For hops I don't expect you'll get pine from amarillo and centennial, you may want to throw in some chinook or simcoe late.

chickypad said:

With the 0.5 lb of roasted barley and another .25 of black patent I'd say you're going past brown toward porter range. I wouldn't use either of those, and instead go with something like a quarter lb of pale chocolate. That's still going to put you on the darker side of amber I think. For hops I don't expect you'll get pine from amarillo and centennial, you may want to throw in some chinook or simcoe late.

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I second this. When I do an amber, I don't like to throw in much dark roasted malt, since in my mind the grain bill is all about the bready, toasty, aromatic-type malts. There's no problem with throwing in a small bit of roasted malt, but I am personally kind of stingy with them. You don't want to end up with a brown or a porter if you meant to make an amber.

Also, these hop choices are wonderful, but you won't get the pine notes that you are after (as chickypad mentioned). If you want that pine, go with the previous suggestion of some simcoe or chinook (I'd choose the former, personally). However, if you are willing to give up the piney element, these hop choices will still yield a great result as they stand currently.

I guess I'm basically just repeating what was already said, but let's say that I'm doing so for emphasis!

Great advice guys! Thanks for the help. I altered my recipe (realizing how dark it would be) by lowering the roasted barley, taking out the black patent malt and carapils, while adding chocolate malt. I think i'm going to keep the hops schedule the same just because I know they are the ones I want to use.

I think amber SRM range is like 12-18 ish.

moreb33rplz said:

I think amber SRM range is like 12-18 ish.

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Well, taking into account the modifications he's making, he might end up with a dark amber or a light brown (or who knows, maybe it'll come out even darker), but I think that overall he's shooting for the right flavor profile, and ultimately that is more important.

Still, with both roasted barley and chocolate malt, you are going to end up with a beer significantly darker than an Amber. Especially since you also have a bunch of crystal 120 in there.

I recently did an Amber using Crystal 20 and 80. Then threw in just 4 oz. of chocolate malt. It ended up being a light brown instead of Amber.

So, unless you are ok with going pretty dark, you might want to adjust again.