My Own Recipe....thoughts?

I'm sure this sort of beer has been made many times over, but it was a recipe that I came up with on my own rather than out of a recipe book, and would like to get some feedback/commentary on it. It is a malty amber ale with spices added (Holiday Cheer Ale?).


3.3 lbs Amber malt extract (lme)
1 lb Amber malt extract (dme)
1 lb Crystal/Caramel 60 malt (all grain)
1/2 lb CaraPils malt (all grain)

2 oz German Hallertau hops
2 oz Tettnang hops

Cinnamon and Ginger (amounts not yet decided).

White Labs European Yeast

I would have pegged it as an american amber till I saw the hop bill. Looks like it might be a tad on the sweet side to me. If you like full bodied ambers and those hops than give it a go.

I will say it is very tempting to try to come up with your own unique recipes when you start out, but it is better to brew some popular proven recipes at first. It allows you to learn your processes, and it gives you a feel for how certain ingredients work together, and it allows others with experience brewing the same type of beer to help troubleshoot your process if you get unexpected results.

I agree with you on that. I have brewed this recipe a few times without the grain malts and spices, as a Sam Adams Boston Ale clone. While it is not close to a BA clone at all (in my opinion, take that up with the hbs owner lol), it is a very tasty amber ale. It is a sweeter beer, but I enjoy the hop combinations so decided to stay with this recipe but make a few adjustments/additions of my own. If it comes out too sweet I'll have to go back and try to get it under control. Any thoughts of how you might make this beer a more wholesome, not-as-sweet beverage?

I'd be very cautious about putting 1lb of carapils into a 5 gallon extract batch. I think it will add too much body, it will drink like a thick syrup.

Personally the only time I ever use Carapils is when I am doing all grain, and mashing at 150 or lower so I can get a very dry, fermentable wort. The Carapils provides body to what would otherwise be a thin, dry beer.

Your recipe doesnt look like it will be thin and dry at all. I'd drop the Carapils completely.

I also think that 4 oz of hops, (even low alpha noble hops) might be overkill for a beer that will start out with an OG of 1.036 (according to beer tools pro). You described a malty amber ale..this will be very low gravity and low alcohol.

I would ramp the LME up to 5 pounds, and the DME up to 1.5 pounds, drop the carapils.

What is your planned hop schedule?

FlemingsFinest said:

Any thoughts of how you might make this beer a more wholesome, not-as-sweet beverage?

Click to expand...

drop your crystal 60 down to .5 lbs, it's contributing a large amount of sweetness.

or maybe use .5 of crystal 80 or 120 if you want the dark color with out adding a bunch of sweetness.

Well hard to say without more specifics. How big a batch are you making? If you are making 5 gallons than that beer would be a fairly low alcohol beer and I'm not sure if that is your intention or not.

If that is for a 5 gallon batch and you are not looking for a low alcohol beer, I would be tempted to knock the carapils down to .5 lbs and add 2 lbs more DME for a total of 3 lbs. If you like the color, stay with Amber dme, if you wanted to lighten it up make 1 or 2 lbs of the additional DME light DME.

I see that you are using a White Labs European Yeast, would that be WLP011? That yeast is meant to leave a lot of malty body. Changing to a higher attenuating yeast will help with the residual sweetness as well. You could go with WLP051 to get better attenuation and still retain some more of a fruity charachteristic, or with WLP001 to get a clean ferment and good attenuation. WLP001 would make a fine amber and is very versatile if you want to try to reuse it.

Just some quick suggestions there.

It's generally advisable to always use the palest malt extract you can find, and add your own specialty grains because you have no way of knowing which specialty grains were used by a particular manufacturer in their amber or dark extract, and I'm sure it varies from maltster to maltster.

Sorry everyone, I do not use a pound of CaraPils, that was supposed to say 1/2 lb. As for my hops schedule, I add the 2 oz of Tettnang for the last 20 minutes of a boil, allowing the water to simmer. Once it is at a simmer, I bring it back to a boil for the last 10 mins, and add the Hallertau, also slowly bring the water back to a simmer and finishing my 60 minute boiling process.

This recipe makes a 5 gallon batch. I was okay with the idea of adding 1 lb of Caramel 60 because I was interested in trying to redden the original brew a bit. The sweetness of the hops as well as the spices will contrast nicely with the malts I believe. I plan on doing primary fermentation for 2 weeks, bottling, and allowing secondary fermentation at about 62 degrees for 7-10 more days. With the hopes of making a rich yet sweet autumnal/holiday brew, I think a slightly higher alcohol content would be nice. But hey, this is just a piece of experimentation, and that's the beauty of homebrewing

Cheers.