Shooting for Bud American Ale

Bear with me here, this is my 1st attempt at a partial mash, and my first attempt at formulating my own recipe.

Ingrediants:
3.75# Cooper's Bitter Premium LME
5 # (grain) pale malt
1 oz cascade hops (30 min)
Cooper's Aussie Ale yeast (comes with LME, 7g)
Another 7g packet Cooper's Aussie Ale yeast due to additional gravity

I plan on a single temp infusion mash, 60 minute boil, primary, secondary and bottle conditioning all around 70°.

I was told a lb of specialty malts should be added for additional body. I have 1/2 lb chocolate rye, but I'm assuming that wouldn't go well with the recipe.

I'm shooting for something like Bud American Ale. This is a very basic recipe, I don't want a ton of different malts and hops due to my 1st partial mash.

Any thoughts?

As far as I know - Bud American Ale is dry - hopped with Cascades. I forget if I read it or saw it on one of their commercials. I assume the Coopers LME is pre-hopped? If so, the 30 minute hop addition is kind of hit or miss unless you can find someone else who has done this.

Seems to me you could do better with another type of Yeast, perhaps like S-04.

Personally - i thought the Bud Ale was a pretty decent brew & don't blame you for trying to duplicate it.

I find Bud American Ale quite delicious.

While I personally think there are quite a few other ales out there that are far better than BAA, I suggest we all back off and let the guy brew what he wants, and if you have some constructive comments, help the guy out.

Looks like BAA is an amber color, so I'd go with some caramel 40L or 60L malt. Also, you should have a 60 minute hop addition for some bitterness.

I plugged in your ingredients into Beertools, and I'm going to give you something to work with, but as I have never had BAA, I don't know how it's going to compare.
Use 1# of Caramel 40L for your specialty grain
1oz cascades at 60min
1oz at 20 min
1oz at 5 minutes.

With that your ABV should be around 5% and your IBU's depending on your actual hops will be about 37.

Just a guess, and I think you'll end up with a nice ale.

McKBrew said:

While I personally think there are quite a few other ales out there that are far better than BAA, I suggest we all back off and let the guy brew what he wants, and if you have some constructive comments, help the guy out.

Looks like BAA is an amber color, so I'd go with some caramel 40L or 60L malt. Also, you should have a 60 minute hop addition for some bitterness.

I plugged in your ingredients into Beertools, and I'm going to give you something to work with, but as I have never had BAA, I don't know how it's going to compare.
Use 1# of Caramel 40L for your specialty grain
1oz cascades at 60min
1oz at 20 min
1oz at 5 minutes.

With that your ABV should be around 5% and your IBU's depending on your actual hops will be about 37.

Just a guess, and I think you'll end up with a nice ale.

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I agree. I also think BAA is quite drinkable. I also think that if it came from a microbrewery and cost twice as much, it would get better reviews around here. OK, now flame me. Go ahead, I can take it.

The recipe as above sounds very nice.

McKBrew said:

While I personally think there are quite a few other ales out there that are far better than BAA, [...] I have never had BAA

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BAA is dry and clean, with lots of caramel character and not much bitterness. From the OP's recipe, I would go with 12oz of C90, .5oz Cascade at 15, .5 dry-hop, and US-05 yeast. The hopped LME should provide enough bittering.

HTH.

McKBrew said:

While I personally think there are quite a few other ales out there that are far better than BAA, I suggest we all back off and let the guy brew what he wants, and if you have some constructive comments, help the guy out.

Looks like BAA is an amber color, so I'd go with some caramel 40L or 60L malt. Also, you should have a 60 minute hop addition for some bitterness.

I plugged in your ingredients into Beertools, and I'm going to give you something to work with, but as I have never had BAA, I don't know how it's going to compare.
Use 1# of Caramel 40L for your specialty grain
1oz cascades at 60min
1oz at 20 min
1oz at 5 minutes.

With that your ABV should be around 5% and your IBU's depending on your actual hops will be about 37.

Just a guess, and I think you'll end up with a nice ale.

Click to expand...

McBrew, thanks, I'm going to take your suggestions and run with them.

I'm new to this homebrewing and microbrew thing; however, I am not new to internet message boards. By all means make your snide comments about BAA, I truly do not mind, and I find them amusing. It's cool, don't worry.

McKBrew said:

I plugged in your ingredients into Beertools, and I'm going to give you something to work with, but as I have never had BAA, I don't know how it's going to compare.
Use 1# of Caramel 40L for your specialty grain
1oz cascades at 60min
1oz at 20 min
1oz at 5 minutes.

With that your ABV should be around 5% and your IBU's depending on your actual hops will be about 37.

Just a guess, and I think you'll end up with a nice ale.

Click to expand...

I agree, you might not end up with BAA, but I think this will be a nice American ale with a strong caramel note. Add about 0.5-1.0oz. Cascade dry hop, and it will be even better.

I bet it comes out even better than BAA.

Okay, I have pre-hopped bitter AND use a total of 3 OZ of hops? This will surely be in IPA then?

McKBrew said:

IBU's depending on your actual hops will be about 37.

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BAA is actually more like 20 IBUs. But it depends on your process how much hops you will need to match its bitterness.

BAA is also made by a big brewery so it doesn't contain many different specialty malts. My hunch is to say that it uses 2-row pale malt and one type of crystal. For extract that means light extract + steeping the crystal malt.

Although it is dry hopped I it doesn't have a strong aroma. So they only used a small amount. Maybe 1/4 oz / 5 gal or less.

I don't think this is the thread to ***** about this beer. Open one in the Commercial Beer Discussion forum if you need to.

Kai

I wasn't sure how many IBU's it had, guess I should have looked it up. Just trying to balance it out a bit.

Good luck on the brew.

McKBrew said:

I wasn't sure how many IBU's it had, guess I should have looked it up. Just trying to balance it out a bit.

Good luck on the brew.

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Me neither I'll assume 1 oz equivalent of whatever it has. Will drop down to 2 oz cascades then for that.

thanks for the help. I'm looking forward to my first parial mash now.

Might want to also mash on the low end of the temp range. IIRC, the BAA I had was rather light-bodied for an amber.

BAA is more or less an american amber with some light dry hopping I've been told.

It won't be a pure clone, but find an AA recipe you like and dryhop with some cascade.

dogbar said:

Might want to also mash on the low end of the temp range. IIRC, the BAA I had was rather light-bodied for an amber.

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I planned on it.

AB has brewing down to a science. To consistently brew something as difficult as an American Light Lager batch after batch like they do is very impressive.

I'd sub the Coopers yeast out with a pack of US-05, a vial of WLP001 or a smack pack of 1056. You'll want a clean ester profile for an American Amber and I personally don't like the ester profile the Coopers gives.

I like BAA around 50*F, it really opens up and it still stays clean tasting. Cold is kinda bland though.

Before it even came out last summer a bunch of us were attempting to deconstruct it based on what scant info out there...I took notes from a couple videos....but I don't know where the notes are now, sorry...but here are a couple of the videos we were using as reference.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY4AH2KJ650]YouTube - A-B American Ale Info And Tasting[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGcqjJootQY]YouTube - Budweiser American Ale[/ame]

And IIRC it's 28 IBU's...and 5.3% ABV..so you can get an idea of what you are shooting for in the grainbill to hit 5.3...

I would skip using any pre-hopped kit extracts and try to build it from the ground up...from my underdstanding it's a very simple grainbill...2-row, a mid range Crystal (like a 40 perhaps? Or maybe some 60 and either 40 or 20) and I'm thinking it's vienna, or a hint of biscuit to it...there's a malty, slightly bready mid note to the flavor profile.

And some carapils for head....

But it's not a complex grain bill...and the most neutral Ale yeast you can find like us-05....I wouldn't be surprised if they brewed it cold with a lager yeast since it is so clean....but it might just be an ale at it's coldest range.


If you listen to the video he talks about the hops used...and hints at the grainbill....he says they are all american, which rules out the vienna, but it does have something for a malt backbone. It's four hops which are listed at the end of the first video and is dryhopped.

Briess amber DME would probably be a good base. It's just base malt, carapils and c-60 for color. Maybe 1/2 oz. Magnum at 60, 1/2 cascade at 15 and 1/4 cascade dry hop.

Conroe said:

Briess amber DME would probably be a good base. It's just base malt, carapils and c-60 for color. Maybe 1/2 oz. Magnum at 60, 1/2 cascade at 15 and 1/4 cascade dry hop.

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Actually even if it's not even close...it sounds like a good amber ale.There's a couple hops mentioned in the video that you didn't include but it wouldn't be to hard to factor them in, but that's worth making...

When I create my recipes I base it on xlt dme because it gives me more range to derive my flavors from steeping grains....but playing around with the dmes will be something that you'll need to do to approximate the flavor.

On the drive home I was thinking that since we have the IBU's we can approximate the starting gravity, using the IBU/BG chart.



We know it's got 28 Ibus...and to me it is not overly hoppy, it tips to the malty side. so using the chart I'm thinking that it has a starting grav in and around 1.065-1.070.

You could going by Conroes suggestion of the Amber Dme, calculate approximately the number of pounds to get the Og in that area...you also then need to figure out an attenuation of the yeast (usually around 75%)

Playing with the formula for calculating ABV Og-Fg*131= 5.3%

Would get you really close to the amount of grain you need..

Then if you can find on a website or the literiture the color in srms you can start tweaking with brewing software, with a some playing and maybe brewing a couple of test batches...you can hit a pretty good clone...

But a hint..right now I am drinking Great lakes Brewing companies "Elliot Ness" amber LAGER...and I'm thinking that that grainbill is mighty close to AB ALE, it's got a bit more caramel...but it is still close...It would be worth looking at the clone for that beer and see what they use...as well as doing a side by side comparison. I have seen the Eliot Ness clone recipe online.

It's probably more like 1oz Palisades at 60, 1/2 Saaz at 15 and 1/4 oz Cascade dry hop. He mentioned another hop in the video but I have no idea what it was.

944play said:

BAA is dry and clean, with lots of caramel character and not much bitterness. From the OP's recipe, I would go with 12oz of C90, .5oz Cascade at 15, .5 dry-hop, and US-05 yeast. The hopped LME should provide enough bittering.

HTH.

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I love avatars of people making mean faces! They are so cool! I remember when I was 15 and I had all of that pent up rage......

Conroe said:

It's probably more like 1oz Palisades at 60, 1/2 Saaz at 15 and 1/4 oz Cascade dry hop. He mentioned another hop in the video but I have no idea what it was.

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Got it...the roll "credits" at the end of the first video really fast.

"Palisades, Willamette, Saaz and cascade in Kettle. Dry Hop with Cascade."

Hmmm I've never seen Palisades, but I have everything else in stock.

Here's what I found about Palisades.

Palisades is a new hop variety from the Pacific Northwest. It has moderately strong bittering, with a grassy, apricot-like aroma that's often described as "pretty." All-Palisades ales are increasingly popular.

Alpha Acid % is generally 6.5% - 8.0%

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From Hop Pellets

greenboard said:

Palisade
Origin/History: Palisadeâ„¢ is an aroma type cultivar bred by Yakima Chief Ranches.
Agronomics: Good pickability of a medium size cone.
Brewing Quality: Used for its aromatic properties and moderate bittering.
Maturity: Medium
Alpha acids: 5.5-9.5%
Alpha:Beta ratio: 1.0
Beta acids: 6.0-8.0%
Cohumulone: 24-29% (% of alpha acids)
Total Oil: 1.4-1.6 (mls. of oil per 100g)
Myrcene: 9-10% (as % of total oils)
Caryophyllene: 16-18% (as % of total oils)
Humulene: 19-22% (as % of total oils)
Farnesene: 0% (as % of total oils)
Storage: good
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Alpha: 9-10%
Comments: New higher alpha Willamette replacement
Possible Substitutes: Unknown as of yet
Use: British Ales, American Ales
Source: Rooftop Brew
==========
For those of you who like to experiment, this is a new hop on the market and is bred from Swiss Tettnanger. At 8.3% alpha acid it's a medium-bitter hop and has a flavor and aroma similar to a noble hop. They also remind me of a much smoother version of Chinook.
Source: Culver City Homebrewing
==========
Fairly recent American cross of Tettnager and open pollenation resulting in a moderate alpha hop with good aroma characteristics. (Alpha acid 6-10% / beta acid 4-7%)
Source: Wikipedia
==========
Palisade walks the line between bittering and aroma with alpha acids just under 10%. It has a soft, clean finish with characteristics similar to Willamette.

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Actually that sounds like a pretty tasty hop.