American Amber Ale

[sychosabre68]

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Please give me your thoughts on my recipe. Still new to making my own recipes. I will be brewing this 1/7/17. TYIA for any comments.

 

[55x11]

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Please give me your thoughts on my recipe. Still new to making my own recipes. I will be brewing this 1/7/17. TYIA for any comments.

it will be good. But for traditional Amber Ale I would expect some caramel flavor with some residual sweetness (balanced by hops).

I would think it calls for some Munich (maybe 0.5-1 lbs or so for that biscuity magic flavor and some color) - maybe add some Victory malt, say 0.5 lb., for the same purpose, plus some combination of Caramel malts, up to a 1lb total, to get the color right.

 

[Yooper]

It's too much of the cara- type malts. You really don't want to go over 15% or so with crystal/caramel malts and even a bit less would be even better.

I like to use a light and a darker crystal malt, to "layer" the flavor so I'd ditch the carafoam for sure. I'd reduce the caraAroma a lot, as that's a very dark and strong crystal.

I'd go with about 7% lighter crystal, like 40L, and then use about 3% caraAroma or another darker crystal. I actually prefer to use 80L crystal instead of a dark crystal like caraAroma, because it's sort of burnt raisin tasting and too much is, well, too much.

I also like a bit of a "malty" malt in mine, and would consider two pounds of Munich and reducing the other basemalt by two pounds.

 

[brewbama]

This is what I use for American Amber:
Pale Malt 72.9%
Munich 7.7%
Crystal 40°L 8.3%
Crystal 120°L 5.5%
Victory 5.5%

...but there's a Caramel Amber Ale recipe floating around I want to try:

Pale Malt 73.68 %
Crystal Malt - 80L 15.79 %
Candi Syrup Amber 10.53 %

 

[sychosabre68]

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How about this? What do you think about my hop schedule?

 

[popsicleian]

That still seems like too much crystal malt to me, and definitely too much of the 120. With the victory and the munich it should be plenty malty if you reduce the crystal to 10% or so. I'd also only use about half as much 120 as any lighter crystal, and I would consider changing the crystal 60 to crystal 40. Just my two cents.

 

[sychosabre68]

So how do I get the color I want at the same time not over powering the crystal? Anytime I pull the crystal to 10% my color gets to the low end of the styles color. Close to 11SRM. I want it around 16 SRM.

 

[popsicleian]

You could always add a touch of Carafa or Midnight Wheat if the color is important to you. A small amount should give you color without any flavor contribution.

 

[rhys333]

I do an amber with 12% C80 and it's not too sweet, but you're on the upper end there with about 14% crystal. Also, way high on the C120. Using your same ingredients, I'd be tempted to try something along these lines:

76% 2 Row - 16.5 lbs
10% Crystal (7% C60 + 3% C120) - 2 lbs
7% Munich - 1.5 lbs
7% Victory - 1.5 lbs

 

[sychosabre68]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1483579325.235491.jpg

This is what I settled on. Thank you all for your input. I will be brewing this on Saturday and I'll let y'all know how it turns out.