Hoppy Amber Ale Recipe Help

[kjwatts06]

Wanting to brew a hoppy amber ale, something that has a strong caramel backbone but finishes with some fresh "hoppiness".

I entered a competition that I must use 7 lbs of a pale malt, and 7 ounces of Cascade, that is non-negotiable. Let me know your thoughts.

Pale Malt - 7 lbs
Caramel 60 - 1 lb, 4 oz.
Victory Malt - 1 lb, 4 oz.
Carared - 12 oz.
Aromatic Malt - 8 oz.

Cascade - 60 mins (1 oz)
Cascade - 30 mins (1 oz)
Cascade - 5 mins (1 oz)
Cascade - Flameout (2 oz)
Cascade - Dry Hop (2 oz)

London Ale III Yeast

Mash Temp: 152 (looking for full-body)

37 IBUs
14 SRM
ABV 5.6%

Going to use Bru N' Water to get a balanced profile with water.

Thoughts on this? I've done quite a few beers, but never an Amber Ale.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I'd start with the grain bill from "Simplified Amber" (probably more malt-y than caramel-y)

7.0 lbs Domestic 2 Row Pale Malt
3.0 lbs Munich Malt
1.5 lbs Cara-Red
0.5 lbs Melanoidin Malt

and (of course) re-arrange the hop timings to do a hop steep - probably 20 minutes at 180.

Cascade - 60 mins (1 oz)
Cascade - 30 mins (1 oz)
Cascade - 5 mins (1 oz)
Cascade - Flameout (2 oz)
Cascade - Hop Steep 3 oz @ 180 for 20 minutes
Cascade - Dry Hop (3 oz)

 

[nealm]

He’s restricted to 7 oz hops, cascade.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

He’s restricted to 7 oz hops, cascade.

In my proposed recipe (above), I had used "strike-through" to visually delete the @30, @5, and @0 hop additions.

Here's the recipe, cleaned up, in case there are devices that can't display "strike-through" text.

7.0 lbs Pale Malt
3.0 lbs Munich Malt
1.5 lbs Cara-Red
0.5 lbs Melanoidin Malt

Cascade - 60 mins (1 oz)
Cascade - Hop Steep (3 oz @ 180 for 20 minutes)
Cascade - Dry Hop (3 oz)

The latest "Hop Queries" newsletter has a summary of the MBAA podcast #123 ('Tracking IBU Through the Brewing Process'). It may be interesting to compare

Cascade - 60 mins (1 oz)
Cascade - Hop Steep (3 oz @ 180 for 20 minutes)
Cascade - Dry Hop (3 oz)

to

Cascade - 60 mins (1 oz)
Cascade - 5 min (3 oz)
Cascade - Dry Hop (3 oz)

and/or

Cascade - 60 mins (1 oz)
Cascade - 5 min (1.5 oz)
Cascade - Hop Steep (1.5 oz @ 180 for 20 minutes)
Cascade - Dry Hop (3 oz)

after 6-8 weeks of bottle conditioning.