American Amber Ale Help

[ca_baracus]

I basically threw this recipe together after looking at other amber recipes online and am looking for critiques!

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.76 gal
Color: 13.2 SRM
Bitterness: 32.5 IBUs
Est OG: 1.053 (13.1° P)
Est FG: 1.011 SG (2.9° P)
ABV: 5.5%

6 lbs 8.75 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
2 lbs 11.97 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)
7.18 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)
14.36 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)
1.00 oz Citra [12.0%] - Boil 20 min
1.00 oz Amarillo [9.2%] - Boil 10 min
1.00 oz Equinox (HBC 366) [15.0%] - Boil 0 min
1 pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)

Let me know what you think.

 

[eadavis80]

Change the Victory to 14.37 oz. and it will be better.

Looks fine to me

 

[ca_baracus]

Change the Victory to 14.37 oz. and it will be better.

Looks fine to me

Change it by .01 oz? Or you pulling my chain?

 

[eadavis80]

It was sarcasm - I think the recipe looks fine

 

[z-bob]

Change it by .01 oz? Or you pulling my chain?

He's making a joke about the precision of your numbers.

 

[ca_baracus]

Hah. I'm tired.

Beersmith precision for ya.

 

[chickypad]

2.75 lb for 26% seems like a lot of C-40. I would cut that to about a lb and add 1/2 lb of dark crystal personally. You can always add an oz or two of midnight wheat or something like that if you need color.

 

[ca_baracus]

2.75 lb for 26% seems like a lot of C-40. I would cut that to about a lb and add 1/2 lb of dark crystal personally. You can always add an oz or two of midnight wheat or something like that if you need color.

Thanks for the suggestion! Would this strictly be for color purposes? I’m not too concerned about color.

 

[ca_baracus]

2.75 lb for 26% seems like a lot of C-40. I would cut that to about a lb and add 1/2 lb of dark crystal personally. You can always add an oz or two of midnight wheat or something like that if you need color.

Thanks for the suggestion! Would this strictly be for color purposes? I’m not too concerned about color. Also, would a whirlpool addition be not good for this? Only asking because I have <1oz of Amarillo left from a previous brew. Was thinking about chucking it in a whirlpool to use it up. Thanks.

 

[GrimBrewer]

Yea 26% is a bit high...very high. I would bring it to 20% if not 15%. And changing 1/4 of that to a darker crystal will give a bit more dept of flavour.

My 10liter I made recently:
1.8 kg American - Pale 2-Row 37 1.8 62.3%
0.5 kg German - Munich Light 37 6 17.3%
0.29 kg German - CaraMunich II 34 46 10%
0.15 kg Belgian - Biscuit 35 23 5.2%
0.15 kg German - CaraMunich III 34 57 5.2%

Next time Im going to reduce the caramunich 3 a bit to about 3% and increase caramunich 2 to 12%.

 

[chickypad]

Right, not for color but for flavor. Like Grim said adding a dark and a light crystal can give some complexity. While I do tend to use more crystal in American ambers than about any other style I brew I would worry that 26% would be cloying.

Edit: re: the whirlpool, if you want some more hop aroma go for it

 

[ca_baracus]

View attachment IMG_0437.jpg

Ok, what about now? Light crystal went down to 10%

 

[chickypad]

I like those percentages much better, though you may want to bump up your base malt to compensate unless you want a session strength.

 

[ca_baracus]

View attachment IMG_1506280479.127994.jpg

Ok so I picked up my ingredients today from the LHBS and the guy helping me out suggested some tweaks to the grain bill from what I had in Beersmith. Can someone help decipher what the last grain is? I must not have been paying enough attention.

 

[ca_baracus]

Never mind. Just pulled the receipt. Duh

 

[chickypad]

I'm guessing Hugh Baird dark crystal 130L. Recipe looks good!

 

[Lefou]

Looks like a very interesting mix of grains. That extra bit of Maris Otter should bump up the flavor and ABV a bit. Victory, Munich, and caramel could be tasty blend of malt, toffee, and toast.
I like it.

 

[ca_baracus]

I'll definitely post the results!

 

[ca_baracus]

OK, brew day went well except for some transfer issues from mash tun to kettle while collected the second runnings (air bubble in the tubing?), so we ended up pouring some of the wort out of the side of the cooler through 2 strainers into the kettle before addressing the air bubble. Got more grain particulates in the kettle than I would have wanted. Oh well. Gravity was .002 off so, I'm pretty pleased. Ended up at 1.054 rather than 1.056.

My question now is about my bottling schedule. I'm working in between vacations here. Brew day was 9/30 and I'm thinking about dry-hopping Thursday night (5 days into fermentation) before going away for the weekend. Was going to bottle on 10/10 (10 days into fermentation). Is this too early? I was hoping to try out the dry-hop during last stages of active fermentation method. Using WPL001. My alternative is waiting until 10/11 to dry hop and bottling on 10/17. First time using WLP001 as well as my own equipment, so I really have no prior experience to help decide.

Any suggestions would be great.

 

[GrimBrewer]

You can bottle after 10 days if hit you FG and/of stays constant for 2 or 3 days.

If your yeast and temprature control is good and OG is not too hight you can bottle under 10 days. But you can also wait 3 to 4 weeks.

I seldom push for under 2 weeks. Turn around time is over 2 week less than 3. I make enought beer now that im not trying to rush it like I did when starting to brew.

Primary fermentation for one week at 18c. Then increase temprature over 20c for a ale and dry hop for 5 to 7 days.
About 5 days into dry hopping i start dropping temp to around 8c to 5c. Take out dryhops and add gelatine. Then drop temp as close to 0 celcius as possible. Normally thats about 3c. Wait day or two more then bottel. Gelatine all beers now except dark beers and skip some ipa's.

 

[mongoose33]

Looks like a very interesting mix of grains. That extra bit of Maris Otter should bump up the flavor and ABV a bit. Victory, Munich, and caramel could be tasty blend of malt, toffee, and toast.
I like it.

I recently brewed an Amber and substituted Maris Otter for the base 2-row the recipe called for.

Two words: "Yum." And another "Yum."

Had the family over Sunday night. BIL hadn't tried it yet so he pulled a pint. Gave it to his wife, my SIL, who had a taste. Get this: she poured her glass of wine back into the bottle and asked for a glass of the Amber.

I have never, not ever, seen her drink a beer. My wife had one too.

I like it, it's a flavorful but basic beer, but what surprising is that the BMC crowd tend to like it too.

 

[ca_baracus]

I recently brewed an Amber and substituted Maris Otter for the base 2-row the recipe called for.

Two words: "Yum." And another "Yum."

Had the family over Sunday night. BIL hadn't tried it yet so he pulled a pint. Gave it to his wife, my SIL, who had a taste. Get this: she poured her glass of wine back into the bottle and asked for a glass of the Amber.

I have never, not ever, seen her drink a beer. My wife had one too.

I like it, it's a flavorful but basic beer, but what surprising is that the BMC crowd tend to like it too.

Post the recipe!

 

[ca_baracus]

Just took a gravity sample last night, and I've reached FG of 1.012. Tasted nice and malty with some bitterness. I'm going to wait to dry-hop and bottle. There was still a good deal of krausen on top.

I used 1oz each of Citra/Amarillo/Ekuanot in the boil and have .75oz each of Amarillo/Simcoe/Centennial from another brew. These were vacuum sealed and have been in my fridge since June. I was originally just going to dry hop with the rest of the Amarillo, but am considering throwing all of it in there. You guys think that would be good or just stick to the Amarillo?

 

[mongoose33]

I recently brewed an Amber and substituted Maris Otter for the base 2-row the recipe called for.

Two words: "Yum." And another "Yum."

Had the family over Sunday night. BIL hadn't tried it yet so he pulled a pint. Gave it to his wife, my SIL, who had a taste. Get this: she poured her glass of wine back into the bottle and asked for a glass of the Amber.

I have never, not ever, seen her drink a beer. My wife had one too.

I like it, it's a flavorful but basic beer, but what surprising is that the BMC crowd tend to like it too.

Post the recipe!

Here's the source:

https://byo.com/mead/item/126-american-amber-style-profile

I substituted Maris Otter for the 2-row. I think it adds a little richness and depth. I used the BIAB method.

Here's the recipe:

9.5# MO
.5# Munich
.75# Crystal 40L
.25# Crystal 120L

Horizon .5oz 60 min (12.8/5.3)
Cascade .25oz 10 min (8.4/7.5)
Centennial .25oz 10 min (9.3/3.8)
Cascade .25oz 0 min
Centennial .25oz 0 min

Yeast: WLP-001

Mash at 154 degrees. Fermented at 67. That's higher than I normally would ferment, but it turned out just fine.

I crashed to 32 after 13 days.

OG was 1.058, FG was 1.015, ABV 5.64%. The recipe says OG will be 1.051, I think I get somewhat better conversion with the finer crush I use with BIAB. When I first saw the recipe I thought there's no way that's enough hops, but it actually works. I wish it didn't have those fractional amounts, I hate having leftovers like that. But it works.

All this typing is making me thirsty....

 

[ca_baracus]

Looks great! So no dry hopping for you?

 

[mongoose33]

Looks great! So no dry hopping for you?

Well, not in this recipe. That was brewed as part of a throwdown for my LHBS. While I followed the recipe others chose not to, so the contest really wasn't a fair test of the same recipe brewed with different processes.

When I first brewed this I looked at the hop bill and thought that it simply wasn't going to be enough, but I retained fidelity to the recipe.

It's not hoppy, but the hops are enough to balance the maltiness of the grain bill.