American Amber Ale Caramel Amber Ale

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Have brewed this several times over during the past few years. One of my favorite all around beers. Got the best complement of any beers I've brewed from a coworker and fellow homebrewer that I gave a few bottles to when he said "that beer was SO good I made my pregnant wife try some".
 
Hey all.

I brewed this a month ago I think, and have tried a few. Mine has come out too hoppy for my taste. This is something that I hope will subdue in time.

How long are you guys waiting to drink this, or did I manage to overhop somehow?

The recipe quotes batch size of 5.5 gallons. Is that the pre-boil volume, or post boil? That might explain things a little.
 
markusreadus said:
Hey all.

I brewed this a month ago I think, and have tried a few. Mine has come out too hoppy for my taste. This is something that I hope will subdue in time.

How long are you guys waiting to drink this, or did I manage to overhop somehow?

The recipe quotes batch size of 5.5 gallons. Is that the pre-boil volume, or post boil? That might explain things a little.
Click to expand...

Batch size refers to the amount going into the fermentor.

I started drinking this about 4 to 5 weeks after brew day.
 
I've now made this twice after making the transition from bottling to kegging. I also have started letting my brews sit in primary for only 2 weeks before kegging, as opposed to 4 weeks when I use to bottle. Hasn't been a problem with my pales and IPA's but I've noticed this beer likes to have a little longer in primary and/or bottle/keg conditioning before it gets really good.

Don't rush this one. It's worth the wait!!
 
I totally agree. I think all beers, perhaps with the exception of some hop monsters, benefit from aging. I typically primary 3-4 weeks then keg/carbonate for a week then sample and start drinking. Then the beer continues to get better, especially at the one month-ish mark.
 
OG figures typically include everything, candi sugar/syrup, sugars, grains... anything that constitutes carbohydrates.

By the way, it's worth checking the figures posted here in a brewing software calculator, and if you find problems ask here. Mine didn't add up, so I made an (incorrect) assumption and ended up putting too many hops in the beer. It's drinkable, but no where near as good as I think it was supposed to be. An ale like this is striking a fine balance between bitterness, hop aromas and flavours, and that nice sweet caramel malt taste. Mine came out too hoppy, and it feels 'confused' as a result.
 
If I have to add 7.15oz of sucrose to bring the carbonation of the 5.5gal batch to 2.5 volumes, does this mean that I have to add 0.16oz of sucrose to each of the 46 (0.12oz) bottles that I can fill from this batch if I want the beer to carbonate in the bottles?
 
Yes, the sucrose needs to be added to the beer after fermentation has completed.

You can add it to each bottle individually, however that's very tedious and it can be difficult to measure out - getting this wrong is a good way to end up with exploding bottles.

If you have the equipment, my recommendation would be to drain the beer off the trub at the bottom of the fermenter and into some other fermentation vessel. Dissolve and boil all the sucrose in a little water for a few min, and then chuck that into the second fermenter with the beer. Get a well sanitised paddle or spoon, give it a very good stir to mix the sucrose evenly in the beer, and then bottle. I find that a lot easier than adding to each bottle, and I get more consistent results.

It requires you to have the equipment however. I use an auto-siphon, and you'll need a second fermenter with a tap in it.

Good luck!
 
Just curious, what kind of IBU range are we looking at for this brew?! It sounds fantastic, but I'm trying to brew something SWMBO will enjoy, and she's not big on bitterness!
 
Dgratiot said:
Just curious, what kind of IBU range are we looking at for this brew?! It sounds fantastic, but I'm trying to brew something SWMBO will enjoy, and she's not big on bitterness!
Click to expand...

Mine comes in about 37. Very nice balance between malty/sweet with just a touch of bitterness.
 
OKay, i was thinking of knocking the first addition of chinook down to around .5oz for the 60min boil. Would this be alright?
 
Hi,

Can't wait to give this a go, looks delicious and coincidentally gives me a way to use up most of the hops in my freezer :ban:

For those that are interested, I've converted the recipe into a 19L (5 Gallons in playschool units:p) metric recipe with European ingredients here.

Given they are a few months in the freezer I'll assume they lost some oils over time which is why I'm converting gram for gram because I've no chiller and so am meant to reduce my hop amount by circa 20%.

I haven't gotten round to reading the whole thread yet but will definitely do and post back if I have any changes to make.

At the latest, I'll post back with a taste report :mug:
 
Thinking of taking my second stab at this one this weekend. First time it was only my 4 or 5th brew and it ended up not carbonating much. I have found that I'm not much of a Chinook fan, too aggressive on the bitterness and too much grapefruit for my liking. I have 4 or 5 ounces of both Calypso and El Dorado from last year that I could use and a couple ounces of Saaz. Anybody think those would be good substitutes? I was leaning more towards using the Calypso in place of the Chinook and Saaz in place of Willamette.

I was also debating adding .25 - .5lb of torrified or flaked wheat to add some mouthfeel and help with head retention.
 
bolus14 said:
Thinking of taking my second stab at this one this weekend. First time it was only my 4 or 5th brew and it ended up not carbonating much. I have found that I'm not much of a Chinook fan, too aggressive on the bitterness and too much grapefruit for my liking. I have 4 or 5 ounces of both Calypso and El Dorado from last year that I could use and a couple ounces of Saaz. Anybody think those would be good substitutes? I was leaning more towards using the Calypso in place of the Chinook and Saaz in place of Willamette.



I was also debating adding .25 - .5lb of torrified or flaked wheat to add some mouthfeel and help with head retention.
Click to expand...


I'd go all calypso if you have it or all Saaz, but I wouldn't combine anything you listed. This is a relatively dry beer given the candi syrup addition with enough bitterness to balance, so if you match the IBUs with all of one or the other that would be good.

If you're after mouthfeel and/or head retention i say torrified wheat over flaked from personal pref, but flaked rye would be interesting.
 
All Calypso makes sense. The flaked rye sounds like it could be a good addition, I've seen in it other Amber recipes so not an uncommon addition. I think I'm just going to run with changing the hops and adding some torrified wheat this go round though.
 
Brewed this past weekend and got a little better efficient than usual so my OG hit 1.053. The candi syrup turned out good, tasted excellent, really hoping some of the taste comes through in the final beer.

I ended up using all Calypso and .5lb Torrified Wheat. I changed up the hop schedule to hopefully give a smoother bitterness, even though Calypso isn't a harsh bittering hop, trying to get some friends to convert more to craft beer and their biggest complaint is almost always about bitterness. Here's what I went with:
Calypso 13%AA 30min 25.46IBU
Calypso 13%AA 10min 10.58IBU
Calypso 13%AA 5min 8.45IBU

Should end up with 44.5IBU which should provide good balance, but lessen the "bite." Guess we will see i na few weeks.
 
KingBrianI said:
Yeah, this recipe is actually really easy to do with extract. Just use 5.25 lbs of light LME or 4.2 lbs light DME in place of the pale malt. Then steep the crystal malt and add the syrup to the boil as usual.
Click to expand...

I'm brewing this one in the next few days, what are your thoughts on adding 1 lb or so of flaked oats with the LME and crystal malt?
 
After 3 weeks in primary gravity seems to be settles at 1.014. How low have others gotten too? I like how it tasted at 60 degrees and uncarbed, a little more bitter than I want but some of that should subside with carbonation. Just wondering if I should try to raise temp to see if the gravity drops a little or if I should get'er bottled.
 
I had mine go to 1.009 but I used a pretty big slurry of 05. At three weeks it should be ready but there is nothing wrong Raising it a touch and give it another 5-7 days.

As for the other poster about oats, I put in 250g or just over half a pound for 6gal batch and I really like the smoothness I think the oats imparted.
 
Hordak said:
I had mine go to 1.009 but I used a pretty big slurry of 05. At three weeks it should be ready but there is nothing wrong Raising it a touch and give it another 5-7 days.

As for the other poster about oats, I put in 250g or just over half a pound for 6gal batch and I really like the smoothness I think the oats imparted.
Click to expand...

Ok, that's what I was thinking, half a lb of oats. I have a lb of oats laying around. What temp and for how long do I mash the oats for this brew? Last time I did oats, there was some significant oats particulate floating around and ended up in the fermenter. I think I mashed for either too long or too hot, maybe both. Lost probably half a gallon or more of beer on that brew. Thanks!
 
I'm going to bottle mine this weekend. Hydro sample us a touch more bitter than I like but still really good, more caramel notes than the first time I made with a good balance of some tropical like fruit and pear from the Calypso. I also mashed at 153 as i didn't want it to be overly dry.
My FG looks to be at 1.014 which should put mine at 5.12% abv and end up being a good spring/summer beer.
 
I've made the syrup a few times for this brew. Mine usually turns out about maple syrup colour maybe a little more of a red note. Sometimes it crystallizes slightly on me but I usually just dunk the mason jar I put it in right in the brew kettle for a few minutes to get it all out and into the wort. It should taste pretty amazing too!
 
carloscede2 said:
Actually, is there a different way to make that syrup? I cant find that "dap" thing in Ottawa...
Click to expand...

You don't need the DAP imo. It won't kill your beer to skip it. Also the general feeling from other posts in the thread is that it's a touch too bitter so maybe consider backing down the 60 min hops... (?)
 
WhoDatDad78 said:
Did anyone make the syrup recently? I think mine turned out lighter than it was supposed to.
Click to expand...

When I made mine it was light, more like orange blossom/wildflower honey, so I heated it back up till it got to the color of 290 in the pics. That was at 310 on my thermometer, could be the thermo is way off, it's just one of the cheap "candy" thermometer my mom used when I was a kid.
 
bolus14 said:
When I made mine it was light, more like orange blossom/wildflower honey, so I heated it back up till it got to the color of 290 in the pics. That was at 310 on my thermometer, could be the thermo is way off, it's just one of the cheap "candy" thermometer my mom used when I was a kid.
Click to expand...

Cool, yeah that sounds about right for mine. I didn't heat it back up though. Wildflower honey sounds about right. Thanks.
 
The way mine tasted before re-heating would be really good in a triple though... Once I move into a new house that'll be one of the first things I make.
 
Made this recipe this afternoon. Made the caramel syrup this morning. Went easier than expected, but took a while.

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Brew day went nicely and ended up with 5.5 gallons at 1.054 (80% efficiency for me). Looking forward to it in a few weeks.
 
I'm using this as an inspiration for my spruce tip beer. I bottled earlier today so I had a yeast cake ready, but not much time, so it's all LME plus the 290 candi syrup, along with more neutral hops (Magnum + Cascade), and a short boil. Let's see ...
 
Has anybody made a second batch of syrup to use for bottling? I missed bottling mine this weekend so hoping i find time during the week or will make sure it gets done this coming weekend. But, I thought about figuring out how many ounces of table sugar to use to get 2.3 vol of CO2 and use the equivalent amount of syrup. Only concern i have is making sure it gets mixed in evenly, since my first batch of this more or less ended up uncarbed due to my sugar water being boiled too long and being to thick.
 
I'm doing this as my next batch, but after putting everything into beersmith I don't know how the OG is 1.050 at any reasonable efficiency. On small to average beers I fair pretty well in efficiency, but I'd have to get 85%+ in order to hit the numbers on the original recipe. Have others found this to be true as well?

I'm assuming just add more 2 row to get to a 1.050 OG.

Also, based on how my yeast usually performs with the recipes mash temp and sugar content, I feel like I can safely assume a FG of 1.006-1.007. I see others have stated that they ended in the 1.010 - 1.014 range, which would make this a more balanced tasting beer. But I'm afraid my results are going to be a very dry, hop forward ale instead of a nice caramel-ly balanced beer as this is advertised as. Beersmith is showing an IBU/GU of .86 while American Amber Ales are typically meant to be in the .6-.7 range. Anyone else think this needs to be toned down (60min hops to .5oz) and bring the IBUs closer to 30-35 than 40?
 
Mine has been fermenting for 11 days at 62°F to 66°F and it is already at 1.013, so if I take it to 21 days it could get pretty low. Started at 1.063. I upped the amount of flaked wheat though. Pretty tasty with a definate hoppiness.
 
WhoDatDad78 said:
Mine has been fermenting for 11 days at 62°F to 66°F and it is already at 1.013, so if I take it to 21 days it could get pretty low. Started at 1.063. I upped the amount of flaked wheat though. Pretty tasty with a definate hoppiness.
Click to expand...

Curious to know how your batch turns out when done.
 
troglodytes said:
Anyone else think this needs to be toned down (60min hops to .5oz) and bring the IBUs closer to 30-35 than 40?
Click to expand...

Sounds like you through most of the thread, the one change many say they would make is to tone down the hops. I move my first addition to 30 min and the bitterness was still there in the hydro samples I tasted, but not harsh like the first time I made it. I also used all Calypso instead of Chinook. I am hoping to get my batch bottles this weekend, then I'll see how the carbonation and cooler temps change the taste.

For the most part though it's a solid recipe, just have to tweak to your preference.
 

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