AG#18 American Amber Ale

[Alastair70]

Had been on my to brew list for a while, and after the fantastic secret santa brew from @dave_77 I thought it was time to get the finger out.

Water
Alk 35ppm, Ca 125, Cl 55, SO4 55

Fermentables (Crisp from GetErBrewed)
Maris Otter 3.3kg
Light Munich 2.2kg
Medium Crystal 300g
Light Crystal 300g
CaraAroma (Weyermann) 300g

Mash
60 min - 67C
10 min - 75C

Hops
60 min - 16.5g Columbus
15 min - 11g Chinook + Protoflac
10 min - 11g Columbus
5 min - 11g Chinook
Hop stand 30 min - 55g Chinook/50g Columbus
Dry hop - 33g Chinook/33g Columbus

Yeast
US-05

Colour and OG turned out pretty much spot on.

 

[Alastair70]

Final gravity reached. 1.012 giving an ABV of 6.04%, an overshoot of 0.04! I can live with that. Friday is kegging day, I’ll dry hop and cold crash mid week. After listening the the latest Brülosophy podcast, I’ll clear with some gelatin too.

 

[Alastair70]

The Good. Tastes great, malt forward, love the columbus/chinook combo in the background. Nice balanced and bright taste.
The Bad. Needs more carb time, aiming for 2.5-3 vols CO2 on this one
The Ugly. It has come out very cloudy, I wanted a crystal clear beer so I could watch the bubbles. It got protoflac during the boil, and 36 hours cold crash with a dose of gelatin once it had hit 1C. I'll be giving the keg a good crashing before I have the next one.

 

[Moe]

Looks really nice.
I had the same issue with clearing on my last brew. I cold crashed and fined, but it still poured hazy. After two weeks in the keg though it was crystal clear. Just give it some time.

 

[Alastair70]

Clearing nicely, and drinking well. (The lager on the left is for the better half and its a corker).
Recipe tweaks are needed for next batch. Initial taste is malt forward and exactly what I was aiming for. However, hop bitterness hits and lingers too long for my palate, would be more in keeping with a big west coast IPA from that perspective.

With that in mind my thoughts are,
Grain bill and water profile are spot on, no change in either for brew No.2.
Dial back the Columbus a little and swap the chinook for something a little more rounded like Amarillo instead.

Comments from the floor would be greatfully appreciate.

 

[Clint]

I'd move the 15,10 and five to the dry hop.

 

[Clint]

What was your calculated IBU?

 

[Alastair70]

I'd move the 15,10 and five to the dry hop.

Cheers Clint:hat:
I’m a big believer in change one thing and see what happens. And more than happy at getting this one right, no matter how many pints I have to drink on the way there.

 

[Alastair70]

What was your calculated IBU?

It's funny you should ask that! Just rechecked the recipe

First thoughts, Can't believed I missed that at the planning stage.
Second thoughts, Maybe if I keep drinking my palate will get really hot.

I'll plug your timing changes into the software when I've sobered up and see what happens.

 

[Clint]

You can hit your target bitterness on the 60 and hopstand. Though as you dail it back the sweetness may increase as there's a bit of crystal there.

 

[Alastair70]

Well, that went down rather quickly. Went for a second glass this afternoon and got 1/2 a pint before the dreaded whoof and splutter.
Doing another Munich Helles this weekend, and No.1 son wants to a cider the following one. So it'll Easter week before I get the tweeked recipe going. Will be giving Lallemand BRY-97 another go, it absolutely ripped through 25L of IPA last week.

 

[moto748]

What was the batch size on the American Amber please, Alastair?

 

[Alastair70]

What was the batch size on the American Amber please, Alastair?

22L batch. Recipe tweaked from the James Morton

 

[moto748]

Thanks!

 

[Braufather]

22L batch. Recipe tweaked from the James Morton

is that mosquito? I’ve got that planned soon. not Sure what yeast to go with? Probably br97 as well.

 

[moto748]

I'm going to have a go at this tomorrow. Bearing in mind Alastair's comments about the hops, I am minded to reduce the 60 mins to 15 g, lose the 15 min addition altogether, change the ten minute one to Amarillo. If I've used the IBU tool right, I reckon that gives me a value of 38, not counting hopstand and dry-hopping, which seems about right? The hopstand seems a lot of hops for a short while; when I've done hopstands in the past, it's usually been two or three hours, I think.

Poor experiences with dry-hopping in the past make me think I may only dry-hop half the batch.

Any comments very welcome, guys!

 

[An Ankoù]

I'm going to have a go at this tomorrow. Bearing in mind Alastair's comments about the hops, I am minded to reduce the 60 mins to 15 g, lose the 15 min addition altogether, change the ten minute one to Amarillo. If I've used the IBU tool right, I reckon that gives me a value of 38, not counting hopstand and dry-hopping, which seems about right? The hopstand seems a lot of hops for a short while; when I've done hopstands in the past, it's usually been two or three hours, I think.

Poor experiences with dry-hopping in the past make me think I may only dry-hop half the batch.

Any comments very welcome, guys!
[/QUOTE

I'm not a great fan of dry hopping. I remember the many brewer visits I used to do where they'd put a (rather big) pellet of hops in an 18 and I have this idea of a Hopback, where they run the beer through a perforated bucket of fresh hops, but that's it.
I get better success with a <80C steep and I prefer to add hops towards the end of fermentation rather than when it's done.

 

[Donegal john]

That’s exactly where I am at as well with dry hoping. Can’t be aersed with it al all now. Just a big hop stand for plenty of flavour and enough aroma.

 

[Alastair70]

I rebrewed it moving the recipe hops to later in the boil as @Clint suggested. It was absolutely lovely, and I learned that I like my amber beers with a lower level of bitterness in the process. That experience completely put me off brewing Make American Amber Again, which has been on the cards at the time.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

I am just putting together a recipe for an American Amber. How was the malt profile - that seems a heck of a lot of Munich?