Ag Amber Ale Recipe

[dmcke109]

I've been trying to brew the ultimate amber ale for a while now. This is my latest recipe. Would appreciate some comments? I usually get around 65% efficiency hence the large grain bill.....

Method - BIAB (cheers PP)
Batch Size: 18.93 L
Boil Time: 60 min

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 kg Barret Burstan Ale malt (6.3 EBC) Grain 80.65 %
0.60 kg Weyerman Munich Malt 1 (16.0 EBC) Grain 9.68 %
0.24 kg Caramunich III Dark Crystal Malt (140.0 EBC) Grain 3.87 %
0.18 kg Amber Malt - Bairds (85.0 EBC) Grain 2.90 %
0.18 kg Caramunich I Light Crystal (90.0 EBC) Grain 2.90 %
20.00 gm Pride of Ringwood [9.00 %] (60 min) Hops 22.0 IBU
25.00 gm Williamette [5.50 %] (20 min) Hops 10.2 IBU
20.00 gm Williamette [5.50 %] (5 min) Hops 2.7 IBU
1 Pkgs SafAle American Ale US-56 Yeast-Ale



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.057 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.010 SG
Bitterness: 34.8 IBU Calories: 90 cal/l
Est Color: 25.8 EBC Color: Color

 

[Fourstar]

Looks good, seems lacking in a few points, I'll explain.

I's switch around the dark and light crystal %'s or else it may end up a little OTT with rich crystal, it should be sweet crystal flavoured. Funnily enough i'd also drop the amber malt in turn of some choc malt. American style AAs should have (IMO) 7-12% Crystal. It needs to have a BIG crystal sweetness. The touch of roast character i usually get is from a small addition of choc malt, usually 0.5% of Carafa Special II.

I'd adjust to something like:

Barret Burstan Ale malt 82.5%
Weyerman Munich Malt 9%
Caramunich III Dark Crystal Malt Grain 3%
Caramunich I Light Crystal Grain 5%
Carafa Special II 0.5%

20.00 gm Pride of Ringwood [9.00 %] (60 min) Hops 22.0 IBU
25.00 gm Williamette [5.50 %] (20 min) Hops 10.2 IBU
20.00 gm Williamette [5.50 %] (5 min) Hops 2.7 IBU
1 Pkgs SafAle American Ale US-56 Yeast-Ale

Just my 2c.

Cheers

 

[dmcke109]

Cheers for your advice Fourstar

When you say to 'switch around the dark and light crystal %'s or else it may end up a little OTT with rich crystal' - what do you mean by this?

Also the reason for the addition of the amber malt is that I want more caramel flavours than roast character.

 

[Fourstar]

When you say to 'switch around the dark and light crystal %'s or else it may end up a little OTT with rich crystal' - what do you mean by this?
Also the reason for the addition of the amber malt is that I want more caramel flavours than roast character.

Basically have a higehr % of Light Crystal than dark.

As for the Amber Malt, thats not going to 'give' or accentuate 'crystal' flavours. With the small % of Choc malt i use its purely for colour adjustment with a slight roast aroma, flavour is almost undetectable... maybe just a slight nuttiness like JSAA is. Also with Carafa Special, as its dehuscked you dont get any astringency associated with dark roasted malts, so it is quite smooth and chocolatey!

Amber IMO can be quite astringent/tannin like and usually calls for excessive aging. Perosnally i dont like it all that much. its always on a knifes edge for being OTT. For Example it took ages for my AAA Red Rocket Clone to age out for decent drinkability, before that it was quite astringent (around a 6 week turnaround). It was just too intense with it. If you like amber malt... dont let me stop you. If you havn't used it before. It might be your last if you want a quick quaffer. :lol:

Others may tell your different, there are plenty of advocates out there for Amber Malt and plenty disintrested with it like myself. Maybe i just havnt used it in correct proportions in the correct recipe... either way, it just doesnt always sit well with me


Heres an example of my RR clone, was rich, sweet, brutn toffee sweet, just amber was OTT! Next time i will drop it altogether and the caraaroma by .5-1% and up the base malt

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Red Rocket AWAY!!!
Brewer: Braden
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Amber Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Boil Size: 31.92 L
Estimated OG: 1.053 SG
Estimated Color: 16.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 68.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.0 %
Boil Time: 70 Minutes

Ingredients:

4.50 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Bairds) 75.0 %
0.50 kg Munich I (Weyermann) (7.1 SRM) 8.3 %
0.45 kg Crystal (Joe White) (34.2 SRM) 7.5 %
0.25 kg Amber Malt (Joe White) (17.3 SRM) 4.2 %
0.25 kg Caraaroma (Weyermann) (130.0 SRM) 4.2 %
0.05 kg Carafa Special III (Weyermann) (470.0 SRM) 0.8 %
35.00 gm Simcoe [13.00%] (60 min) (First Wort Hop) 55.6 IBU
20.00 gm Chinook [11.00%] (10 min) 8.9 IBU
20.00 gm Cascade [5.50%] (10 min) 4.4 IBU
30.00 gm Cascade [5.50%] (Whirlpool)
30.00 gm Chinook [13.00%] (Whirlpool)
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale

Mash In Add 16.80 L of water at 71.4 C 65.5 C 60 min
Mash Out Add 11.22 L of water at 96.6 C 77.0 C 10 min

 

[MarkBastard]

Why not use Caramunich II instead of I and III?

I do one using Ale malt, Caramunic II, and choc

Also is the POR for economy reasons?

 

[Bribie G]

Pride of Ringwood is a great bittering hop in an Aussie ale, trad lager or Old, but I would seriously sub 20g of Chinook instead as the bittering hop. Chinook can also be used as an aroma hop (I think Little Creatures use it ??) but also makes a lovely smooth bitterer as well.

I'm currently drinking my way through a fairly straight lighter amber with

5000g Maris Otter I had hanging around, would normally use BB ale.
250 carared
250 Dark Crystal
50g Melanoidin

15g Newport 90 min
15g Chinook 90 min
30g Cascade 15 min

US-05

It's very yummy and malty and the hops are very smoooth but on reflection I could have done with some Willamette or Amarillo in the aroma as well. Also I like that Munich, have 500 in my stash at the moment.

Next time, hey :icon_cheers:

 

[dmcke109]

'Why not use Caramunich II instead of I and III' - ummm not too sure Mark^*******. Was trying the light for caramel flavour and the dark for the colour and deep malt flavour. Prob could have used the Caramunich II

Using POR hops not for economy purposes but because I heard that is what they use in the JS Amber Ale for bittering.

Might try the Chinook next time BribieG - got a fair bit of POR around ATM...

Maybe I could have gone all Wilamette??

 

[dmcke109]

Recipe looks nice BribieG - might give that a go next time myself.

I do have a bit of amarillo lying around myself - might dry hop the secondary with this myself for my AA.

I'm currently drinking my way through a fairly straight lighter amber with

5000g Maris Otter I had hanging around, would normally use BB ale.
250 carared
250 Dark Crystal
50g Melanoidin

15g Newport 90 min
15g Chinook 90 min
30g Cascade 15 min

US-05

It's very yummy and malty and the hops are very smoooth but on reflection I could have done with some Willamette or Amarillo in the aroma as well. Also I like that Munich, have 500 in my stash at the moment.

Next time, hey :icon_cheers:

 

[MarkBastard]

'Why not use Caramunich II instead of I and III' - ummm not too sure Mark^*******. Was trying the light for caramel flavour and the dark for the colour and deep malt flavour. Prob could have used the Caramunich II

Using POR hops not for economy purposes but because I heard that is what they use in the JS Amber Ale for bittering.

Might try the Chinook next time BribieG - got a fair bit of POR around ATM...

Maybe I could have gone all Wilamette??

Mate tony from here came up with a good JS Amber Ale clone using all extract and I've been doing partials etc of it too.

It uses the malts I mentioned above (base ale, medium crystal, and chocolate) and all hop additions are wilamette.

From memory an AG recipe would be something like this (for a 20L) batch

3500g Base ale malt
300g Caramunich II
30g Chocolate
Willamette addition at 45 minutes
Willamette addition at 5 minutes.

I'm gunna vary it a bit next time I do it by going to 350g Caramunich 2, 50g Choc, and I'm gunna use 90g of Willamette for the whole batch including a small amount of dry hopping. I don't really care if it's a JSAA clone anymore or even fits the Amber Ale style, I reckon it'll be a damn tasty beer!

 

[dmcke109]

Fourstar you have got me worried about the amber malt - this brew is def designed to be a quick quaffer. I will still give it a go as I haven't used it before. As for the Choc Malt that is interesting about how a small addition give a slightly nutty flavour....

As for the Amber Malt, thats not going to 'give' or accentuate 'crystal' flavours. With the small % of Choc malt i use its purely for colour adjustment with a slight roast aroma, flavour is almost undetectable... maybe just a slight nuttiness like JSAA is. Also with Carafa Special, as its dehuscked you dont get any astringency associated with dark roasted malts, so it is quite smooth and chocolatey!

 

[brendo]

Fourstar you have got me worried about the amber malt - this brew is def designed to be a quick quaffer. I will still give it a go as I haven't used it before. As for the Choc Malt that is interesting about how a small addition give a slightly nutty flavour....

I recently used about 6% Amber malt in a Northern English brown Ale and it has come up an absolute treat.

I used some choc malt - which may have helped balance it, but I can guarantee that I will be using it again in other beers.

at the end of the day hop_alot, it is all down to personal preference. you won't know if you like it until you try it.

Brendo

PS - i don't disagree with anything Fourstar has put in this thread... just don't let it scare you off this malt.

 

[dmcke109]

Cheers Brendo - I will def give it a go. Hey you only live once! I also will put in a little choc malt as I am after a combo of nutty and caramel flavours

PS - i don't disagree with anything Fourstar has put in this thread... just don't let it scare you off this malt.

 

[Fourstar]

Cheers Brendo - I will def give it a go. Hey you only live once! I also will put in a little choc malt as I am after a combo of nutty and caramel flavours

Hey mate,

Dont Stress, Horses for Courses... just not jumping! As i said, im not a big fan of amber malt.. its a little here-nor-there from me at times. One day i'll probabaly hit the sweet spot with it and be like "wtf was i thinking?!?!"

cheers!

EDIT: BTW, dont let anyone scare you off using Caramunich I and III together. There IS a difference in flavour for using 4% CMI and 2% CMIII over just a 6% Addition of CMII. Hence the reason in most of my beers that call for crystal malt i will have a 3-6% light crystal (14-40 L) and a 0.5-3% addition of a Dark Crystal (80-150 L) addition.

It makes a big flavour difference, specifically complexity over a single Medium Crystal (60L) addition of 3-9%. Remember you are adding flavours to your beer with crystal too, not just colour. Single Crystal additons can be flat at times.

 

[T.D.]

I have actually found the opposite to Fourstar re crystals. I find dark crystals to be less cloying and more palatable compared to light crystals. The only exception to this is some of the imported light crystals like Weyermann Carared and Bairds Pale Crystal. But JW Caramalt can be VERY sweet and cloying if overused. As can the medium crystal I find. Their dark crystal on the other hand is one of my favourite malts - have used it at over 8% and not had any OTT flavours. Certainly for an amber ale, I would be jamming lots of it in! :wub:

I find a great way to make a chewy amber ale is to put 3-4% in of each crystal in the spectrum - pale, medium and dark.

I do agree with Fourstar re amber malt - you generally don't need a hell of a lot to get a big effect. I don't go over 1-2% these days. This is for JW though, which is potent stuff. A mate has used much more of the Bairds stuff though - it seems more forgiving.