Amber ale discussion (Galaxy, Simcoe, Citra)

[431neb]

OK so I started out wanting to clone the Mountain Goat Fancy Pants amber ale and pretty soon realised (despite some well intentioned advice) that I have no idea. For this reason I have decided to simply aim for an amber ale with a beuatiful chestnut/ red glow that has a fairly "thick" mouth feel and a load of hop flavour and aroma that isn't overpowered by bitterness. Not aiming for a session beer but something that you can have one or two of and feel like you've had a substantial beer. All very subjective descriptions but for those familiar with Fancy Pants I thought they ticked all the boxes.

Putting aside my lack of talent and experience, the restrictions within which I have chosen to operate are thus....

BIAB with a bucket sparge. Only hops I have are Galaxy, Citra and Simcoe. I am using BeerSmith 2 but it's pretty new to me.

The recipe I have cobbled together is as follows. It is incomplete at present so I would appreciate any advice.

Anything general on hops and /or grains even if it is a brief comment.

Also for Melbourne water and this recipe should I add any Gypsum, bicarb, epsom salts any of that sorta gear?





BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Fancy Ale.
Brewer: Ben and Ant
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Amber Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 33.27 l
Post Boil Volume: 27.90 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00 l
Bottling Volume: 21.30 l
Estimated OG: 1.053 SG
Estimated Color: 33.9 EBC
Estimated IBU: 43.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 81.6 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3.50 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White) ( Grain 1 62.5 %
0.75 kg Crystal (Joe White) (141.8 EBC) Grain 2 13.4 %
0.50 kg Munich, Light (Joe White) (17.7 EBC) Grain 3 8.9 %
0.50 kg Wheat Malt, Malt Craft (Joe White) (3.5 Grain 4 8.9 %
0.25 kg Amber Malt (Joe White) (45.3 EBC) Grain 5 4.5 %
0.10 kg Chocolate Malt (Joe White) (750.6 EBC) Grain 6 1.8 %
15.00 g Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 21.1 IBUs
10.00 g Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 13.1 IBUs
0.30 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 9 -
10.00 g Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 10 4.4 IBUs
10.00 g Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 11 4.7 IBUs
15.00 g Citra [12.00 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
15.00 g Galaxy [14.00 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 13 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 14 -


Mash Schedule: BIAB, Full Body
Total Grain Weight: 5.60 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Saccharification Add 36.69 l of water at 72.7 C 68.9 C 60 min
Mash Out Heat to 75.6 C over 7 min 75.6 C 10 min

Sparge: Remove grains, and prepare to boil wort
Notes:
------


Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Yob]

If you want the hops to pop def add some gypsum, I'd be dropping the galaxy at 60 and upping the late additions a bit personally. (except for the galaxy, I'd keep that to 10g max and 20 citra and simcoe at whirlpool)

 

[tanukibrewer]

Grain bill looks good should have a nice colour.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Colour looks good, if you want body aim for a 70 degree mash, but compensate with a bit of extra IBU.

Galaxy at 10, not 0.

 

[431neb]

Excellent. Thanks for the advice peeps. Took your advice Yob and changed the hops a bit. I'm being careful with the Simcoe as we have done a lot of Simcoe lately - I love it but want to differentiate from other recent brews. A little worried my IBU's are dropping too much but I do want hop flavour and aroma up front. I have added 10g of gypsum because I plucked that amount from some google search. Any tips on the amount for this grain bill in Melbourne tapwater? Unless advised otherwise I'll keep the grain bill as is.

LRG, I have chosen a full body mash in BS2 and I'm hoping the crystal and spec malts will get me to a pretty meaty mouth feel. Do I need to step up to 70? I'm a little unsure on that one but I'm flying blind. As for the galaxy timing, I'm keen to explore the aroma on galaxy as it seems (to me) that is might be overlooked a bit due to it's alpha% . After reading' "The aroma potential of australian hops" by Simon Whittock, I decided to use Galaxy for more than the smooth bittering I bought it for. I can't get a link as it opens a PDF. Google it if you don't mind wading through a lot of tech' talk.

Thanks again.

Edit - forgot recipe

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Fancy Ale.
Brewer: Ben and Ant
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Amber Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 33.27 l
Post Boil Volume: 27.90 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00 l
Bottling Volume: 21.30 l
Estimated OG: 1.053 SG
Estimated Color: 33.9 EBC
Estimated IBU: 33.7 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 81.6 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
10.00 g Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent 1 -
3.50 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White) ( Grain 2 62.5 %
0.75 kg Crystal (Joe White) (141.8 EBC) Grain 3 13.4 %
0.50 kg Munich, Light (Joe White) (17.7 EBC) Grain 4 8.9 %
0.50 kg Wheat Malt, Malt Craft (Joe White) (3.5 Grain 5 8.9 %
0.25 kg Amber Malt (Joe White) (45.3 EBC) Grain 6 4.5 %
0.10 kg Chocolate Malt (Joe White) (750.6 EBC) Grain 7 1.8 %
10.00 g Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 13.1 IBUs
15.00 g Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 9 16.2 IBUs
0.30 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 10 -
10.00 g Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 11 4.4 IBUs
20.00 g Citra [12.00 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
10.00 g Galaxy [14.00 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 13 0.0 IBUs
10.00 g Simcoe [13.00 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 14 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 15 -


Mash Schedule: BIAB, Full Body
Total Grain Weight: 5.60 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Saccharification Add 36.69 l of water at 72.7 C 68.9 C 60 min
Mash Out Heat to 75.6 C over 7 min 75.6 C 10 min

Sparge: Remove grains, and prepare to boil wort
Notes:
------


Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

With over 10% crystal, you probably don't need the higher mash.

Galaxy has great aroma, but as a dry hopper it isn't great. But used at 10 minutes, great aroma and good fruit.

No book to quote from just personal experience from my own use of it. There is a fairly prevailing consensus that it's not a great dry hopper - grassy and astringent. Prevailing shouldn't be the sole basis for an opinion, but in my experience, it is right in this instance.

 

[431neb]

Thanks LRG1, I responded earlier but it didn't seem to stick.

I haven't planned any dry hopping. There's a bunch of stuff (Inc some galaxy) at flameout. I may dry hop in the keg depending on how it tastes later.

For anyone who is interested in the outcome...

We're done. As per the version above except we reserved 6 l for a dunk sparge and I forgot the gypsum and added mid boil.

Our OG was 1.050 with 23.5 l in the fermenter and 5 litres left with / in the break. It was really cloudy actually. We failed to form a trub cone for some reason. More of a stratified trub layer which was weird as we've always had a pretty nice trub cone. We missed our pre boil volume by 2 litres and added two litres of boiling water. Next time I will skip that, perhaps hit our BeerSmith numbers and have a litre or so less beer. I suppose we could have squeezed that hot ******* bag a bit more ( we did a sparge in 6 litres of near boiling water ).

(BeerSmith said 23 l at 1.053)

Good fun. I'll try to post an update on how it goes but I'll probably forget - especially if it's shit.