American Amber Ale + Honey

[Smidgey]

G'day,

I'm quite new to what I would call 'enthusiast' home brewing and am just looking for a spot of recipe advice before brew day. In a previous incarnation I did a couple of Coopers kits and a brand-name lager clone at one of those brew-on-premises type places, but now I'm working on learning the art and science of beer and am building up to all grain brewing.

To get the ball rolling I did a couple of kits and tweaked the recipes slightly, and I've currently got a monster Russian Imperial Stout sitting in the fermenter. For my next beer I'm looking at doing an American Amber Ale with an addition of honey; here is what I am looking at so far:

1.0 Kg Crystal Malt (60L)
15g Cascade hops

in a 5L, 30 minute steep at 65 - 70 degrees celcius plus:

0.5 Kg Light Dry Malt Extract (60 mins)
2.0 Kg Light Dry Malt Extract (10 mins)
0.5 Kg Clover Honey (30 mins)
12g Cluster hops (60 mins)
15g Cascade hops (30 mins)
20g Cascade hops (10 mins)

in a 60 minute boil which will then get topped up to a 20L batch. I'm using Safale US-05 yeast and expecting an OG of about 1055, with an ABV of around 6%.

Given that I've never worked without a kit before I'm going totally on what beersmith says an Amber Ale is and things I've read around the place. I'm told cascade hops are THE typical hops for American pale styles, and the US-05 is a typical American yeast but any indication on this being in the ball park of that style, or what I need to modify to achieve it would be fantastic.

Just as an aside, I'll explain a couple of things I'm attempting in this recipe. The cascade hops that go in the steep are staying in the pot for the boil - the idea is to simulate First Wort Hopping which I hear is supposed to smooth the bitterness and lend aroma. Also, the late addition of the bulk of the LDME is so that the hops are boiling away happily in a lower gravity wort which should give better utilization.

As far as the usage of honey goes, I'm monitoring this thread eagerly to see how other folks' honey beer turns out to tweak my volume.

Any hints, tips, or reassurances would be greatly appreciated. I've got plenty of time to sit and stew over this recipe as the foam on my RIS is still occupying more of the fermenter than the beer itself and I'd like to get this one right

Regards,

Smidge.

(and sorry for the textual diarrhea, I've been reading/learning about this for a good solid day and a half now and I fear my brain might be melting a tad)

 

[manticle]

I'd back off on that crystal. I wouldn't use 1 kg in a full mash full volume/single batch, let alone with all that extract. Sweet full bodied amber is good but some balance is necessary.

05 and cascade will be fine.

Personally not sure if the honey is necessary but by all means give it a crack.

Hops should boil in wort between 1030 and 1050. Higher utilisation will happen at lower gravity but you may also get harshness.

Do you have an expected IBU?

 

[Smidgey]

I'd back off on that crystal. I wouldn't use 1 kg in a full mash full volume/single batch, let alone with all that extract. Sweet full bodied amber is good but some balance is necessary.

05 and cascade will be fine.

Personally not sure if the honey is necessary but by all means give it a crack.

Hops should boil in wort between 1030 and 1050. Higher utilisation will happen at lower gravity but you may also get harshness.

Do you have an expected IBU?

Cheers for the feedback I'll certainly cut back on the crystal. A half kilo perhaps?

Estimated IBU is 31.6.

EDIT: Oh and by "lower" gravity my estimated pre-boil gravity is 1040. If I dumped all that extract in there at the start it would be 1187.

Thanks

 

[manticle]

Half a kilo would be max I would use in most AG brews. Extract can sometimes finish a little sweet so I'd even consider dropping it further although it depends on personal taste. Certainly no more than .5 kg.

To balance, you could up the bitterness. A sweet, crystal type profile can work very nicely with supporting bitterness, especially with citrus type hops.

Is there a commercial example or some kind of expected result you are basing this on? Will help work out ways to tweak it.

Personally I reckon what you have plus 45 IBU and some decent late/flavour hopping will give a nicely balanced, rich american amber ale.

 

[Smidgey]

Half a kilo would be max I would use in most AG brews. Extract can sometimes finish a little sweet so I'd even consider dropping it further although it depends on personal taste. Certainly no more than .5 kg.

To balance, you could up the bitterness. A sweet, crystal type profile can work very nicely with supporting bitterness, especially with citrus type hops.

Is there a commercial example or some kind of expected result you are basing this on? Will help work out ways to tweak it.

Personally I reckon what you have plus 45 IBU and some decent late/flavour hopping will give a nicely balanced, rich american amber ale.

There isn't a specific commercial beer I'm looking to emulate here. My thought process was simply that I hadn't made an amber ale yet, and I started having dreams about Rogue Nation's Honey Orange Wheat Ale around about the same time. I'd been leaning towards maltiness rather than hops because of the honey, but at the end of the day I AM all about big hops. I'll go and mess about with the details and repost the recipe shortly.

Thanks a heap!

 

[Pennywise]

I'm with manticle on reducing the crystal malt. Considering you're using a lighter crystal, you'll need more to get in to Amber territory, but you'll get too much sweetness. I'd go for a darker crystal, and use less, say, 250g of dark crystal & maybe even a touch of choc malt to up the color if need be.

 

[manticle]

There isn't a specific commercial beer I'm looking to emulate here. My thought process was simply that I hadn't made an amber ale yet, and I started having dreams about Rogue Nation's Honey Orange Wheat Ale around about the same time. I'd been leaning towards maltiness rather than hops because of the honey, but at the end of the day I AM all about big hops. I'll go and mess about with the details and repost the recipe shortly.

Thanks a heap!

You can get a really nice full malty beer that still uses a lot of hops. I'm not a Mr 'throw hops at everything' kind of brewer - I'm all about balance in beer, but balance can come in many different forms. I make an apa/american amber that sits somewhere above 53 IBU that is malty, sweet and fruity due to late hopping and additions of crystal and munich malt.

If you have time as a luxury and don't mind ordering some extra stuff, try out some of the briess malt extracts (craftbrewer and Grain and grape both sell them, postage is not ridiculous from either. Craftbrewer also sell weyerman extract and if it's half as good as their malted grain, it's worth every cent).

Replacing some of the DME with briess munich and cutting that crystal back would give you a more complex but still malt forward beer. Bang in some late hops for fruity flavours and up the bittering to balance the sweetness and I reckon you'll have a cracker on your hands.

 

[Smidgey]

Cheers guys, one of the caveats on this brew I forgot to mention is that I'm going to limit myself to ingredients I can source from my crappy local home brew supplier. He only has what is approximately 60L crystal malt (and that is based on forum posts about the shit), but he does have chocolate malt. Here's an adjustment of the first recipe:

0.3 Kg Crystal Malt (60L)
0.1 Kg Chocolate Malt
20g Cascade hops

in a 5L, 30 minute steep at 65 - 70 degrees celcius plus:

0.5 Kg Light Dry Malt Extract (60 mins)
2.0 Kg Light Dry Malt Extract (10 mins)
0.5 Kg Clover Honey (30 mins)
12g Cluster hops (60 mins)
15g Cascade hops (40 mins)
15g Cascade hops (10 mins)
12g Hersbrucker (10 mins)

in a 60 minute boil which will then get topped up to a 20L batch. I'm using Safale US-05 yeast and expecting an OG of about 1054, with an ABV of around 5.9% and 41.1 IBU's.

Thoughts? I'm almost completely virgin at hopping having come from kits, but I'm thinking spicy and fruity over floral for the aroma.

Cheers,

Smidge.

 

[manticle]

Looking much better. Thoughts?

Well here's mine:

Drop the hersbrucker. Lovely hop but probably overshadowed by the cascade (although both a bit citrussy).

I'd go cascade all the way, even bittering but no harm if you want to use the cluster.

All of this is how I would approach it and my opinion/experience may differ from yours or anyone else's. Sometimes the best thing to do is brew it and work out which thing to tweak for next time. Certainly don't take my words as gospel (although happy to keep making suggestions).

 

[Smidgey]

Looking much better. Thoughts?

Well here's mine:

Drop the hersbrucker. Lovely hop but probably overshadowed by the cascade (although both a bit citrussy).

I'd go cascade all the way, even bittering but no harm if you want to use the cluster.

All of this is how I would approcah it and my opinion/experience may differ from yours or anyone else's. Sometimes the best thing to do is brew it and work out which thing to tweak for next time. Certainly don't take my words as gospel (although happy to keep making suggestions).

To be honest the cluster was just a cheap way of getting slightly more bitterness in there. Before I staged the cascade I had super alpha in there (which seems ridiculous now). Would it be worth dry hopping the hersbrucker perhaps?

 

[manticle]

No I wouldn't dry hop the hersbrucker. Save it. Dry hopping the cascade on the other hand............... good.

 

[Smidgey]

No I wouldn't dry hop the hersbrucker. Save it. Dry hopping the cascade on the other hand............... good.

Cascade it is. I did read somewhere that Americans do literally everything with this hop so I guess it fits the theme

 

[Smidgey]

No I wouldn't dry hop the hersbrucker. Save it. Dry hopping the cascade on the other hand............... good.

Oh crikey! I just punched it into beersmith and it asked how many days I'm going to dry hop for. I've never even considered how long one would dry hop for! I'm guessing from the time the foam collapses back into the beer until I hit FG? HELP!?!?

 

[manticle]

1. Don't panic. It's beer. Beer is nice.
2. Dry hop after you hit FG rather than before. Fermentation can drive off volatiles/aromatics which defeats the purpose. Dry hop for 2-5 days, depending on the hop. Some hops don't seem to be suited to dry hopping but cascade is.

 

[Smidgey]

1. Don't panic. It's beer. Beer is nice.
2. Dry hop after you hit FG rather than before. Fermentation can drive off volatiles/aromatics which defeats the purpose. Dry hop for 2-5 days, depending on the hop. Some hops don't seem to be suited to dry hopping but cascade is.

Boom. Now I just have to sit here and stare at my stout (and plot, and wait). Thanks a million for your advice btw!