American Rye Amber Ale

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iJosh

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Hi all,

I'm thinking of brewing up an American Rye Amber Ale this Saturday.

Vital statistics:

All-grain eBIAB
(2nd eBIAB, 4th overall all-grain)

~26L

3.8kg ale malt (Barrett Burston)
0.85kg rye malt
0.85kg Munich malt (Joe White)
0.3kg crystal 60
0.2kg flaked barley

60min mash @67C

~65min boil

Falconer's Flight hop blend pellets: 25g@60min, 20g@10min, 25g@0min for a total of ~31 IBUs

Ferment with rehydrated US05 @ ~18C for ~3 weeks

Being relatively new at brewing all grain, I'm not too familar with malts, styles, and hopping techniques. How do my ingredients, methods, and schedules look? I've based the grain bill on this:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/bee-cave-b...-rye-ipa-82451/

I recently tried Sierra Nevada's Ruthless Rye IPA and enjoyed it and I'm trying to make a smaller, maltier, less hoppy varient.

TIA!

Josh.
 
Here is an American Rye Brown Ale I made, really tastey. It was inspired by Little Creature Brown and based on their ingredients and advice from a brewer.
If you want an amber, just ease up on the chocolate and you will be there. This beer is on the lighter side for a brown anyway.

Comparing yours to this one, the addition of caramel rye and the omission of flaked barley, which you could keep.

Enjoy.


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 29.25 l
Post Boil Volume: 24.84 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00 l
Bottling Volume: 23.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.054 SG
Estimated Color: 39.1 EBC
Estimated IBU:
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3.40 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White) ( Grain 1 58.0 %
0.88 kg Munich I (Weyermann) (14.0 EBC) Grain 2 15.0 %
0.53 kg Caramel Rye (Weyermann) (69.0 EBC) Grain 4 9.0 %
0.35 kg Crystal, Dark (Joe White) (216.7 EBC) Grain 5 6.0 %
0.59 kg Rye Malt (Weyermann) (5.9 EBC) Grain 3 10.0 %
0.12 kg Chocolate Malt (Joe White) (750.6 EBC) Grain 6 2.0 %

Hopped and fermented how you like.

EDIT: Forgot to mention your hop schedule looks fine, could always add more later and less at 60min if you want hoppiness.
 
Thanks for the reply!

The main differences I notice are the carmel rye and the choc. What will these bring to the beer? I'm thinking caramel will add some aroma, colour and possibly sweetness in addition to a standard rye. Choc, I'm not too sure... Just colour? Maybe a roasted flavour?

I've added the flaked barley for an experiment with head. Wanted to try something other than old wheat/carapils methods :)
 
The main differences I notice are the carmel rye and the choc. What will these bring to the beer? I'm thinking caramel will add some aroma, colour and possibly sweetness in addition to a standard rye. Choc, I'm not too sure... Just colour? Maybe a roasted flavour?
Your right about the cara rye. The choc adds roasty flavours and dark colours. If you brewed the beer you posted before it would still be a good beer. I would suggest, brew it then tweak and identify what you do/don't like for next time. Everyone has different tastes.
 
Yeah, good advice. I'll go with my original and maybe next time try some caramel and choc :)
 
IMO, I'd drop your mash temp a few degrees or bump your IBU's up a bit. she's gonna be a think full malty one, and if you want it heavier, make sure you balance it out a bit with the bitterness, or dry it out a bit (lower mash temp). Or try it as you are and tweak these for v2 to compare. Brew to taste - styles are merely guidelines to discover the boundaries you can push. Good luck (and good choice on the hops - big fan of the Falconers flight make-up.
 
Hi Maple,

I was considering a lower mash temp initially, so I might go down to 65C. I don't want it too dry, just slightly maltier than the Ruthless Rye is what I'm after.

Falconer's are really doing it for me lately. Although I don't know the exact blend (got a rough idea), I love that I can get a dual use pellet with all the flavours and aromas I love in one! It also saves having to buy multiple packs of hops for a single brew leaving left overs that may or mat not be used later on :) I don't plan to exclusively use FF, but for the time being I will be, as it allows me a standardised hop mix that I can keep common in different brews while I experiment with grains.
 
I'm going to bite the bullet and try something a little more complex...

Vital statistics:

All-grain eBIAB
(2nd eBIAB, 4th overall all-grain)

~26L

3.60kg ale malt (Barrett Burston)
1.00kg rye malt
0.70kg Munich malt (Joe White)
0.25kg crystal 60
0.25kg flaked barley
0.15kg crystal 120
0.05kg chocolate

60min mash @65C

~65min boil

Falconer's Flight hop blend pellets: 25g@60min, 15g@10min, 15g@0min for a total of ~30 IBUs

Ferment with rehydrated US05 @ ~18C for ~3 weeks

Anything wrong with these numbers? Not enough, or too much of something?

TIA
 
Am going to brew something similar on the weekend (already got the stuff). I've more labelled it as a standard APA, with a little rye in it, because I like what it brings:

GoombAPA
American Amber Ale

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 25.0
Total Grain (kg): 5.700
Total Hops (g): 90.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.050 (P): 12.4
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (P): 3.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.91 %
Colour (SRM): 15.3 (EBC): 30.1
Bitterness (IBU): 36.9 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
5.000 kg Perle Malt Bairds (87.72%)
0.500 kg Caramel Rye Malt (8.77%)
0.200 kg Crystal, Heritage (3.51%)

Hop Bill
----------------
10.0 g Chinook Pellet (11.4% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (First Wort) (0.4 g/L)
20.0 g Cascade Pellet (5% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.8 g/L)
20.0 g Centennial Pellet (9.7% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.8 g/L)
20.0 g Chinook Pellet (11.4% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.8 g/L)
20.0 g Citra Pellet (9% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.8 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------

Single step Infusion at 64C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 20C with Safale US-05


Recipe Generated with BrewMate
 
Looks tasty Goomba :)

I'll be doing my brew this Sunday. First one I've done in a while and I'm really looking forward to it :)
 
Follow up to this brewday...

What a disaster it was! Urn kept tripping the boil dry switch so I only had a rolling boil for maybe 15mins then it would boil, stop, boil, stop for the remainder. It threw out my planned hop schedule so after just over 60mins I ended up cracking the shits unlplugging the urn and geting only half the evap rate I planned and I left it at that. :angry:

Chilling took forever too <_< I had a BBQ to get to so I ended up cracking the shits again and letting it no-chill in the urn covered with gladwrap for about 6 hours til it reached pitch temp. Lucky the weather was cool.

After all that, the wort looked and tasted fantastic: brown/red colour, kinda caramelly, spicy, hopped nicely and has been fermenting away beautifully. Was also the clearest wort that's ever entered my fermenter. It's dry-hopping at the moment, so after that's done into the bottles it goes.

Just proves that all hell can break loose and you can still get good beer! :lol:
 
Tasted a few of these yesterday after just under 3 weeks in the bottle...

Very nice. I can just taste/smell a hint of chocolate (I think) at the end of a gulp, and a certain earthiness mid-gulp that I attribute to the rye. It's drier than I was planning (1.009, was aiming for 1.010+) so I've missed out on the maltiness I was after, but it's a great drop to drink, but kind of deceiving as it's darker colour gives the impression it will be malty.

The hop flavour/aroma is still a bit too up-front at present, a bit too fruity and piney for what I was after, which I'm hoping will mellow out after a few more weeks conditioning. If I brew this again I probably won't dry hop. Bitterness is nice and to my palette it's pretty close to what I was chasing. Carbonation is good too, I aimed for a slightly less carbed beer than my usual pales and I'm happy with how it's turned out.

I must make special mention of the head! It's the best head, lacing and retention I've ever brewed. I'm putting this down to the flaked barley, which will now make a regular appearance in my future brews. With a slightly rougher than usual pour, the head has turned out to be a beautifully creamy textured 'finger-and-a-half' cap with a lovely latte/light beige colour - very appetising! After about 5mins the head drops to about half a finger then laces the glass all the way down to the last sip :icon_drool2:

Just thought I'd give an update as I know when I started out it was hard to find a thread that followed through to this stage. I'll try to remember to post here again once I'm satified it's reached it's peak.

Cheers! :icon_cheers:

Josh.
 
Sounds good Josh.

I have another AHB member (if he's well enough to come and get it from me) trying my one out. I'm on dry july ATM, so my 3 week old beer I haven't tried yet. I gave it to 2 non-beer nerds and they liked it, but feedback wasn't particularly informative, other than possibly needs a tad more age and it had a rosy aroma (presumably from Cascade).

I didn't dry hop - most the aroma will be the 10 minute additions.

Based on the AHB member's feedback, I will or won't enter it into QABC.

Goomba
 

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