Brew Day For Sunday! - Amber Ale, Comments Please

[goatherder]

DC82,

I've just punched your recipe into beersmith.

Just the 50g of amarillo at 60 mins gives about 50 IBUs. With your beer having an OG of 1.054, I reckon that's too bitter, especially once you add some flavour/aroma additions.

You can still use all your Amarillo in the recipe, just add them later in the boil. Adding your 50g at 20min instead of 60 gives you 30 IBUs, a much better bittering charge. You'll get a bunch of flavour from doing it this way too. Then add the rest at 5 min intervals over the rest of the boil like this:

50.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.50%] (20 min) Hops 30.1 IBU
10.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.50%] (15 min) Hops 4.9 IBU
10.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.50%] (10 min) Hops 3.6 IBU
10.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.50%] (5 min) Hops 2.0 IBU
20.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.50%] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -

This will give you about 40 IBUs in total - a pretty good BU:GU ratio for an american amber. You can sub a bit of the cascade for some of the amarillo in the later additions for some variety if you like too.

Depending on the colour of your LME, this beer isn't going to be all that amber. Maybe try adding a smidge (50-100g) of choc malt for some extra colour.

 

[DrewCarey82]

Okay, fantastic thats heaps for that guys really appreciate all the help

 

[jayse]

I make this type of beer all the time, personally I think amirrilo does work very well as the bittering hop in this beer. I'd go for between 30IBU OG 1-045 and 35IBU and OG1.050.
Leave the amber malt out of this beer.
Heres one of my recipes for a similar beer in the recipe data base

Plenty of other threads here on making james squire golden ale aswell, my recipe is for a lighter colour version but the flavour is similar.
Personally I don't use all that much finishing hops just a simple 20g for 5-10 mins and thats pretty close to the right balnce as per malt shovels golden ale, of course more wouldn't hurt but i think the 20g is plenty in the beer i make.

Anyway I have made the beer at least 5 or 6 times and haven't changed anything at all except the yeast from batch to batch, the last two versions were with US-56 and that works nicely. Fav version so far was with WLP008 east coast ale yeast.

Boozed, broozed and broken boned.
Jayse

 

[DrewCarey82]

Hey mate.

I'll just go this one how I've got it for now I've already chopped and changed it heaps but have chucked that in my gourmet recipes file!

Cheers.

 

[DrewCarey82]

Just a quick note this is happily bubbling away now... So good willing will be a great brewski!

 

[Trough Lolly]

Recipe Golden Ale - James Squire Golden Ale Clone.

2.6kg of Joe White Traditional Ale Malt.
1.2kg of Joe White Wheat Malt.
0.2kg of Joe White Amber Malt.
1kg of LME.
100g of Amarillo Hops.
1 X Safale US56 yeast.

1. Mash all grains in 10 litres of water at 66 degrees.
2. After 75 mins, remove liquid to boiler.
3. With 9 litres of boiling water add in and stirr and add too wort. - Aim for 78 degrees temp.
4. Make sure I have 15 litres of water and bring to boil. (60 minute boil)
5.
50.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.50%] (20 min) Hops 30.1 IBU
10.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.50%] (15 min) Hops 4.9 IBU
10.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.50%] (10 min) Hops 3.6 IBU
10.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.50%] (5 min) Hops 2.0 IBU
20.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.50%] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
6. Cool in sink changing water every time it gets hot, until water remains cold.
7. Add to fermenator and depending on temp add 8 litres of either pre-cooled in freezer or just tap water to get temp to 22 degrees.
8. Stirr to the *********, then add yeast - which I'll have made a starter for.
9. Let ferment.
About right fellas?
Cheers.

You've probably already done the brew, so my comments will probably be too late, but anyway here's my 2c... <_<
You're doing a small volume partial, so getting reasonable extraction from the grains will be tricky unless you have the right gear and procedure to begin with. You've got 4kg of grains and you're mashing in with 2.5L per kilo, ie, 10L of water. For small partials, that's too thick a ratio and you should really try to get closer to 12L to have a decent chance at getting reasonably good sugar conversion and thus, grain extraction efficiency. If you're doing your first partial, you'll find that you can easily improve your extraction efficiency by up to 5% by having a better water to grain ratio.
Grain brewers who consistently make good beer do so because they understand the process - there's no point in doing a sticky mash and sparging the hell out of it. It's too late - the grains and possible doughballs may have never had sufficient water to allow the enzymes to convert the starches into sugars and adding a thousand litres of boiling water won't change that, ever.
So don't scimp on the dough-in and if you can mash in with 12L - for this particular brew - I'd do it. Use some of that post boil fermenter top up volume to work on the mash-in and sparge. I suppose the only limit there is possible boil capacity - can you boil more than 15L? Do you have a spare stock pot in the kitchen? The less post boil water added to the fermenter, the better - you want to be using more water during the mash, sparge and boil to give the enzymes a fighting chance during the mash, and the hops a decent chance at imparting bittering, flavour and aroma compounds during the boil - and a lower gravity boil will help improve the extraction efficiency of oils and compounds from your hop additions...
As I mentioned before, it's not paramount to worry about extraction efficiency when you're new to brewing with grain - you need to get the hang of it first by understanding why you're mashing in the first place and worry about efficiency improvements in subsequent brews...
And I trust you heeded Jayse's excellent advice and experience re the hop and grain bills...
Cheers,
TL

 

[DrewCarey82]

G'day mate.

Ended up getting about 17 litres altogether after sparging. - I might add nearly ended up with the entire esky's worth on top of me! - Lucky it was when the missus was downstairs doing something otherwise she would have had really badly burnt hands as she was holding the strainer!!!!

And for 4kg of Grain, I can only get 10 litres maybe 11 litres of water @ the most. - only got a 15 litre esky ATM.