Converting Unhopped Amber LME recipe to AG

[technobabble66]

Edit - it might be easiest to read Post#2 first.

Howdy,
I'm looking to convert a partial extract recipe i did to an all grain recipe.
I can post the entire recipe if that's better, but i was wondering if there's a rule of thumb developed to 1 tin of Black Rock Unhopped Amber LME to grain?

The BR website says the ingredients of their Amber Malt Extract are:
Lager malt
Crystal malt
Black malt
Water
Caramel

What i'd guessed at was:
1.85kg Pilsner Malt
0.18kg Crystal, Med
0.025kg Black Malt or Roast Barley

This is pretty close to the same OG, FG, EBC; using similar ingredients.
I wasn't sure if i should be using Amber malt also/instead?

I have lots of different grains courtesy of the last BB: Pilsner, MO, Vienna, Victory, Munich 2, Wheat, Simpson's Amber & Chocolate & Med crystal (plus Pale & Dark by the time this happens), Midnight Wheat, CaraAroma, (plus CaraBohemian by the time this happens), Melanoiden.
Will also get some Roast Barley for another recipe.

Is there a better way of doing this with what i've got?


The flavour of the partial recipe i did came out really nicely - a slight caramel undertone i think, with a light hop presence & bitterness. Done with Kolsch yeast at ~18°C which i think added a really nice (& clean) element to it.

For reference, the entire recipe is:
FV vol = 21L
1.5kg BR Amber LME
1kg LDME
0.1kg Wheat DME
0.15kg Med Crystal
0.2kg Munich 1
0.5kg Vienna
0.2kg Victory

Mashed at 67°C for 60mins, hopped to 22 IBU (33 IBU w HCF calculated).
OG = 1050, FG = 1013, EBC = 21
[Now, there was a slight disaster in brewing - boil-over meaning i compensated by putting in more Wheat DME to compensate, so i might've overdone it by 0.1kg or so.
Either way, i ended up having to dilute the FV volume out to 27L to get the OG down to 1049. I didn't add that much Wheat DME, so i'm assuming my mash yield was higher than expected; but i don't think that would've cranked it that high...who knows?]

I was surprised at how much i liked this, so i'm super super keen to replicate it in all grain - it can only be better!!

Help most appreciated.

 

[technobabble66]

OK, given the overwhelming response, i'll try a change of tack.

This is the AG version of the above recipe i've designed, with a minor addition of CaraAroma & CaraBohemian to expand on the malty caramel depth from the crystals.

This is meant to be in the ballpark of a Fat Yak - so a slightly darker & maltier Pale Ale, which i've amped the malts up even more:

Fat Kowsch
25L
OG = 1045
FG = 1010
IBU = 22.4 (~30 w a 20min whirlpool, plus the 0min in a hopback)
alc% = 5.0

2.8kg Wey Pilsner 56%
0.8kg Wey Munich 2 16%
0.5kg Wey Vienna 10%
0.4kg Simpsons Amber 8%
0.2kg Briess Victory 4%
0.2kg Simpsons Med Crystal 4%
0.05kg Wey CaraAroma 1%
0.05kg Wey CaraBohem 1%

5g Nelson @ 60mins (5.9 IBU)
10g Nelson @ 20mins (7 IBU)
20g Cascade @ 20mins (9.5 IBU)
Whirlfloc @ 10mins
10g Nelson @ 0min (-)
30g Cascade @ 0min (-)
25g Cascade @ dry

2g CaCl2 into Mash & 2g CaCl2 into Mash
Mashed at 54°C for 10min, 66°C for 60min, 72°C for 10min, 78°C Mashout
90min boil

WLP-029 Kolsch yeast @17°C

Chilled - (but) trialling my Plate chiller for the first time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Sooooo
How does this look?
I've no idea about Amber malt - is 400g a reasonable amount?
Is the Vienna worthwhile here?
Is there any particular way to adjust for the Plate chilling process?
- I have a ghetto hopback i'll probably trial also, so the 0min addition should be a proper 0min addition


Thanks!

 

[Droopy Brew]

Not sure about the grains but I would have used the Cascade as the bittering hop rather than the Nelson. I've only done these as extract but find the Nelson is best late and in small quantities .

 

[technobabble66]

Thanks DB,
It's almost identical to a hops schedule i've used before in the previous partial extract brew that worked very nicely to my tastes. However, i should add it probably didn't ferment out fully so retained a little more sweetness than it should've; hence the bitterness may've been masked.
I'm thinking of maybe shifting the 60min addition to 20min (and the 20min addition will probably be a whirlpool addition that then sits in the urn for 20mins). So that would drop any NS bittering addition.

On the malts, i'm thinking maybe dropping the Amber malt to 200g and maybe raise the CaraAroma & CaraBohemian to 100g each - after more reading, i'm getting the impression Amber malt has a bit more roasty sharpness/harshness to it, and the beer's meant to have a bit more caramel and a little touch of roast, rather than the other way around.

PS: my thermostat just arrived tonight, so i might be needing to wrap this up asap & get brewin'

 

[damoninja]

No way to be 100% sure what's in it as many manufacturers are different...

As a guide here's an average makeup.



Light malt extract:
100% pilsner or pale



Amber malt extract:
92% pale malt
5% crystal malt/s
3% chocolate or black



Dark malt extract:
90% pale
5% roasted
5% percent dark crystal or chocolate



Other extracts which vary a little more:

Wheat extract:
50% pale
50% wheat

Munich extract:
50% pale
50% Munich

 

[technobabble66]

Thanks damoninja,
That info on Amber Extract was what made me realize i'd bought the wrong stuff. :huh:
7kgs of the wrong stuff, to be exact.
So i've been scrounging for recipes to use lots of Amber Malt; the problem being is that 95% of the recipes i've found (aside from Porter & Stout recipes - thanks MartinOC!) use ~3% of the grain bill as Amber Malt.

Anyways, i brewed something like what's in post#2 yesterday - but with 1056 (picked it up for free, so why not?!); and a different hop schedule due to brew-day hiccups. Many minor disasters aside, i ended up with wort; that the 1056 is now converting into beer.
So i'll see what 200g of Amber does to that.
And if it's too little to tell, i'll crank it to 400g & then see what happens :icon_cheers: