Mash on a higher temperature

[drjoffily]

So your grain bill was solely Amber malt + wheat malt + Crystal? With the majority being Amber malt? [emoji15]
If your talking, say, 80%+ of Amber then you might be struggling for enough enzyme converting capacity from the wheat malt to convert the Amber to sugars, even with a decent amount of time in the 60*C's. In which case, the brevity of time you've accidentally had might make it even more unlikely. So you might have a lot of starch present in your final wort. [emoji51]

Having said that, 1.046 is an encouraging sign you might be ok, so may as well see what happens! If you had a large enough amount of wheat malt in there then 20mins going through ~63-68*C should convert most of the starch (as stated in earlier posts).

Nice one technobabble66! Thanks for the tip on the malt. For the next iteration should I have some pale malt instead of 80% amber malt? What do you sugest for a Amber Ale with a nice thick head?

 

[Lionman]

Spot on Pallyjim! The FG was 1.028 which left me with a ABV of 2.3%. a very light beer. I also tasted it and it tasted good! surprise surprise! I'm looking forward to open one next week to taste the final product. A 2.3% beer might be the perfect excuse to my wife. Now I can drink 2 beers Mon to Thu

It might be worth noting that there are enzymes available that can be added ot the fermenter if you ever get a beer thats stuck at a high FG.

The enzymes break the complex carbs down into simple sugars that the yeast can consume.

They will require an extra week or two of fermentation but you will drop a few extra points.

 

[Rocker1986]

Nice one technobabble66! Thanks for the tip on the malt. For the next iteration should I have some pale malt instead of 80% amber malt? What do you sugest for a Amber Ale with a nice thick head?

Definitely.. I'd be using 80% pale malt at least, probably closer to 85%, bit of Munich maybe 10%, or use the Amber malt there, and make up the rest with dark crystal or medium crystal with some black malt/roast barley for color deepening.

 

[Lionman]

Nice one technobabble66! Thanks for the tip on the malt. For the next iteration should I have some pale malt instead of 80% amber malt? What do you sugest for a Amber Ale with a nice thick head?

It's a good idea to check specs on malts if you're not familiar with them. Pretty sure most amber malts are recommended to be max 10% of the malt bill.

If you want to do a simple amber ale, use an existing recipe as a starting point. Brew that and move from there or tweek as you desire.

Do you like James Squire Amber Ale? There are a few JSAA clone recipes around. This thread has a few versions

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/44576-james-squire-amber-ale/

 

[drjoffily]

Definitely.. I'd be using 80% pale malt at least, probably closer to 85%, bit of Munich maybe 10%, or use the Amber malt there, and make up the rest with dark crystal or medium crystal with some black malt/roast barley for color deepening.

thanks Rocker. A Wonder how it'll taste like. On the initial taste it was very smoky and caramel like flavour.

 

[technobabble66]

Nice one technobabble66! Thanks for the tip on the malt. For the next iteration should I have some pale malt instead of 80% amber malt? What do you sugest for a Amber Ale with a nice thick head?

As suggested above, i'd be looking at something like 60-80% Ale malt. The rest you could look at 10-30% Munich if you like a general, pronounced maltiness, 5-10% Amber for a toasty element, ~5% medium crystal. I'd probably start with something simple like that.
EG: 70% Ale, 15% Munich, 10% Amber, 5% Med Xtal. That's very middle-of-the-road, equal between the malt-toasty elements and the caramel elements. I'm not saying this is a good recipe, by the way. It's simply my view on what is a "mid-point" on proportions of the kind of core ingredients for an Amber Ale.
The Munich pushes maltiness, the crystal pushes a caramel/toffee element. If you specifically want one rather than the other, i'd drop/minimise the other, if that makes sense.
FWIW, Amber is similar to Biscuit & Victory, though they're (obviously) not the same - they all add a variant of a toasty, biscuity, nutty element.
I'd say for my tastes, the Biscuit adds a biscuity element (sah-prise!), Victory is more nutty-toasty, Amber is in between with a more toasty-biscuity-roasted element.
There's lots of secondary spec malts you could look at to push other elements, but that's a good starting point

The thick/good head can be from both the mash temp profile & a few ingredients.
The primary temp point is a 15-20mins rest at 72°C.
Ingredients are basically wheat malt, oats (malt or raw/instant) (and maybe rye) or Carapils. ~5% of either should be enough. Though you could add more if you want to be able to taste either the wheat or oats. (Personally, I'm not a fan of wheat, so i'd use oats. I'm currently a big fan of oats, so i'd push it to 10% - as an example of manipulating a recipe for this). Carapils is technically like a very light crystal malt, however at normal levels, it won't add any discernible flavour, so it can be a very handy/simple 5% addition to help guarantee a good head. FWIW, the mash profile thingy should be enough to do this. One last thing, hops oils/components can greatly aid head retention, so really hoppy beers typically have great heads while ignoring the other things i've mentioned.

 

[drjoffily]

Ok folks... after my embarrassing rooky mistake - actually a couple of them - first mashing at 78° and secondly using amber malt as base malt I finally tasted it after one week conditioning. I could wait no longer! Surprisingly it doesn't taste that bad. It actually tastes alright to be honest. It's very drinkable. It's way pass a amber ale in terms of colour and toasty flavor. It's more towards a brown ale with a strong toasty note and some caramel note as well. Quite pleasant bitterness with IBU around 40-45. The toastiness of the amber malt overtook the fruity aroma and taste of the cascade, Citra and Amarillo hops.

I'm glad I didn't throw it out! I can easily drink it.

I'd like to thank you all for the tips and suggestions.

Lesson learned. I'm ready for the next brew. This time something more simple

 

[Lionman]

Gongrats, you made beer from scratch :beerbang: Keep going, your beers will keep getting better.

Never throw beer out, it's sacrilege and will only anger the beer gods. Drink it, it will make sure the lesson is well learned.

Do a SMaSH for a nice simple brew. One malt, one hop, less to worry about. I have done a few and they have all been really delicious.

Something like

23L
5.5Kg Munich I - 68c for 60mins
20g Citra @ 60mins
20g Citra @ 10mins
20g Citra @ 5mins
40g Citra dry hop 5 days

should be roughly
5.5%
40IBU
8SRM

 

[drjoffily]

Gongrats, you made beer from scratch :beerbang: Keep going, your beers will keep getting better.

Never throw beer out, it's sacrilege and will only anger the beer gods. Drink it, it will make sure the lesson is well learned.

Do a SMaSH for a nice simple brew. One malt, one hop, less to worry about. I have done a few and they have all been really delicious.

Something like

23L
5.5Kg Munich I - 68c for 60mins
20g Citra @ 60mins
20g Citra @ 10mins
20g Citra @ 5mins
40g Citra dry hop 5 days

should be roughly
5.5%
40IBU
8SRM

thanks mate. Are you trying to confuse me asking me to brew another batch using only a specialty malt!?
Isn't Munich a specialty malt used to get a specific malt character, a bit of colour and mouthful?
The recipe looks tempting though. I like a tropical fruity aroma and taste beer. It looks like this recipe will give me that.

 

[manticle]

Munich is a base

 

[rude]

30 min mash might as well reduce you're grain bill & go the 90 min one

Then again I could be wrong

Mash temp I understand more body less fermentables mouthfeel

Whats the go for shorter mash times

 

[manticle]

Similar. You can tweak mash time and temp together to get a more or less fermentable wort.

High mash temp plus shorter time= dextrinous or lower temp plus longer = more fermentable.

2 sets of enzymes working on starch conversion so you can favour one over the other in a variety of ways. Optimum pH for either is also mildly different.

 

[drjoffily]

Gongrats, you made beer from scratch :beerbang: Keep going, your beers will keep getting better.

Never throw beer out, it's sacrilege and will only anger the beer gods. Drink it, it will make sure the lesson is well learned.

Do a SMaSH for a nice simple brew. One malt, one hop, less to worry about. I have done a few and they have all been really delicious.

Something like

23L
5.5Kg Munich I - 68c for 60mins
20g Citra @ 60mins
20g Citra @ 10mins
20g Citra @ 5mins
40g Citra dry hop 5 days

should be roughly
5.5%
40IBU
8SRM

Hey Lionman have you tried this recipe before? How does it taste like? Cheers

 

[Lionman]

I have done similar, not exactly the same. It should be pretty nice though.

Munich I is a good malt to use in a SMaSH if you like a decent bit of malt flavour in your beer. Alternatively, you could use something like Marris Otter or Golden Promise. These are decent pale malts that have a special maltiness to them that makes them great for higher IBU SMaSH brews.

You could swap Citra out for something like Simcoe if you like a more pine resinous flavour or Galaxy if you like a more passionfruit flavour. There are almost endless choices.

Feel free to swap out malt or hops for something you like or a particular flavour or aroma your chasing. Don't be afraid to get creative, just make sure the ingredients you are using are suitable. For example, some malts cannot be used in high quantities and some hops don't work as well as others for late additions. I found doing a few brews like this are a good way to get a feel for certain ingredients and also got on top of your brewing process.

 

[drjoffily]

This beer is growing on me! It taste so good that I'm thinking in repeating the mistake .
It's hoppy and it's malty at the same time. And the head is the best I've made. If only I could get another 1% on the ABV it would be a perfect session brown ALE.
Do you think I could get that by mashing on the right temperature this time? Around 68°.

I understand now that the Amber malt is a specialty malt and I should not use it as the majority of my grain bill but the beer tastes too good! Colour is beautiful, head is creamy, aroma is fruity (from the cascade and Amarillo hops)... I guess I'm breaking paradigms here. Sorry to the brewers evangelists of this group!

 

[Rocker1986]

You could probably get something similar using a large proportion of pale malt, a bit of Munich and some Caraaroma, and it would probably work better than using a heap of specialty malt. The Caraaroma is potent as ****, and one of my favourite grains.

I regularly make a red ale with Maris Otter, Caraaroma, Carapils and a bit of Black Patent, hopped with Centennial and Cascade, and fermented with 1469 yeast, which turns out similar to that description. Lovely malty/toffee/caramel but well balanced by the hops which give a bit of fruit but not overpowering. I used to ferment it with US-05 but when I tried 1469 in it, it just went to another level. One of my favourite recipes I've ever come up with that one, and other than the change of yeast, a recipe that has never changed since its first brewing. I'm happy to share the recipe if you want to have a go at it yourself.

 

[drjoffily]

You could probably get something similar using a large proportion of pale malt, a bit of Munich and some Caraaroma, and it would probably work better than using a heap of specialty malt. The Caraaroma is potent as ****, and one of my favourite grains.

I regularly make a red ale with Maris Otter, Caraaroma, Carapils and a bit of Black Patent, hopped with Centennial and Cascade, and fermented with 1469 yeast, which turns out similar to that description. Lovely malty/toffee/caramel but well balanced by the hops which give a bit of fruit but not overpowering. I used to ferment it with US-05 but when I tried 1469 in it, it just went to another level. One of my favourite recipes I've ever come up with that one, and other than the change of yeast, a recipe that has never changed since its first brewing. I'm happy to share the recipe if you want to have a go at it yourself.

Nice one Rocker! Cheers

 

[Rocker1986]

This is for a 25 litre batch, scale up or down as needed. Mash time is 90 minutes, boil time is 75 minutes. Based on 75% brewhouse efficiency. Ferment at 19C with 1469 West Yorkshire Ale yeast.

4.000 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Thomas Fawcett) (5.9 EBC) Grain 4 86.6 %
0.300 kg Caraaroma (Weyermann) (350.7 EBC) Grain 5 6.5 %
0.200 kg Carapils (Weyermann) (3.9 EBC) Grain 6 4.3 %
0.070 kg Black Malt (Thomas Fawcett) (1300.2 EBC) Grain 7 1.5 %
0.050 kg Acidulated (Weyermann) (4.5 EBC) Grain 8 1.1 % - this can be left out
Mash at 66/67 degrees C

20.00 g Cascade [6.80 %] - First Wort 75.0 min Hop 9 16.3 IBUs
7.00 g Magnum [12.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 10 8.9 IBUs
20.00 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 11 12.7 IBUs
30g Dry Hop of Cascade when fermentation dies down as well.
The amount of Magnum needed will vary with the AA% of all the hops used. I normally leave the Centennial and Cascade additions alone and only adjust the Magnum as needed to keep it around 38-39 IBUs, sometimes dropping it altogether.

Est Original Gravity: 1.0434 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.0127 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.0 % (4.4% if bottled)
Bitterness: 39.4 IBUs
Est Color: 33.5 EBC

 

[Lionman]

I have done a couple lately with around

83% pale malt
16% munich 1
1% caraaroma

Nice maltiness, beautiful colour. Latest batch is bittered with Magnum with all Amarillo late hopping. Looking forward to this one. Smelling nice in the fermenter.

 

[a1149913]

For future brews i'd suggest sticking with single infusion. Decoction will riddle your brew day with variables that will do more harm than good.
http://brulosophy.com/2016/12/12/mash-methods-pt-3-decoction-vs-single-infusion-exbeeriment-results/

I'm keen to find out how this brew went. Did it ferment out?
Just to add more fuel to the fire - don't stress too much about hitting exact mash temp numbers. Its always going to make "good" beer and i doubt the average punter will be able to tell the taste difference between upper and lower limits of mash temps.

http://brulosophy.com/2015/10/12/the-mash-high-vs-low-temperature-exbeeriment-results/
http://brulosophy.com/2015/10/12/the-mash-high-vs-low-temperature-exbeeriment-results/