another go at the amber ale
first off in regards to below brews #1 batch still has weird strange flavour hence why i've still got about half a keg left! can;t put my finger on the flavour, was hoping it would go away with a bit of age but tried tonight and still there!
batch #2 all gone about a week or two ago, it was good but could of been better, wasn't that impressed with the cascade hop flavour with amount used, i kept getting the same comment from people,' it tastes very winey!' any comments people?
ok now to the next go,
just did the kit and tin of amber, plus 25g of cascade and 25g of b saaz for about 5-10 min boil, due to the amount of hops i thought **** it, last batch wasn't really that great on the hop front plus i'm not putting all that through the small strainer i've got, it'll take me forever, just dump it all in the fermentor then the hops should stay, plus it'll be a good bit of education for me, yeast wise i still had 100ml of yeast left that i had used for last two batches (looked pretty dense and had darkened a little) didn't do starter this time just let it warm up to room temp and pitched into wort when it was about 18degrees
fermentation wise the yeast rose the hops to the top with a great big green sludge, didn't do any gravity readings at all during the fermentation, as i wasn't expecting much. after everything had dropped got a sample, it was right on 1010 and tasted really good, but i wanted more hops so i dry hopped, chucked in another 25g of cascade and 25g of b sazz, left it over night, chilled to 10degress for about 12hours then to 5degrees for 24hr put into keg, after three days great passion-fruit like flavour's coming through, tonight the b saaz is coming through really great, reminds me of a mix between mac's hop rocker and sassy red! very happy with this at moment
only downer is i'm predicting it'll be all gone by sunday
done 2 rebrews of this side by side
kit plus, tin of amber & 300grams of glucose
repitch of wyeast 1056
batch #1 no extra hops, batch #2 boiled 40g of cascade then after a week dry hopped another 40g of cascade
batch #1 after 17days finished at 1008, batch #2 after 14 days finished at 1005
kegged #1 week ago, kegged #2 yesterday
#1 tastes ok, got a strange after taste that i can't really explain definitely needs some extra hop flavour
#2 the sample i was sipping while transferring yesterday tasted great, so no doubt be wed it should be carbed just right, i doubt there will be any left by end of weekend!
going to do another batch, just the kit and tin of amber, no extra sugar this time, don't think i really need the extra alcohol, (hopefully local hbs will have more stock by end of week and i can do another side by side comparison's instead of just the one batch)
james