M4 American Pale Ale (pics)

[flything]

This is in preparation for Brewday on Saturday, does this look about right? The Amber is in there because most recipes I've seen have victory malt, and this is supposed to be a close subtitute, albeit in lower quantities. Never brewed one of these new fangled beers or even designed my own recipe....

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Mash at 67c for 90 mins
Boil Time: 60 min

Ingredients

Grain Bill
4.91 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.0 EBC) Grain 86.61 %
0.35 kg Munich Malt (17.7 EBC) Grain 6.25 %
0.30 kg Wheat Malt, UK (3.5 EBC) Grain 5.36 %
0.10 kg Amber Malt (100.0 EBC) Grain 1.79 %

Hops
30.00 gm Horizon [10.90 %] (60 min) Hops 33.2 IBU
14.00 gm Centennial [11.90 %] (15 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
10.00 gm Cascade 7.6 [7.60 %] (10 min) Hops 2.8 IBU
10.00 gm Centennial [11.90 %] (10 min) Hops 4.4 IBU
14.00 gm Cascade 7.6 [7.60 %] (10 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops

Other
3.60 gm Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
5.00 gm Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs SafAle California Ale (DCL Yeast #S-05) Yeast-Ale

Est Original Gravity: 1.054 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.39 %
Bitterness: 40.4 IBU
Est Color: 12.0 EBC Color: Color

Anything need changing?

[jubby]

I'm no expert, but that looks pretty good to me. I used 100g of amber malt as a substitute for victory malt in my Evil Twin. It's a very powerful taste, even at 100g, not unpleasant though. If I were brewing this, I might be tempted to leave it out of your recipe which should produce a nice summer ale. A few more of those Cascade and Centennial at flameout or dry hop also would be good, but that's just my taste. Good luck with it.

[adm]

I find that amber is a nice tasty grain, but seems to take quite a while to round out and can be quite sharp in taste early on.

As Jubby says, I'd also move some of those hops to flame out for aroma (or just use more at 0 mins or at an 80C steep)

I'd also mash a little lower - 65-66C for a bit of a lighter mouthfeel and slightly drier result. But that's just me.

Looks like a lovely recipe though!

[flything]

Ok so I changed the recipe a touch and took the Amber down to 50g from 100 (I've done Marc Ollosson's Hunky Dory so know it's quite a strong flavour, good beer though) and I mashed at 65c.

This resulted in me getting 22.5 ltrs at 1.059, about 73% efficiency, which when you see my bodged together kit below is quite pleasing, that should give me 6% alc.

Grain bill of 5.7kg pretty much filled my coolbox, about the limit - don't really like to move it that full!



Anyway it all went really easily, in a fit of trying to save 30 mins I made a HLT out of an older bucket and Tesco element, it work great but took awhile to heat up the water (15 ltrs for the mash, 19 for the sparge) and I think the element is a little high - couldn't have the element on after the 2nd sparge, might fit one lower down.



First runnings



View from the brew



It's not pretty but it works



That's two brews in two weeks, I might even get a chance to do another next week

[mysterio]

Great photos, looks like a good un.

[adm]

Pah - that coolbox ain't full! You can fit another kilo or two in there

Looks good. I'm glad it went well. Nice view too.