American Amber Ale

[monk]

Just thought I'd share a recipe I just brewed earlier in the week. I took a sample and it tastes good right now, but I had some trouble with the fermentation. It's pretty warm and humid in my part of California right now, so the interior of my house is ~79F (26C). I tried the towel and fan trick, and an ice water bath, but I still think it ended up fermenting around 72-74 (22-23C). Anyway...it will definitely be ale, in the end. Here's the recipe:

Righteous Amber Real Ale

57g biscuit malt
227g Crystal malt (113g of 60L; 113g of 120L)
2.72 kg Amber LME
spoonful of Gypsum in kettle water

36g Cascade 60 min
21g Willamette 1 min

Nottingham Dry Yeast

Like I said, it's about half fermented and tastes pretty good already. Quite hoppy, too. I hope I did the weight conversions right

[BlightyBrewer]

Thanks for the recipe monk. How long and at what temp did you steep your grains, or were they just thrown in the kettle?

[monk]

I steeped the grains for 30 min between 150-160F. The malt tea smelled great. I don't know if this is the best method for steeping--I just use the most simple and common method I've seen. I know Charlie P. (in The Joy of Homebrewing) says to just steep the grains in cold water as you bring it to a boil, but I always figure that sounds like a good way to get tannins in the brew. Because by the time it boils, it's been around 200 degrees for a little while, and that seems way too high.

How do you all steep?