American Amber

[Scott-westy]

Do you think this malt bill will be ok? I've got 500g of Amber malt i need to use up really. Looking for a nice hoppy red ale. Hop schedule is just notional at minute btw.





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[Clibit]

I really like Amber in a red ale. I'd have crystal in there too though, myself.

[Scott-westy]

I've got some light Crystal in stock so I can add a smidge:






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[Clibit]

Looks nice, be interested to hear how the Jester works.

[Barley Water]

Just an observation (and perhaps I am missing something here) but if you add 50 grams of Jester and boil for five minutes then add another 50 grams and steep for 30 minutes how is it that the first 50 grams gives you only 8.8 IBU's yet the steeped hops gives you 17 IBUs? My guess would be that the 5 minute steep is going to be in near boiling wort for 35 minutes and should therefore add more bitterness than the steeped hops (although not a lot). In terms of the grist, because you are adding Amber malt I would think you could easily get away with dropping the Chocolate malt since between the Amber and Crystal malts you should get the color you are looking for. Actually, I would probably bump up the crystal malt but you are certainly in the ballpark so I would give it a try and see what happens.

[Scott-westy]

Just an observation (and perhaps I am missing something here) but if you add 50 grams of Jester and boil for five minutes then add another 50 grams and steep for 30 minutes how is it that the first 50 grams gives you only 8.8 IBU's yet the steeped hops gives you 17 IBUs? My guess would be that the 5 minute steep is going to be in near boiling wort for 35 minutes and should therefore add more bitterness than the steeped hops (although not a lot). In terms of the grist, because you are adding Amber malt I would think you could easily get away with dropping the Chocolate malt since between the Amber and Crystal malts you should get the color you are looking for. Actually, I would probably bump up the crystal malt but you are certainly in the ballpark so I would give it a try and see what happens.

That's a good observation. Beersmith doesn't account for this although I believe the pending upgrade does. You are quite correct that the 5 min addition will continue to isomerize through the steep. But the steep addition won't be added until I have chilled to 80c so the IBUs added as part of the steep will be minimal. So essentially until Beersmith gets upgraded to overcome this, it will be a bit of guesswork to a certain degree.

On the malt front I would prefer to lose the chocolate malt and can easy up the crystal slightly or use a darker crystal.

Thanks mate.

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[HairyJamie]

You can change the current beersmith options to count steep additions as 0 IBUs, I'm not at my PC to check where right now but I have this setting on myself.

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[Scott-westy]

You can change the current beersmith options to count steep additions as 0 IBUs, I'm not at my PC to check where right now but I have this setting on myself.

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Yeah mate I know. I always assume no IBUs from an 80c steep anyway and a few if I steep at say 90c. I think the upgrade sorts all this out.

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[HairyJamie]

8th of this month is when the update is due I believe, looking forward to it. At last it seems like a decent recipe editor is available

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[Scott-westy]

Yip.

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[Barley Water]

Given what you want to do I have another suggestion worth considering; get a hop back. The way they work is that the hot wort hits those hops then immediately goes to the chiller. You get nice extract of all the hop "goodies" then quickly trap them in the wort because it gets cooled down right away. I have one of those "Hop Rockets" which I use when I don't want to dry hop but want as much hop aroma as I can get into the beer (when making pilsner for instance). I'll also use it when making both British and American IPA, pale ales etc.

In your case, what I'd do is add the first aroma/flavor charge with 5 minutes to go in the boil. Once you turn off the heater then blow the hot wort through the last hop charge on the way to the chiller. You will get next to no bitterness because of the very short contact time but the aroma should make it into the fermenter. Also, that 5 minute addition will retain more aroma also because it is not sitting in the wort for an additonal 30 minutes (and theoretically anyhow you brew day should be a bit shorter). I guess you can do it with gravity however it's much easier and faster if you have a pump. Generally I tell newer brewers that equipment doesn't make that much difference however in this case I think it does affect the flavor of the final product.