Beer Tasting: Experimental Amber Ale

After about 10 days of carbonation, I felt that my Experimental Amber Ale was ready for a serious evaluation. The overly malty flavor at kegging--almost to the point where I was worried that it might be diacetyl or some other flaw--has disappeared, and the beer tastes quite nice. The full story is below.

• Basics
• Starting gravity = 1.047; final gravity = 1.013; abv = 4.5%
• Aroma
• Clean and lightly malty; nothing to speak of for hop aroma.
• Appearance
• A rich amber in color, and clear in appearance. The head is off-white, with good retention, but is not particularly "big" in size.
• Flavor
• Malt-forward, with a moderate bitterness that finishes smoothly. Nicely balanced.
• Mouthfeel
• Moderately light (but not thin) body and moderately carbonated.
• Would I brew this again?
• Probably so, but maybe with a bit of crystal 60 added. I wouldn't place this into the "absolutely outstanding" category, but there is nothing terribly offensive about it, either. It could probably have a little more of a caramel presence to fit the style guidelines for an amber ale (and indeed, I had intended to add this, but forgot when at my homebrew store), as well as to round out the flavor. If I enter this in a competition, I expect it would get dinged a bit for style. On the other hand, I still like this beer!
• Overall rating:
• 7/10

Experimental Amber Ale Kegged

Last night (11 January 2015) I kegged the Experimental Amber Ale. It had been in the primary fermenter for 10 days. For the first eight days, I had it at 65°, and for the last two days I raised it up to 68° to clean up any lingering diacetyl. During the course of fermentation, gravity dropped from 1.047 to 1.013, which works out to 4.5% abv.

I'll be force carbonating this at ~13.5 psi at 42°, which works out to around 2.5 volumes of CO2. Yield was about 4.5 gallons of beer in the keg. Aroma is predominantly malty, and the flavor is fairly smooth. The maltiness is maybe a little more prominent than I like (which is probably my fault for making Maris Otter a good chunk of the malt bill); I am hoping it balances out a bit as the beer matures.

Experimental Amber Ale

As I work on a keezer build(!) over the winter break, I'm also developing beers with which to populate said keezer during its launch. Eagle Face Oatmeal Stout will be the inaugural tap, but I'm also hoping to build two more beers for this three-keg system. For my second tap, I thought an amber ale would be a nice balance--it also was a chance to use up some of the hops packages that were cluttering my freezer. Thus, the Experimental Amber Ale was born!

I will note that the recipe in the end was a bit of a mistake; I had intended to throw in a pound of crystal 60, but forgot to write it down when I went to the brew store. The resulting malt bill was thus a little simpler than I intended. This also meant that I miscalculated my mash steps (I didn't remove the crystal malt from BeerSmith's recipe calculations), and the mash was a bit thinner than it should have been, at least by a little. But...I am hopeful that the strong mix of Maris Otter malt will balance out the flavor, and I do not think the mash was thin to the point of inhibiting enzymatic reactions (I achieved 85% efficiency!).

Experimental Amber Ale

• 4.5 lbs. American 2 row malt
• 4 lbs. Maris Otter pale malt
• 0.25 lbs. chocolate malt
• 1 oz. Cascade whole hops (5.5% alpha acid; boil 60 minutes).
• 1 oz. Willamette hops pellets (5.3% alpha acid, 3.7% beta acid; boil 10 minutes)
• 1 oz. Liberty hops pellets (4.5% alpha acid, 3.5% beta acid; whirlpool ~30 minutes)
• 1 tsp. Irish moss
• 1 tbs. 5.2 pH stabilizer
• 1 pkg. Safale US-05 dry yeast (rehydrated in 1 cup water)

Procedure

• I mashed in with 3.1 gallons of water at ~172°, which stabilized to 156° within 10 minutes (and was still at that temperature after 20 minutes). 
• After 60 minutes of mash, I added 1.2 gallons of water at 185°, which bumped the mash temperature up to ~160°. I let this sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and then collected ~3.3 gallons of wort.
• I then added 3.15 gallons of water at 185°, let it sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the rest of the wort, for a total of ~6.7 gallons. This had a gravity of 1.041, which works out to 85% efficiency! This high efficiency, I suspect, is due to the fact that I sparged more than I would have normally (due to assuming the extra pound of crystal malt in the calculations, which wasn't physically in the recipe).
• I brought the wort to a boil, and added the Cascade hops.
• After 45 minutes of boiling, I added the Irish moss.
• After 50 minutes of boiling, I added the Willamette hops.
• After 60 minutes, I turned off the flame, added the Liberty hops, and started chilling. The volume in the brew kettle at this point was around 5.8 gallons.
• I rehydrated the yeast in 1 cup of water, and pitched it.
• The starting volume was ~5.5 gallons and had a gravity of 1.047 at 60°.
• I set the temperature for the fermentation chamber at 65°. The beer was brewed on 1 January 2014.

Despite my mistake in my calculations, I think this will (inadvertently) be an OK brew. I'll be curious to see how it ends up with no crystal malt, and how the combination of 2-row and Maris Otter play together. It probably won't be true to the American amber ale style, but it should still be drinkable!

Beer Tasting: El Dorado Amber Ale

I've been reasonably good at documenting my brewing process (hence this blog), but haven't done as much for recording the resulting product. This post is a first attempt at formalizing personal evaluations of my homebrew.

El Dorado Amber Ale

• I brewed this up on March 31, and bottled it on April 27. Thus, it has had a little over three months to condition. The sample I'm evaluating here was from a mini-keg. The character of the beer has changed somewhat from first sampling; definitely a little more mellow in the aroma (a good thing).
• Appearance
• Medium amber color. Clear, with only a minor chill haze.
• Nice head with good head retention
• Aroma
• Modestly malty, with a very minor hops aroma
• When I sampled this beer a month or two ago, the hops aroma was fairly strong and spicy/herbal. Not at all what I expected, especially for how El Dorado hops was described.
• Taste
• A moderately malty flavor, but not overly so. There is a modest bitterness, but not too much so.
• The finish is smooth with a slight caramel flavor, and nicely hoppy
• Carbonation is moderate; about right for this style of beer
• Would I brew this again?
• Overall, this has turned into a decent beer, but not my very best. Particularly in its earlier days, I didn't really care for how the dry-hopped El Dorado aroma came through; far more vegetal than I was expecting, and very little if any of the promised citrus/fruity notes. It wasn't unpleasant, necessarily, just not to my personal taste. I was a little unimpressed by how the El Dorado hops worked for this beer; I might try them for bittering again, but not for dry hopping.
• All in all, I'm going to test a few other amber ale recipes.
• Overall rating: 5/10

Beer Updates: El Dorado Amber Ale, Rodinia IPA

Mopping up some loose ends from the brewing season...

El Dorado Amber Ale

• After 20 days of dry-hopping, I bottled this on April 27.
• Final gravity was 1.010 at 60 degrees; down from 1.053 original gravity, this works out to 5.6% abv.
• Total yield was 2 mini-kegs (5 L), 15 12-oz. bottles, and 2 22-oz. bottles. The former was carbonated with 1.5 tbs. of corn sugar each; the latter with carbonation drops.

Rodinia IPA

• It took almost 2 days before I saw activity in the primary fermenter. I suspect this was a combination of high gravity and a slow start typical for the BRY-97 yeast strain.
• After 15 days in the primary fermenter, I transferred this to the secondary fermenter on 27 April 2014. Gravity at this point was 1.022, down from 1.076.
• I let the beer sit in the primary for around 3 weeks, and added 1 oz. of Nelson Sauvin hops on Sunday, May 18, for dry-hopping.
• Bottling day was June 5, so I had a total of 18 days dry-hopping. Gravity at this point was 1.013 at 60 degrees, working out to a final abv of 8.3%.
• I ended up with 3.5 gallons of beer. This was primed with 3 oz. of corn sugar dissolved in 2 cups of water, to reach a target of 2.5 volumes CO2.
• I sampled a bottle after a week; it is shaping up quite nicely. The aroma is sweet and quite reminiscent of the white wine aroma I expected for Nelson Sauvin hops. Taste so far is pleasantly bitter with just a touch of sweetness (the hops again, I think).

Beer Updates: El Dorado Amber Ale, California Vanilla Porter, Gondwana IPA

Over the past two weeks, there has been some action on various batches. This is all summarized below.

El Dorado Amber Ale

• On April 7, one week after brewing, I transferred the El Dorado Amber Ale over to the secondary fermenter. Gravity at this point was 1.014, down from 1.053; this equals 6.5% abv and 72.6% apparent attenuation.
• I added 0.5 oz. of El Dorado hops pellets, aiming for two weeks of dry hopping prior to bottling

California Vanilla Porter

• After seven days of vanilla beans in the secondary fermenter, this beer was ready to bottle. I recently got a second-hand set of "PhilTap" minikegs (thanks, Dad!), and this was the first batch to get the PhilTap treatment, along with the Gondwana IPA.
• At bottling, gravity was 1.014, down from 1.064. This indicates 6.6% abv and 77.0% apparent attenuation.
• The kegs were each carbonated with 1.5 tbs of corn sugar. The remaining 1.9 gallons were carbonated with 1.65 oz. of corn sugar boiled in 0.5 cup of water (target carbonation=2.6 volumes).
• The total yield for this batch was: 2 5-L mini-kegs, 11 12-oz bottles, 3 22-oz. bottles, and 1 16-oz. grolsch bottle.

Gondwana IPA

• After 17 days of dry hopping with 2 oz. of Citra hops pellets, this beer was ready to package. As I was transferring it out, I was hit with a fantastic hops aroma - a fantastic bouquet of passionfruit with a little citrus. These also held up in the tasting.
• At bottling, gravity was 1.008, down from 1.047. This equals 5.1% abv, and an apparent attenuation of 82.3%.
• The kegs were carbonated with 1.5 tbs of corn sugar. The remaining 1.5 gallons was primed with 1.45 oz. of corn sugar boiled in 0.5 cup water.
• The total yield for this batch was 2 5-L mini-kegs, 8 12-oz bottles, 2 22-oz. bottles, and 1 16-oz. Grolsch bottle.
• After a week, I tapped one of the mini-kegs. The result is beautiful! The hops aroma is still fantastic, although the beer doesn't have a lot of body (not surprising given the high fermentability). Even so, the flavor is quite clean, which is nice after my early worries.

Gondwana IPA, first pour from the mini-keg

El Dorado Amber Ale

Now having an all-grain amber ale, IPA, and porter under my belt, I decided to try another all-grain amber ale. I based this recipe off of Amarillo Amber Ale from BYO magazine. I made some small substitutions for what was available at my local (and awesome) homebrew store, primarily in switching up the Weyermann malts with approximate equivalents. I also ended up using El Dorado and Nugget for the hops (they had just run out of Amarillo!). As I designed this recipe in BeerSmith, I was super excited to try a whole bunch of new grains and hops.; this sort of beer geekery is why I got into homebrewing! And even better, this was my most successful all-grain brewing session. I scored 75% efficiency, my best to date.

El Dorado Amber Ale

• 9.3 lbs. Best Malz Pilsen malt
• 0.25 lbs. aromatic malt
• 0.25 lbs. 40° crystal malt
• 0.25 lbs. carastan malt
• 0.25 lbs. caravienne malt
• 0.1875 lbs. chocolate malt
• 1 tbs. 5.2 pH stabilizer
• 0.5 oz. Nugget hops pellets (14.4% alpha acid) - 30 minutes boil
• 0.5 oz. El Dorado hops pellets (15% alpha acid) - 10 minutes boil
• 0.5 oz. El Dorado hops pellets (15% alpha acid) - 5 minutes boil
• 0.5 oz. El Dorado hops pellets (15% alpha acid) - 14 days dry hop
• 1/2 tsp. Irish moss
• 1 pkg. SafAle English Ale Yeast S04

Steps

• Add 1 tbs. of 5.2 pH stabilizer to grist
• Add 13.5 quarts of water at 170° to grist in mash tun, for target temperature of 152°. The temperature stabilized here within 5 minutes, and only dropped 1 degree over the entire 60 minutes of mashing.
• Mash for 60 minutes, add 1 gallon of water at 170°. I collected 3.5 gallons of runnings.
• Next, I added 3.1 gallons of water at 170°. The temperature settled at 160°. I let the mash tun sit for 10 minutes, and then I collected 3.4 gallons of runnings. This totaled 6.9 gallons of wort collected; with a gravity of 1.042, I calculate 75% efficiency for my mash.
• Because I had collected such a volume of wort, I elected to boil for a total of 90 minutes. Once I had the wort to a boil, it boiled for 60 minutes before the first hop addition.
• At 60 minutes, I added 0.5 oz. Nugget hops pellets.
• At 75 minutes, I added the Irish moss.
• At 80 minutes, I added 0.5 oz. of El Dorado hops pellets.
• At 85 minutes, I added 0.5 oz. of El Dorado hops pellets.
• At 90 minutes, I removed the pot from the heat, and began cooling it with my wort chiller.
• It took around 30 minutes to cool the wort to 75°. From here, I transferred the wort to my primary fermenter.
• I proofed the yeast in 1 cup of 85° degree water, and pitched it. The space where I am fermenting is about 65° ambient temperature--perfect for this yeast strain.
• I collected 5 gallons of wort, with a starting gravity of 1.053 (at 60°). Once I had adjusted the mash efficiency in BeerSmith for my system, I was exactly on the nose for o.g. This will potentially yield ~5.2% abv.

Beer Updates: California Vanilla Porter, Gondwana IPA, Fake Tire 3.0

I haven't done a brewing session in two weeks (life has been busy!), but I have been dabbling in a few other beer-related activities. These are outlined below.

Fake Tire Amber Ale
The Fake Tire 3.0 Amber Ale was bottled on March 23. Final gravity was 1.008; with a starting gravity of 1.045, this means I have 4.8% abv. I added 3.5 oz. of corn sugar dissolved in 2 cups of water. The total yield was 11 12-oz bottles, 7 22-oz bottles, and 8 16-oz bottles (grolsch).

Gondwana IPA
As noted before, this beer has had a bit of a roller coaster of flavors that has finally evened out on the positive side. On March 19, I added 2 oz. of Citra pellet hops for dry hopping. After these have had a full two weeks in the fermenter, I will bottle.

California Vanilla Porter
In order to achieve the eponymous vanilla flavor for this porter, I cut up and scraped 4 Madagascar vanilla beans and then soaked all of them in 2 oz. of vodka. They soaked for 10 days, and generated a really tasty and nice-smelling extract. Today, I finally got to transferring the porter from the primary fermenter into the secondary (after 15 days--the beer was brewed on March 15, and transferred on March 30). The beer is quite tasty, and weighs in at 1.014. Down from 1.064, that means the beer weighs in at 6.4% abv. Right before I sealed up the secondary, I tossed in the vanilla extract (plus pods). I figure I will bottle this in about a week.

Fake Tire 3.0 and Laurasia IPA updates

On Thursday, February 27, I transferred the Fake Tire 3.0 (my first all-grain batch) over to the secondary fermenter. The gravity was down to 1.006, which works out to 5.1% abv. This is certainly the most I've ever had a beer ferment out, and I suspect this was due to the unintentionally low mash temperature.

On Saturday, March 1, I added 2 oz. of Simcoe hops pellets to the Laurasia IPA, for dry hopping.

Yikes and Away! Diving into All-Grain Brewing (with Fake Tire Amber Ale 3.0)

With a whole bunch more brew space, and over five years of solo brewing under my belt(!), I've been rapidly diversifying from the tried-and-true partial volume, extract with steeping grains, brews. The quality (in my humble opinion) on many of these beers has been pretty good (the Rainy Day IPA, Vanilla Voay Porter, and Fake Tire Amber Ale being particularly successful), but I do feel like I've gotten the handle of many aspects of extract brewing. I'm looking for a bit of a challenge and to expand my brewing skill set. The first step was full-volume boils, and the logical next step was to try all-grain. But, I had been a little intimidated by the complexity of the all-grain setups I had seen. Three-part towers, hoses everywhere, sparge arms, and the like seemed like a lot of equipment investment just to try a new technique. But then I learned about batch-sparging. Basically, all I would need was a converted cooler. Done and done!

With a converted 10 gallon cooler (ball valve and screen installed at the bottom), I was ready to go. I thought a good first beer would be to try a new iteration of my amber ale.

Fake Tire Amber Ale 3.0

• 7.5 lbs pale malt (2 row)
• 0.5 lbs. Victory malt
• 0.5 lbs. Munich malt
• 0.5 lbs. 40° crystal malt
• 0.5 lbs. 20° crystal malt
• 0.5 lbs. Cara-Pils malt
• 0.25 lbs. chocolate malt
• 1 oz. Cascade whole hops (60 minute boil)
• 1 oz. Cascade whole hops (5 minute boil)
• 1 tsp. Irish moss
• 1 pkg. Safale American ale yeast US-05

Steps

• Mash in ~13 qts. of water at 165° with malt for 1 hour. This resulted in a temperature of 154 degrees within 5 minutes, but it ended up at 145° by the end of the hour.
• Decanted liquid, added 1 gallon of water, brought temperature up to 146°.
• Decanted liquid, added 3 gallons water, brought temperature to 148°.
• Decanted liquid, which had a specific gravity of 1.034 at 60 degrees. The volume in the kettle was around 5 gallons.
• Heated to boil, added first addition of Cascade hops, boiled for 45 minutes, added Irish moss, boiled for another 10 minutes, added second addition of Cascade hops.
• After the 60 minute boil, I turned off the flame and chilled the wort to around 70 degrees.
• I transferred the wort to the fermenter, and pitched the yeast (which had been rehydrated in 1 cup of water). The wort fermented at ~68°.
• The starting gravity was 1.045 at 60°, with a starting volume of 4 gallons.

Notes

This was definitely a learning experience! I had done a fair bit of reading on all of this, but even so there were a few bumps along the way. For starters, I learned that my "trusty" digital thermometer reads about 20° too low! This happened hard way when I mashed the grains to discover a ridiculously low-gravity wort--perhaps 1.020. A little investigation with other thermometers revealed that my main digital thermometer had a bad sensor (maybe from moisture?). In any case, I tossed that wort and started over. It sucks to have wasted the time and materials, but it was a useful lesson.

Even after all of that, my efficiency in sugar extraction was still not great (~50%, where I should be hitting ~70% at least). I attribute this in part to the fairly low temperatures that the mash ended at (145°, on the very lowest end of where I should be). Next time, I am going to preheat my cooler/mash tun to mitigate some cooling. I also pulled off all of the "liquor" after each water addition, which I later realized I shouldn't have...so, I will aim for pulling off equal amounts of liquor next time, rather than draining the whole thing.

Despite all of that, I am eager to improve my technique and make the next batch. The amber ale really took off in the fermenter, and should be ready to go to the secondary very soon.

Fake Tire Amber Ale 1.2 Update

Having brewed my Fake Tire Amber Ale 1.2 on October 7, I transferred the beer into the secondary fermenter on October 14. Due to various life events, I did not get around to bottling until Monday, November 26. So, the beer sat in the secondary for nearly six weeks. This is longer than I normally go, but the result seems to be an exceptionally clear beer.

Final gravity is 1.010 at 68° F, down from an original gravity of 1.052 at 60° F. Adjusting for temperature, this gives an a.b.v. of 5.5%. The flavor is quite clean, and I think will match Fat Tire pretty well.

I primed the beer with 3/4 cup of priming sugar, and bottled it. The result was 14 12-oz. bottles, 11 18-oz. bottles, and 7 22-oz. bottles.

Fake Tire Amber Ale 1.2

One of my favorite beers from last year was my Fake Tire Amber Ale (a clone of Fat Tire). The first batch was so good that I brewed it again! The second batch was largely the same as the first, except I used pelletized hops instead of whole hops. The unfortunate effect was that the beer was slightly more bitter. Thus, I decided to further refine my pelletized recipe for this brew session. Following advice elsewhere, I reduced the overall hops amounts by 10 percent, to compensate for the greater surface area (and contribution of bitterness) from the pellets versus the whole cones. I also changed the yeast, from Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II) to White Labs WLP051 (California V Ale), based on what was available at my local homebrew supply shop.

The result is:

Fake Tire Amber Ale 1.2

• 5 pounds plain extra-light DME
• 0.5 lb Munich light malt
• 0.5 lb Carapils malt
• 0.5 lb biscuit malt
• 0.5 lb crystal malt (20° Lovibond)
• 0.5 lb crystal malt (40° Lovibond)
• 1.0 oz chocolate malt
• 0.9 oz. Cascade hops (60 minutes boil)
• 0.9 oz. Mt. Hood hops (5 minutes boil)
• 1 tsp. Irish moss (15 minutes boil)
• White Labs WLP051 Yeast (California V Ale)

Steps

• I heated 3.5 gallons of tap water to 154° F, and steeped the grains for 45 minutes. Then, I sparged the grains with 0.5 gallons of tap water at 154°.
• After bringing the mixture to a boil, I turned off the heat and added the malt. I brought it back to a boil, and threw in the Cascade hops.
• After boiling for 45 minutes, I added 1 tsp. of Spanish moss.
• After boiling for another 12 minutes (for 57 minutes total boil), I added the Mt. Hood hops.
• After 3 more minutes (60 minutes total of boiling), I cooled the wort with my chiller, added cold tap water to a total of 4.5 gallons, and pitched the yeast. Pitching temperature was 76° F, and starting gravity was measured at 1.052 (gravity is recalculated to what it would be at 60° F).

Steeping the grains for Fake Tire Amber Ale 1.2

Fake Tire Amber Ale 1.1 Bottled

After conditioning the beer in the secondary fermenter for three weeks, I decided to bottle the second batch of Fake Tire Amber Ale. The gravity was unchanged from when I racked it to the secondary fermenter, at 1.012. This results in a final ABV of 5.0%. I added 3/4 cup of corn sugar for priming. The yield was 22 12-oz. bottles, 11 18-oz. bottles, and 4 22-oz. bottles. Thanks to my buddy Eric for assisting!

Fake Tire Amber Ale 1.1

My first batch of Fake Tire Amber Ale is amazing. In my (non-humble) opinion, it's probably one of the best recipes I've done yet. A genuinely biscuit-ish flavor (just like Fat Tire!), clear appearance, and nice head combine deliciously. The downside of this is that I have finished most of the batch. Watching my dwindling supply, I decided to take action and brew up another batch today. I made some small changes, largely on account of what was available for ingredients.

Changes from first batch
Nothing major - instead of whole hops, I used hops pellets. This presumably has the effect of upping the hops utilization a little bit, but according to BeerSmith it's not a major amount. 21.9 IBU's versus 24.1 IBU's for the whole and pellet hops, respectively. Given the margin of error in IBU measurements for hops, as well as the margin of error inherent to home brewing, I decided not to mess with the recipe.

The only other major variation was that I topped up to just a hair under 5 gallons, with a starting gravity of 1.050. I presume the larger amount of water was needed to get close to last time's gravity (1.051) because I decanted a little more of my wort into the brewing bucket than I did previously.

In any case, I will be curious to see how this one turns out!

Amber Ale, Vanilla Porter, and Irish Stout Updates

A few updates condensed into one post. . .

Vanilla Voay Porter
This experimental brew (recipe, update, and update) was bottled on Saturday, December 10. This gave the vanilla extract/pods around two weeks in the secondary fermenter - the chopped and scraped pods floated on the surface, and many of the tiny seeds were everywhere in the fermenter.

Final gravity was 1.016, from a starting gravity of 1.056, giving 5.25% alcohol by volume. Final yield was just over 5 gallons of beer(!), with 30 12-oz. bottles, 12 1-pt. bottles, and 4 22-oz. bottles.

Four days after bottling, I was impatient and opened one of the small bottles. Carbonation was still very slight, but the flavor and aroma were delicious. A faint vanilla scent, but a rich vanilla flavor (not overpowering though, thankfully). I'm very excited to see how this is going to mature over the next few weeks!

Fake Tire Amber Ale
One week after brewing, I transferred my Fat Tire clone into the secondary fermenter. The aroma was very estery, with a strong banana component. I might have been a little worried, except the yeast strain is known to do this. The gravity was around 1.014 at this point, and hadn't changed at all when I racked the beer into the bottling bucket today (December 17, 19 days after brewing). This gives 5% alcohol by volume, a little less than the 5.2% of real Fat Tire.

From this batch, I got 20 12-oz. bottles, 14 1-pt. bottles, and 1 22-oz. bottle. Next time I might try scaling the recipe up a bit.

When preparing to bottle, I'm very impressed by the absolute clarity of the beer. This bodes well for the final product (which I'll probably test in a week's time - Christmas Eve!).

Coopers Irish Stout
The Irish stout I made a few weeks ago has matured into a wonderfully drinkable brew. The head is a nice caramel-color, and isn't overwhelming, but certainly sticks around the edges of the glass after pouring. The flavor has a hint of malt and is dominated by the roasted grains, and has a nice dry finish (as expected for the style). As I noted at the time of bottling, it's not a very exciting beer (middle of the road flavor - good but no really unusual highlights), but it's certainly a solid one.

This kit was cheap, fast, easy, and tasty - perfect for the beginning or end of the brew season when I just want to crank something out! I'll admit that it's not quite as much fun as doing everything from scratch, but then again that's also a welcome break sometimes. I expect I'll probably do this kit (or a similar one) again!

Irish stout, in the glass

Fake Tire Amber Ale

I've always liked Fat Tire (from New Belgium Brewing), and have previously found clone recipes to be a good way to experiment with various styles and flavors. Thus, tonight's brew was modeled after two different Fat Tire recipes I found kicking around the Internet. These are followed reasonably closely, except for the hops - I used what I had on hand, so this will almost certainly modify the resultant into something Fat Tire-ish rather than a spot-on Fat Tire (if such a thing is genuinely possible). Thus, I'm calling this batch. . .

Fake Tire

• 5 pounds plain extra-light DME
• 0.5 lb Munich light malt
• 0.5 lb Carapils malt
• 0.5 lb biscuit malt
• 0.5 lb crystal malt (20° Lovibond)
• 0.5 lb crystal malt (40° Lovibond)
• 1.0 oz chocolate malt
• 1.0 oz. Cascade hops (60 minutes boil)
• 1.0 oz. Mt. Hood hops (5 minutes boil)
• 1 tsp. Irish moss (15 minutes boil)
  
• Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II)
  

Steps

• I heated 3.5 gallons of tap water to 154° F (usually hovering around 156° to 158°), and steeped the grains for 45 minutes. Then, I sparged the grains with 0.5 gallons of tap water at 154°.
• After bringing the mixture to a boil, I turned off the heat and added the malt. I brought it back to a boil, and threw in the Cascade hops.
• After boiling for 45 minutes, I added 1 tsp. of Spanish moss.
• After boiling for another 10 minutes (for 55 minutes total boil), I added the Mt. Hood hops.
• After 5 more minutes (60 minutes total of boiling), I cooled the wort with my chiller, added cold tap water to a total of 4.5 gallons, and pitched the yeast. Pitching temperature was 74° F, and starting gravity was measured at 1.052. The wort is a nice amber color (as befits an amber ale).
  

As I refined the recipe, I played around with some calculators for IBU and starting gravity. I got an estimated boil gravity (4 gallon boil) of 1.077; with a top-up to 5 gallons, this gives an estimated IBU of 20.7 and estimated starting gravity of 1.061. My actual starting gravity was a little lower, at 1.052. Part of this discrepancy could be the sludge I left in the bottom of the brew pot, and the other could just be errors in the brew calculator.

New Belgium officially gives an "OG" of 12.6 and an "FG" of 2.2 for Fat Tire, which I think is on the Brix scale (even if not stated). This translates to 1.051 and 1.009. Thus, my original gravity is quite close! We'll see if this comparability is maintained through fermentation. (as a side-note, they measure 18.5 IBU and 5.2% ABV, too)

I've never fermented with American Ale II before, so I'm curious to see how it works out. Judging by the Wyeast website, this should be a nice little strain.

The grains, waiting to steep

AAA Bottled

Tonight I bottled the Astro Amber Ale (AAA, or A-Cubed, for short), getting 39 of the 12-oz. bottles and 4 of the pint bottles. Not too bad of a yield! The uncarbonated brew is a nicely mild amber, but I will eagerly await to see how it matures over the next week or two.

The final specific gravity was 1.021, no change from when it was transferred to the secondary. Thus, we have a final alcohol content estimated at 3.8 percent, making it a moderately lightweight amber ale. I must confess that I'm a little surprised by this - perhaps it is a result of using a different brand of yeast?

AAA, all bottled up and ready to carbonate.

AAA Update

I just transferred the Astro Amber Ale over to the secondary fermenter. The gravity right now is 1.021, down from a starting gravity of 1.052. This provides a current alcohol content of roughly 3.8 percent. I expect that this will go up just a little bit as I let the beer finish fermenting and conditioning in the carboy over Christmas. My plan is to bottle in about two or three weeks.


In the glass, the beer has a nice reddish brown hue, and a pleasantly warm and malty taste with a smooth finish. This is a very, very premature judgement of what the final flavor might be like, of course. Regardless, I can't wait to try out the finished, carbonated product in a month or so!

Astro Amber Ale

Tonight, I decided to try for an amber ale. My buddy Steve came over to assist (in his first brewing experience ever - wow, is he brave!), and we had a great time. The ingredients I had at home lent themselves well to an amber ale (and I was in the mood for one, too), so I did a little searching on-line to find a good base recipe. Once I had that in hand, time to get creative! Here's the recipe I concocted:

Basic ingredients
6.6 lbs Briess Sparkling Amber Liquid Malt
1 lb. dry light malt
8 oz. crushed crystal malt, 40°L
4 oz. crushed crystal malt, 80°L
2 oz. carapils malt
1 oz. crushed chocolate malt
1 oz. whole Cascade hops (South Dakota grown)
1 oz. whole Sterling hops (South Dakota grown)
0.5 oz. whole Hallertauer hops (South Dakota grown)
1 packet Muntons Active Brewing Yeast, prepared according to package directions

Here's what I did:

1. Steeped crystal malt, carapils malt, and chocolate malt in 2.5 gallons of water at ~155°F for 45 minutes
2. Sparged malts with 0.5 gallons of water at ~155°F
3. Heated the tea to a boil, and added the liquid malt extract and then the dry malt extract, and then added the Cascade hops
4. Boiled for 45 minutes, and then added the Sterling hops
5. Boiled for 15 minutes, and then added the Hallertauer hops
6. Removed from heat, removed Cascade and Sterling hops, and then cooled using my cooling coil system (nice!)
7. Once the wort was cooled down to ~70°F, I decanted it into the primary fermenter and topped up to 5 gallons with chilled distilled water
8. I added the yeast, sealed up the system, and let it get on to fermenting!

The starting gravity was 1.052, indicating a potential alcohol content of around 6.8 percent. Assuming typical yield, this tasty amber ale will probably end up around 5 percent alcohol by volume. The wort has a nice reddish brown hue right now, and I expect it to lighten up some as the various proteins settle out. Next weekend, I'll transfer it over to the secondary fermenter and let the whole mess condition over the Christmas holiday.

And of course, here's the requisite picture of the wort: