Amber Ale

I have decided to try out my first Amber Ale which is sort of a maltier brother to a pale ale.  I found this recipe, which looks pretty interesting, on homebrewtalk.com: All-Grain - Caramel Amber Ale.

It calls for the use of a dark Candi Syrup to add some caramel notes.  I have purchased Candi Syrup for a few beers before but this recipe includes instructions on making it at home.  Candi Syrup isn't cheap so, if this seems easy enough, I may have to leverage this new knowledge for my future batches.  The recipe calls for 1 pound of Dark Candi Syrup which I will prepare prior to the brew day.  This should get me ~0.008 gravity points in an 6 gal batch.  I will not factor this into my efficiency calculations.

The rest of the recipe is pretty straight forward.  It's just two malts:  Pale (which I will sub Maris Otter for) and Crystal 80L which will give the beer the Amber Color and some more malt character.  I found that the specified amount of base grain (7 lbs) looks okay for my targeted 6 gal batch and assuming an 80% brewhouse Efficiency.  I'll be mashing without a brewbag again so the actual efficiency of the system is a bit of a guess at this point (got 83% last time).

The recipe calls for Safale US-05 which is the American Ale Yeast.  I accidently picked up Safale S-04 which is the English Ale Yeast.  I have decided to just go with the English Ale Yeast fermented in the high 60s to avoid getting too much in the way of esters.  I don't expect that this will be a problem with my ability to warm the fermentation chamber with my reptile heater.

I'll give this one a full 4 weeks to ferment out and clean up.  If I hit all my numbers it should finish around 5% ABV.  Will be nice to have another fairly easy drinking beer on hand.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 7 lbs Maris Otter
• 1 lb 8 oz Crystal 80L
• 1.5 oz Acid Malt
• 1 lb Dark Candi Syrup (Not factored into efficiency calculations - should get me 0.008 points)
• 1 lb Sugar
• 0.5 cup Tap Water
• 1.25 tsp Diammonium Phosphate
• Hops:
• 1 oz Chinook (Pellet, 13.1% AA) at 60 min
• 1 oz Chinook (Pellet, 13.1% AA) at 0 min
• 1 oz Willamette (Pellet, 7.8% AA) at 0 min
• Yeast:
• Safale S-04 English Ale Yeast
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• Step 1:  150 F for 45 min (Target 150 F for 45 min)
• Step 2:  Ramped up to 170 F in 30 min (Target - ramp up to 170 F in 25 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 66 F
• Primary Duration:
• 4 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.048 (Target 1.050)
• Efficiency:
• 76%  (Target 80%) - does not include Candi Syrup
• FG:
• 1.011 (Target 1.010)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 76% (Target 79%)
• ABV:
• 4.86% (Target 5.25%)

Brewing Notes:

• 1/3/16 - Brewday - 9:45 AM to 1200 PM and then, after a lunch break, 1:15 PM to 3:00 PM Including Setup and Cleanup (not including time spent making the Candi Syrup)
• Candi Syrup Notes (Took ~30 min to prepare):
• Put sugar, water, and DAP into a small sauce pan and heated at medium on the stovetop
• Took 10 min to get to a boil
• Boiled until it got to 290 F which took ~12 min.  I didn't stir while boiling
• Once it got to 290 F I removed the pan from the heat and added half a cup of cold water and stirred in.  This got the mixture down to 240 F.
• It had a really nice reddish brown color and some nice caramel and fruity flavors

• I let it cool down over the next several hours while I brewed the beer
• Milled the grain at a fairly fine setting
• Heated 10 gal of spring water in the HLT.  Cycled this through the Mash Tun, Grant, and RIMS until the systems were at 155 F
• Ended up with 3.5 gal above the false bottom and 7 gal in the system
• Added the CaCl and Gypsum to the Mash Tun
• Poured in the grain.  Stirred well to eliminate doughballs - Took 45 min to get to this point

• With the grain there were 4 gal above the false bottom
• Set RIMS to cycle at ~2 qt per min at 153 F
• Temps seemed to be holding well at 150 F based on the mash tun thermometer
• After 45 min of mashing I raised the RIMS temp to 180 F - Took 30 min to raise the mash temp to 170 F
• Added 5 gal of tap water to the HLT and heated 8 gal of strike water to 185 F
• Measured gravity towards the end of the mash as 9.8 brix which is 1.039 - right in the ballpark
• At the end of the mash I transferred 1 gal of strike water to the tun prior to draining to form a layer of water above the grain.  This raised the liquid level to 5 gal above the false bottom.  Focused on maintaining this liquid level rather than on maintaining any specific sparge rate 
• Sparge ended up taking 20 min.  I had 4 of the bottles used to support the grant blow their bottle caps off during the hot sparge.
• Collected 8 gal of wort
• Measured the gravity at the grant as 2.5 brix at the end of the sparge.  This is 1.010 which is the stopping point I was looking for.
• Took a lunch break at this point
• After lunch I heated the kettle (which had gone down to 140 F) - Took 20 min to get to a boil
• Added the bittering hops after the hot break cleared
• With ~20 min left in the boil I added the Irish Moss
• Heated the candi syrup back up to a boil on the stove top to make it a bit easier to pour with about 15 min left
• Added the candi syrup with about 5 min left in the boil.  Some of it had crystalized during the cool down.  I poured some boiling wort into the sauce pan to loosen it up.  Got most of it.
• Added the 0 min hops right before flameout
• Added the wort chiller and let the wort get back to a boil prior to killing the flame
• Chilled down to 65 F
• Collected the targeted 6 gal.  Measured the gravity as 1.048.  I'm not really sure about the gravity expectations for the candi sugar - 1 lb of regular sugar is 0.008 but it's possible that the darkening reduces the gravity a bit.  Either way, 1.048 is plenty close.

• Transferred the fermenter down to the fermentation chamber set to 66 F
• Rehydrated the dry yeast in a glass of 95 F tap water.  Poured the yeast on top and then stirred in after about 10 min.  Moved it down to the fermentation chamber to get a bit closer to the wort temps prior to pitching
• Pitched the yeast
• 1/15/16 - Moved this beer out of the fermentation chamber into 60 F basement.
• 1/31/16 - Bottled 5.5 gal with 3 oz of priming sugar.  Collected 54 12 oz bottles of beer.  The FG was measured as 1.011
• 5/18/16 - Tasting Notes - Hop forward beer.  Slightly more malt character than a pale ale.  Really nice hop and malt flavors.

Lessons Learned:

1. Making the candi syrup was easier than I had expected.  It had a really nice flavor.  I am really satisfied with it compared with the LHBS stuff  (a lot cheaper too).  I think I'll likely just make this for myself going forward.
2. This is the second brewday where I have not used the grain sack with the mash tun.  I think cleanup is actually easier with this new method as I can accept that some grain will get under the false bottom.  I am having some issues with the bottles used to fill the deadspace and am not sure they are worth the trouble.  A bit more water in the mash tun likely wouldn't be that much of a problem given that I am constantly recycling.  I think I might try my next batch without the bottles.