Something... amber coloured!

[bellebouche]

Right now I've no particular notion of a given style I'd like to make but I've decided to aim for light, crisp and a little amber coloured.

I figure this'll come right into the spring and give

The grains and whathaveyou...

New Recipe
American IPA

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 39.0
Total Grain (kg): 8.600
Total Hops (g): 0.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.049 (°P): 12.1
Colour (SRM): 7.2 (EBC): 14.1
Bitterness (IBU): 0.0 (Tinseth)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 66

Grain Bill
----------------
6.500 kg Pale Ale Malt (75.58%)
1.300 kg Munich II (15.12%)
0.600 kg Wheat Malt (6.98%)
0.200 kg Caramunich III (2.33%)


Single step Infusion at 62°C for 64 Minutes.
Fermented at 17°C with Safeale S-04

Not sure on the hopping regime just yet... but will be whirlpooling a load of something in... was thinking about saaz/hallertaue... so something noble tasting but with an APA maltiness. Will see what takes my fancy when I get round to it.

Pics and the like on Sunday morning when I'm done.

[bellebouche]

Mashed in @ 4pm. grains were @ 13c so took a little maths to hit my 62c mash temp.

Also. Need a new mashtun. My current 25 litre cooler is at the limit for 4.8% 40l brew.

Ordinarily I'd drive the wort through a recirc to clear it up and push the efficiency as I then started to sparge. I think I'll change tack here and batch sparge at a slightly higher temp than usual.

Still figuring out a hop schedule... will aim for SNPA type levels... So, Cascade, chinook... but have lots of fuggles and strsselspalt on hand. May employ these in avant-garde dry hopping experiment.

[bellebouche]

Some rapid thinking required here.

The brewers assistant weighed out and milled 6.5kg of Amber (EBC 34!) instead of pale in that grain bill above.

So... what I was drawing off last night was coming off like Banks' Mild rather than SNPA! I knew all wasn't well so I left it alone until this morning.

So. Change of tack. I now have 44litres of 1054 Dark malty/raisiny/bready sticky sweet wort. It was reading 1054 @ 12c so it'll be bigger than I intended.

I kicked off a starter from a Westmalle Dubbel I'd grown on last night so I'm going to pitch that and a sachet of US-05.

Will switch my hopping strategy now and stay away from the US hops - an inauspicious start to the brewing year!

[TheLastSuppa]

This will be erm.. interesting! Let us know how it turns out. Never heard of anyone using 6.5Kg of amber before.

[bellebouche]

Well, did a 90 minute boil and hopped it...

40.0 g Strisselspalt Leaf (2% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (First Wort) (1 g/L)
5.0 g Northern Brewer Leaf (9.6% Alpha) @ 80 Minutes (Boil) (0.1 g/L)
12.0 g Challenger Leaf (6.1% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.3 g/L)
14.0 g Challenger Leaf (6.1% Alpha) @ 40 Minutes (Boil) (0.4 g/L)
10.0 g Challenger Leaf (6.1% Alpha) @ 20 Minutes (Boil) (0.3 g/L)
10.0 g Challenger Leaf (6.1% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.3 g/L)
10.0 g Challenger Pellet (6.1% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.3 g/L)
35.0 g Hallertau Aroma Leaf (8.1% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.9 g/L)

That'll give me enough bitterness to carry it off. Had very little hot break during the boil but plenty of cold break. I'd added in the last challenger and Hallertau dose after flame out when the temp was at 80 degrees - produced an impressive oil slick. Left that for 30 mins then chilled to 27c. Let it stand for an hour and then into the FV's with the yeast starter.

I've made a litre of a Dark Belgian Candi syrup which I'll pitch in after a couple of days.

A sampler of the chilled wort going into the FV was all sticky, flapjack, toast and raisins.


Time will tell.

[bellebouche]

This will be erm.. interesting! Let us know how it turns out. Never heard of anyone using 6.5Kg of amber before.

And likely, not again. I was contemplating a drain-poor. Figured that it won't make much difference if it's tipped away next xmas or now... but the FV sample I'd had wasn't altogether unreasonable.

[bellebouche]

A week at 13.5 degrees and it's shed 20 odd points of gravity. Gave it a good rouse this morning and 'fed' it with a Belgian Candi. I'll give that a week and then move it somewhere much warmer to finish.

A teensy sample before I fed it was all toast and prune with a fairly astringent edge. No hint of the sweetness indicated from the reading.

[Gricey]

Look forward to it, always good to turn tradition on its head once in a while

[WishboneBrewery]

sounds tasty to me

[onelegout]

Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out, it's certainly innovative. Maybe you've invented some kind of new beer that nobodies ever had before but that tastes delicious? : )

[Spud395]

Mosher suggest brews with upto 100% Amber in them, so I'd be hopefull enough.
Although after using 10% in a recipe I'm pretty sure it'll be quiet a flavoursome beer

[bellebouche]

That's comforting. The datasheet from the maltster suggested "max 0.5% for flavour" so I was initially quite disconcerted... but, as time progresses tastings are telling a different story.

[bellebouche]

After last weeks gravity reading I'd sloshed in a mid-dark belgian candi syrup and it's had another

Gravity is now at 1028 so I'm guess it's dropped another 14/15 points in the week?

I've turned on the fermenterator this morning so it'll now get a week of slowly increasing temperature to bring on the complexities I'd hope to get from the Westmalle yeast at the warmer temperatures.

Some impressive transformations so far. The main Krausen looked to have dropped and a finer crust is there - I'm guessing this was raised up from the candi I'd added.

A slight caramel nose, the beginnings of some red fruit character (I'd ascribe that to the yeast). Good smell of cherries, the astringency has fallen a lot, the toast flavours edging off a little. Still lots of prune and raisin notes.

dubbel by adrianfoden, on Flickr

[bellebouche]

The punchline? It's all worked out rather well.


dubbel by adrianfoden, on Flickr

I'd given it five weeks in primary. I dry hopped half the brew for three weeks (bit of an experiment).

Racked off to a bottling bucket. Dosed at a whopping 14g/l for bottle fermentation. I went strong like this on the hunch that the long primary would see very little active yeast in the beer. Wrong.

Two weeks in a warm cabinet for secondary bottle fermentation was really fascinating. This yeast isn't at all flocculant and for the first time ever in my brewing experience I'd seen a krausen rise in the bottle. A big 3/4mm fluffy head. This lasted for 10-12 days when it ran out of steam. The warm cab had a very pronounced bubblegum aroma. The yeast has subsequently fallen with very poor clumping.

Popped a couple as testers. No off flavours (which I was concerned about) good body, fruit complexity, a slightly hard edge on the dry hopped variant that'll go off over time.

Pours identical to a Westamalle Dubbel, same head, same lacing, same fine mouse that persists.

[Birdman]

Wow. Very interesting tale, and with a happy end... nice one