Brewing an American Amber—Evaluation Part 5
(Brewing an American Amber—Evaluation Part 5 is part of a larger brewing series published by Le Gourmet TV.)
In episode one Doug stops by to help us taste past brews and adjust the recipe (available on the Le Gourmet YouTube channel)
In episode two we unpack the BREWHA Small BIAC
In episode three Doug helps us mash in and Matt stops by to give us a taste of Sawdust City 'Limberlost'
In episode four we sparge and boil
In episode five we chill and pitch
In episode six… we taste the brew!
The particulars:
American Amber Ale
19L batch size
3.68 Kg 2 Row
.59 Kg Kiln Amber L15-20
.59 Kg Cyrstal 80 Briess
14g Cascade 60 minutes
14g Perle 60 minutes
5g Magnum 60 minutes
28g Cascade 15 minutes
28g Cascade Dry Hop
1 pkg Safale US-05 Ale Yeast
Targets:
5.3 ABV, OG 1.053, FG 1.013, IBU 43.6
Strike water 22.37L @157ºF
Mash 60 minutes @150ºF
Mash out @168ºF
Fly sparge 5.5L @168ºF
Pre boil volume 22.5L
60 minute boil with hop additions
Jacket chill to pitch temp of 65ºF
Direct pitched dry yeast into wort
Dry Hopped 3 days after fermentation stopped
Cold crashed before kegging
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.6
Brewed July 10 2016
Kegged July 20 2016
Force carbed @ 12.5 psi for one week
This the beer that we brewed. Yeah this was an American Amber. It's an American amber with with Doug's input. Does anybody remember the hops? We have Citra and cascade. Yes I need to pour more aggressively I think.
It smells really nice. Initial impressions, I like the smell, I like the color, a little bit of good color is nice.
I'm not getting a lot of body that I would. Well normally when you're doing an Amber Ale you don't want it to be aggressively hopped. Alright so and you dry hop this yes? Yes, this is dry hopped so three days of dry hop. I can see, I can taste how it's different than the one we had been doing. So the other one was a little bit more herb more herbaceous a little bit more kind of I'd say almost kind of like woodsy mmm like forest kind of flavors and this is this has got a little bit more of that citrus like sweet but sweet fruit. Exactly! a=And the nice thing about this is that it's balanced in terms of the hop character bitterness versus the sweetness so it's got a nice balance.
Yeah the one thing that I would say that it's a little lacking in the body. It needs a little bit. Yeah so that is a higher mash temperature higher? Mash temperature would get you a little bit more body that's not I wouldn't say that it's at all like to bid I'd say it's just no I'd say in the recipe yeah So one degree two degrees? Well so we we mashed it about what 152...? Yeah I would I would bump it to 156 okay I maybe 158 and give it a little bit more body.
But you would also have to adjust the amount of hops you use because when you get more body you also get more sweetness. Yes so in order to keep it more balanced you get that a few a little bit more hops just so your IBUs would be a little bit higher it'd be a nice balance. Yeah this is still I this is a good house beer. Oh this is a nice table beer. Yeah drinkable! Cheers nice job thank you very much for helping us. My pleasure this is good actually.