AP’s amber ale, end of hop harvest
while my pint preference has varied over the years from hoppy, to strong, and lately to sour, AP’s (AKA SWMBO‘s) has taken a different course altogether.
- although she thoroughly enjoys the occasional sour and fresh IPA, AP has always leaned towards more malt and yeast-forward selections. when I hinted last week that I was planning on brewing over the weekend, AP put her foot down and demanded a malty american amber session ale.
- since the only other amber I brewed as of late involved a healthy amount of hops and a high OG, I reformulated my recipe utilizing jmo88’s recipe on homebrewtalk as inspiration (12 gal batch):
-
18.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 77.92 % 2.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 8.66 % 2.00 lb Munich Malt – 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 8.66 % 1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 4.33 % 0.10 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 0.43 % 3.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 23.4 IBU 1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 14 days) Hops – 1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (20 min) Hops 4.7 IBU 1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (10 min) Hops 2.8 IBU 1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (0 min) Hops – - I mashed in at 156F for more malt body, and low AA cascades helped get the IBUs down to under 30. I spaced out and forgot to take an initial gravity reading, but at my average 80% efficiency the OG should be around 1.055 and should finish around 1.014 for a sessionable 5.3% end result. I will probably skip the dry hops for five gallons, but may add them and/or apricot puree or extract to the other five for a little something different.
- as for yeast, I used a couple packets of safale S-04, which were a good alternative to liquid yeast during the hot west coast shipping months and which should add even more to the malt spectrum.
- on another note, after kegging my patersbier, I ended up the hop harvest by picking 4.25 oz. of cascade cones off my in-ground cascade plant I swapped out of a planter this year. the cones’ aroma seemed a little subdued, so I will likely end up using them for bittering in an upcoming “local” saison. stay tuned…
Tags: amber, AP, cascade, malt, patersbier