Beer Forum

I decided to alter my amber ale recipe and make a paler version for no other reason than just for the hell of it. I found this recipe online some where a while back. The amber ale version is pretty good.

3 pounds of light DME
3 pounds of amber LME
.75 oz of EK Goldings (60 min)
.75 oz of Fuggles (60 min)
.25 oz of EK Goldings (20 minutes)
1.5 oz of EK Goldings (10 minutes)

I increased the last two hop additions by 5 minutes each.

Nottingham Ale Yeast

Here are some pics:

Setting up


Boiling


Gravity testing


Fancy photos for a fancy person!

Looks good.
Try this minor tweak next time:

change the malt extract to 6 lbs of pale extract, and
add 3/4 lb of fresh Crystal 60L malt in a grain bag.

Soak that in 1 gal of 150F water for 30 mins in a separate pot.
Take out the grain bag, let it drip, but don't squeeze. Add the juice to your normal hot brew water just before you top it up to your boil volume.
Proceed with the recipe as if nothing else is different.

Trust me, you'll never want to use amber extract again.

HTH-

BDawg wrote:Take out the grain bag, let it drip, but don't squeeze.

I've heard this forever, but have any of you ever made a tannic mess of a beer from squeezing the bag? I was talking to a commercial brewer last week who described their mash press - they squeeze the whole mash and don't get bad things out.

Cool, I'll give that a try next time. I'm working on migrating away from all extracts. The partial mash brews I've done in the past are much better than all extract.

PaulBeer wrote:The partial mash brews I've done in the past are much better than all extract.

That's the truth! I've noticed the same thing. Now, to find all I need to do larger/full mashes!

I brew 5 gal batches. What is the largest boil that can be done in a reasonable time period on a gas stove?

What is the largest boil that can be done in a reasonable time period on a gas stove

Hey Tex, I think its pretty hard to get a boil on the stove inside. It'll take a lot of time and you won't get the hot break you need. Buy a turkey fryer from Home Depot or Lowe's. The aluminum is ok to use. you'll get a better hot break and eliminate alot of trub from your primary. If you're doing it on the stove, time can be an issue, more when you're cooling than bringing up to a boil. You want to get it up and down fairly quick so you don't get any DMS, corn flavor, in your beer.
Hope this helps alittle. Cheers!

I do a 4 gallon boil on my electric stovetop and I get a pretty good boil going. I have a 5 gal pot, so I do have to monitor it to make sure it doesn't boil over. I do 6 lbs of grain in a partial mash using about 4.5-5 gallons of water for mashing/sparging.
That 4 gals will reduce to 3 gals in about an hour and a half according to the last batch I did.
The first extract batch I did got down to an FG of 1.015, the same recipe but using 4.5 lbs of American 2-Row in a mini mash instead of one can of extract got me down to 1.010. Just created more fermentables. (Plus I had a starter and oxygenated my wort.......)

I would say 4 gals is the most you could do in a 5 gallon pot.

I routinely boil 6+ gallons down to 5 gallons on my kitchen gas stove. I had to put the pot over two burners and it still takes a good half an hour to get up to boil but after that it'll boil all night if you want it to.