Style: 19A - American Amber
Since the Arvada Common came out so well I did very little to the recipe for this one: used US-05 yeast, and doubled the chocolate malt to get a deeper red color. That might be too much, we'll see how it comes out.
I went with US-05 rather than my house yeast (S-04) for 2 reasons: this beer is for 4th of July and I'm trying to do all American beers with ingredients from USA where possible. Also I had 2 packs of US-05 in the fridge and needed to use them.
Full recipe is on BrewersFriend but here's the TL;DR:
- Brew day: 2018-6-10
- Malt: 2-row base, 7% crystal 60, 2% chocolate malt (120g)
- Hops: {[Nugget]} (Cascade)
- Yeast: SafAle US-05 (fresh packet)
- OG 1.052; FG 1.011; ABV 5.4%
- dry-hopped with 150g of old Nugget (2013 crop! but it's been in the freezer) I needed to use up
After having efficiency issues for the last several batches, I finally decided to tinker with the roller settings in my Barley Crusher. I don't have a thickness gauge set but I do have a .6mm guitar pick. After my quick and dirty adjustments I can say for certain that before the change the gap was > .6mm and after it is < .6mm.
Milling took a bit longer than usual, but in the end the efficiency was closer to 70% than 65% which is where it has been for a while. Eventually I'll upgrade to a Monster Mill but the BC is hanging in there for now.
Mind the gap
Grains pre-crush: 2-row, c60, chocolate
Mash temp was a bit high but I've found anything under 70 will still finish ok
Mashed and drained. I start the boil at 7G/26L and finish with 24L which goes to the fermenter.
Boil
Floor managers; 2 on the job today. Look at those teefies...
Brewday beer! Picked up some Paul at New Image down the street.
Hops: Nugget at FWH, 60g (2.5g/L) Cascade for 5 minutes. Pretty standard. We're not making a hop bomb or anything.
EDIT: see below. Ended up making hop bomb anyway via Big Dry Hop. FITE ME.
Boil complete. time to chill
Into the fermenter
OG via brix. After some intense calculations (I plugged the brix number into the brewersfriend refractometer calc) this works out to 1.052
Not double pitching, I made an American Stout after the amber; both getting US-05.
And away we go....
2018-6-17: tossed in 150g of old Nugget for dry hop. I've had this bag for years and it was from the 2013 crop (!) so I thought I'd use it up.
2018-6-21: Cold-crashing on the solstice. Forgot I had moved the shelves down a bit to accommodate pint cans. It was a tight squeeze but the Fermonster still fits!
2018-6-22: Into the keg
FG came out to 1.011/5.4% ABV (Double checked with hydrometer).
Carbonated with keezer label
2018-6-27 full pour. Clear and tasting nice. Next time I'll change out the US-05 for S-04 which I think will leave a bit of malt flavor where US-05 seems to strip it out. The old Nugget dry hop surprised me - I wasn't expecting much but it really gave the beer a pleasant herbal and piny aroma and flavor. Next time I'll try some fresher hops.
2018-8-1 full pour. lots of thick head and tasting nice. still tons of Nugget hop character.
