Amber Ale Recipe

I’m using BeerSmith for the first time and wanted to get some feedback on an amber ale recipe. I’m using Palmer’s Big Basin Amber Ale as a basis for starting. This is what I have so far:

5#2oz- Light DME
.5oz Centennial (60 min)
1.oz Mt Hood (30 min)
.5oz Centennial (Dry hop in primary)
1#14oz- Crystal 60L (160F for 30min)

WLP060 w/2L starter

Target OG= 1.054
Target IBU= 34

Also, a few questions:

-For dry hopping, do I just toss the pellets in a grain bag and put them in the wort when I pitch, or should I wait until after fermentation slows down?

  • I have a 10G brew kettle, so I can do a full boil. Since I’m looking for a 5 gallon batch, and I’m still new to this/BeerSmith, what amount of H2O should I use? The program says total water needed to be 7.9 gallons- that seems pretty high for boil off/ trub loss.

Thanks for the advice.

Recipe looks ok.

Have you measured your boil-off rate? You should be able to change the factor to represent your own particular rate. There’s also absorption in the hops but it is minimal unless using a bunch.

A vigorous uncovered boil in my brewery results in nearly a 2 gallon evaporation over the course of an hour- hour and a half.

Partially covered it is much less.

Hmmmm… I’ve never measured it. That’ll give me something to do today…

You can assume a ballpark rate of 15% an hour

I have noticed that boil-off seems to be a flat rate dependent on system (Mostly surface area of brewpot). Mine is about 2 gallons per hour. You will never get an exact number, it will always be just close.

For hopping, I would add that 15minute addition for the flavor, and then dry hop for more aroma. With that much crystal, it would need more bitterness for my tastes, and I like a lot of hop flavor in my American Ambers.

For dry hopping, I like to toss in my dry hops straight into the primary after the kraeusen falls. That way the aroma isn’t scrubbed out by the CO2 produced during fermentation.

Damn, I get 1 gal/hr.  FWIW I use a keggle with a 12" opening, and a small banjo burner converted to HP propane.  Rolling boil, but not crazy.

Good thing I attempted a dry run yesterday. My stove, even with two burners going, isn’t powerful enough to bring 5+ gallons to a boil. Guess this gives me an excuse to buy a propane stand…

Or you could do a 3 gallon batch.  I’ve been doing 3 gallon batches on my stove with no issues and BeerSmith has a scale button that will allow you to scale your 5 gallon recipe to a 3 gallon one.  I usually have about 4.25 gallons of wort and after an hour of a rolling boil I end up with about 3.25 gallons.  Then again, it’s always nice buying new toys.

My boil off rate is affected by weather too… 1.5 gal/hr during summer and just over 2 gal/hr during winter…

I use a cheap turkey fryer. I even still use the 7.5 gallon Aluminum pot that came with it as my brewpot.

Boiloff is an interesting subject because there are so many factors. Surface area of water is the biggest, along with intensity of boil. But temperature, Humidity, and other stuff all factors in as well. That’s why I said that you can only get kind of close.

Just make sure you buy wisely with forethought. You can avoid another expensive system upgrade later. I’d suggest deciding on what you want exactly and planning/purchasing accordingly.

Of course the forethought often requires past experience which is a catch-22 if you are still starting out. You can post another topic asking for advice in this area- we’ll give you more than enough info.

Yeah, about that… I went and bought a Blichmann from NB that had really good reviews. It was pricey, but we just got our tax return and I had pre approval from SWMBO.

I did an amber ale recipe extremely similar to this one but i had less ibus(i used cent hops but not hood) and the beer turned out amazing i think yours will turn out to be a great brew