HOPS N' HOSES HOMEBREWERS: 8/3/2013 American Amber

8/3/2013 American Amber

Ingredients

FERMENTABLES
3.3 lb. Amber LME
2.5 lb. Amber DME

SPECIALTY GRAINS
1 lb. Caramel 80L

HOPS
1.25 oz. Bittering
.5 oz. Aroma

YEAST
1 Sachet Nottingham Ale Yeast

SG- 1.06
FG- 1.012
6.3% ABV

I am starting my second batch of beer. I decided to try the American Amber kit from Brewers Best. The Robust Porter is going to be a very dark and hearty beer, so I wanted to try something a little bit lighter. For this batch, I had my nephew and brother in law from CT helping me. Below I go over the finer points of sanitizing everything before we start.

Here is the ingredient kit we are going to use. This should be roughly a 5% alcohol beer once done.

Just like the last batch, 2.5 gallons of water heated up to 150-165 degrees before putting the grain sock in to steep for 20 minutes.

Very excited to introduce the "Laytoner" with this batch. It is a wort chiller constructed by Jim Layton, a man I work with at the firehouse. I showed him a picture of it and he said he could construct that. he constructed it, for half the cost so I told him I would name it after him. And, the "Laytoner" was born. This tool will allow me to chill the wort down quicker than the ice bath did in the last batch. Basically, you hook it to your faucet and the cold tap water will run through the copper lines and conduct the heat away from the wort into the water. From there, it runs through the copper tubes out to the drain of the sink. Very excited to use this!

Also notice, the sock of goodness is in the pot steeping.

Up to a gentle boil, we now add the malt extract. This kit had two....a dry malt extract and a liquid malt extract. Here is the videos:

The dry malt extract was a first for me..... learned to get it in quick and get it stirred before it caramelizes (which, does taste good).

Dry Malt Addition to wort:

The "Laytoner" sanitizing in the wort until its go time!

And Finally, Chill Out Time.....and the legend of the "Laytoner" begins:

And From here, its transfer to Fermenter (I used a strainer to strain away alot of the sediment that was already a part of the wort. We then took a specific gravity reading (1.060). From here we pitched the yeast and sealed her up!