I’m going to be brewing the American Amber Ale tomorrow. I brewed it as my second batch. I’m looking to revisit it and have it be my best batch yet. Here is a run through of how my brew day should go. A little long but please let me know if you see any issues in my process. I will be using Distilled water.
Pre boil water for yeast night before. On brew day remove dry yeast from refrigerator and bring to room temp. Bring 3 quarts of water to 150 degrees while heating 2 gallons in main pot. Steep 1 pound of grains for 30 mins between 160-165. Remove grains. Combine water w/ main pot and continue to heat to boiling. Total water around 2.75 minus what the grains soaked up. Warm LME in hot water bath to make it easier to pour. Once boiling remove from heat and add 3.15 lbs of LME slowly. Return to boil and set timer to 60 min and add 2oz hop addition. Sanitize equipment (fermentor and lid, airlock, yeast packet, scissors, small spoon, strainer, glass measuring cup). 15 min remove heat and add late addition 3.15 lbs of LME slowly. Return to heat. 5 mins put wort chiller in boil to sanitize. 1 min add 1 oz hop addition. At end of boil cool the wort down to 70-80 degrees. While chilling I will re hydrate Safale US-05 in 110ml of pre boiled water heated in microwave to 80 degrees +/- 6 degrees as per Safale. Let it sit for 15 mins then carefully stir with sanitized spoon and let sit for another 15 mins. When wort temp is between 70-80 strain it into the fermentor with 2 gallons of distilled water in it and top off to 5 gallons. Pitch yeast slurry after temp or wort and yeast are both within about 5 degrees. Secure lid. Shake fermentor vigorously. Place in basement ambient temp around 60-62 degrees. Add air lock filled with star san solution. Let sit for 3 weeks.
Looks like you have it under control Mike. The only thing that I might change is to do your vigorous stirring/ shaking to oxygenate before you pitch the yeast. Does it make much difference to do it before or after the pitch? No, not really. It’s just that the process stirs up a lot of foam sometimes, and it’s not totally unknown to do some spilling. But that’s a minor nitpick.
Good job on preplanning everything! Have a great brewday. :cheers:
Good technique. Hopefully you are within sight of your boil kettle while sanitizing your equipment. It will boil over if you aren’t. I would aerate before pitching the yeast. Pour the yeast through the foam. Stir with a sanitized spoon if all the yeast doesn’t drop through the foam. Use some of the wort to get all the yeast out of the cup.
Pretty much the way I do this recipe, except I start the steep in two and one-half gallons of cold water. Usually 20 minutes to 165°F. I have an extra half gallon at 170° that I will pour through the grains, suspended over the kettle in a large strainer, at the end of the steep. Not necessary, but might extract a bit more flavor and color.
Sounds like a well planned brew day to me. One thing I do to make things easy is to put my hops Solo cups with the times written on them and put them in order on a table. I do the same with anything else like Whirlfloc, sugar or whatever. For me it prevents an “oh no I forgot…”
A lot of use use cheap vodka in the airlock instead or sanitizer. Just in case it gets sucked back into the fermenter. I used plain old tap water in them for years though.
It is amazing how much time you save when you plan things out this way. A few years ago I sat down and wrote every step in a typical brew day, and by prepping better ahead of time and rearranging how I did things, I cut hours off the time it took to complete a session. Not to mention cutting down on the worries.
Distilled water and RO water is good for extract brewing. The DME and LME have a good mineral content. Water without minerals is especially good with Briess products. Briess products are high in sodium from their water source.
I normally use bottled spring water but I’m trying to narrow down an issue that I believe has to do with mineral content already found in it. Since malt extract has all the minerals in it like flars mentioned I might be getting excess minerals.
