BeerSmith™ Recipes and Web Editor

Taste Notes

- First thing I noticed was the super tight head from the healthy dose of crystal malt. - I'm spending a lot of time getting to know the effect of different salts in the mash and sparge, and think this is very positively contributing to the wonderful mouthfeel of this amber. - For everyone's benefit, my water here in Vancouver, BC is almost devoid of minerals because we are serviced by runoff from rivers and mountains instead of groundwater. To see what my Ca, Mg, etc. levels are just use the Water tool, start with distilled water, add in my water additions, and you'll see the final water profile. - The crystal 60 adds a touch of sweetness that's balanced by the chewy body. The Munich adds a distinct maltiness. The Carafa and crystal 120 add just a hint of heavy kilned grain that complements the strong body without overpowering it. - It's quite hop-forward for the amber style, but that's what the Rogue recipe called for and I think it's great because the slightly sweet and chewy body needs to be balanced out by bitterness. - I can't think of anything I would change, quite honestly. - November, 2014 notes: This is great beer. The Crystal 120 really comes through after 6 months of conditioning and I might consider cutting it back to half next time to bring the very roasted flavour down a notch

Notes

Ver 02 - To get the mash temp correct (I always go low, and think it's from my grain temp measurement)I mashed 1L of 78C water with 0.7KGs grain at 15C to do a sample. The temp was a perfect 67C so I preheated the mash cooler and kept the water/grain temps from BeerSmith. - pH with distilled water in the sample was 5.3 then I retested with a sample from treated water to get 5.35 which is perfectly in the 5.2-5.5 range. At end of mash, pH dropped to 5.05 - Still a little fearful of undershooting the mash temp so I added a few C to the water, but I would up with a hotter mash at 70C+ so I dropped in some ice and got it to 67-68C Ver 01 - Specialty malts naturally brought the pH down to 5.3 without need for water agents - To test a sample pH I mixed 280g of malt with 580ml of water (the recommended ratio for amber ales) then after checking pH = 5.3 I was able to go straight to mashing - Mashed 2 hours vs plan of 1 hour. Got perfect temp of 67C - Into secondary and fridge after 10 days to free up the fermenter and resue the yeast for Hammerhead on July 13. Kegged it July 26.