Red Nose Amber

Today I brewed up Red Nose Amber, which, in addition to being a project in itself, is also functioning as a starter for project #20 when it comes around.

The Recipe:

7 lb 2-row pale malt
1 lb flaked barley
8 oz Victory malt
8 oz crystal 40°

1 lb white sugar

6 AAU (31g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 60
4 AAU (21g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 20
4 AAU (21g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 5

1 Irish Moss tablet @ 15 min

Wyeast 1056 - American Ale I

Mashed at 152° for an hour and a quarter using about 12.5 quarts of water. Sparged with 170°-180° water until I had about 26 quarts for the boil, including one 5-minute mini-batch sparge.

O.G.: 1.048
Est. IBU: 36.9

Once again I had pretty bad efficiency, which I calculated at 65%. There were a number of issues.

First off, though I double-milled the grains per usual, I still ended up getting a very poor efficiency. Once I determined this, I decided to go ahead and add a pound of sugar, which had not originally been in the recipe, since I really wanted to be in the normal range of starting gravities. I do have a few pounds of light dry malt extract lying around, but I didn't think about that when I decided to add the sugar.

I knew right away once I started stirring the mash that I was going to get sub-par efficiency: it was just too loose without any pasty sludge forming. My fears were bolstered when the mash drained exceedingly fast (the entire drain/sparge process was no more than 20 minutes). I really must get my own grain mill.

My second issue was that after collecting my wort and stirring thoroughly, I measured the gravity at only 1.026, which would have been 51% mash efficiency. However, after the boil, my gravity was 1.048. Figuring about 9 points from the pound of sugar, this means I was getting about 1.039 post-boil on the grain alone, which means my pre-boil reading should have been in the neighborhood of 1.033. I'm cooling all samples to within a degree or so of 60° before taking gravity measurements, so I don't know what would cause me to be 7 points off in my initial pre-boil reading.

Needless to say, my efficiency and gravity measuring issues are causing me to be quite frustrated. Still, I hope I actually get a decent beer out of this.