Brew # 8 - Extra Body Amber Ale

Ingredients

• Morgan's Royal Oak Amber Ale
• 1.5kg Morgan's Caramalt
• 500g Light Dry Malt Extract
• 300mL Liquid Rice Extract
• Safale US-05 yeast
• 50g Mosaic hops

Method

Brew day

• Fill basin with hot water and stand two liquid malt extracts in to soften
• Boil 500mL and add to glass flask for yeast rehydration (see below)
• Start filling Ferm'us with combination of cold filtered water and boiling water (Ferm'us can't take boiling water straight)
• At ~15L mark, pour both liquid malt extracts into Ferm'us
• Decide not to add Rice Malt Extract at this time
• Tried to stir the wort to mix the extract, but a lot was stuck to the bottom so I had to pick up the Ferm'us and manually mix - this was heavy (~20kg) and I was concernced the whole this was going to break and pour 18 litres of sticky wort all over the kitchen floor
• Once all the LME was mixed in (no evidence of stuck LME at the bottom of the Ferm'us), top up with hot or cold water to 23L, trying to get hit a temp of ~30C (we need to do the yeast prep before pitching, so we want the temp a bit warmer as it will cool)
• Place the Ferm'us into a temp controlled fridge at 22C

Yeast prep & pitching

• Once the 500mL of boiled water in the flask (see above) has chilled to ~25C, pitch the yeast
• Place the flask in the temp controlled fridge (22C) and allow to rehydrate for 15-30 minutes
• When the temp of the wort and yeast has stabilised (22C) add 500mL - 1000mL of the wort
• Allow to stand for 2-4 hours
• Gently (no splashing) swirl the flask to suspend the yeast in the liquid
• Pour the yeast mixture into the Ferm'us
• Replace the pressure kit with a pressure release valve (PRV)
• Monitor every few hours and adjust the PRV to ensure the Ferm'us doesn't become over-pressurised

Fermenting

• Allowed to ferment for 6 days

Dry Hopping

• After 6 days, I added 50g of Mosaic hops (12.5% AA) via the collection bottle
• NOTE: Unlike the first time, I forgot to dump the trub before dry-hopping :(
• Allow to stand for 4 days

Diacetyl Rest

• Okay, I know this isn't necessary, but I raised the temp 0.5C to 22.5 two days after the dry hopping
• I'll leave it now for another 2-3 days

Crash Cool

• Reduced the temperature by 0.3C every two hours using the temperature controller until it reached ~4C

Keg & Carbonate

• Sanitised and pre-chilled keg
• Pressurised keg to ~8PSI
• Closed transfer of beer from Ferm'us to keg
• Placed keg in the keezer
• Attached CO2 at 39PSI to force carbonate for ~24 hrs

Coming Next

• Conditioning

Improvements

• Take photos!!
• Put less water in the Ferm'us before adding LME and make sure it's warmer - easier to mix
• Make sure I dump the trub before dry hopping