Kritters IPAmber

Name: Kritters IPAmber
Style: Red Ale
Source: Heretic Evil Twin clone

Round one      Round two  Round four

Stats
Brewed: 6/21/14
Bottled: 7/5/14
Opened: 7/26/14

Original Gravity:        1.066
Final Gravity:             1.016
Hydrometer ABV:     6.54%
Color:                        16 SRM
IBU                            44

Recipe 
4 lbs 8oz  Maris Otter Pale Malt
1lbs   Munich Malt
12oz  Crystal 40
6oz    Crystal 120
6oz   Victory Malt
4oz    Pale Chocolate Malt

4 lbs   Light Malt Extract (30 minutes)

.375 oz Columbus (14.0 AAU) 60 minutes
.50 oz Columbus (14.0 AAU) 20 minutes
.75 oz Cascade (5.5% AAU) 10 minutes
.75 oz Centennial (10.0% AAU) 10 minutes
1.0 oz Cascade (5.5% AAU) 0 minutes
1.0 oz Centennial (10.0% AAU) 0 minutes

Yeast:  WLP001 California Ale

Other: 1 tsp Irish Moss and Yeast Nutrient at 15 minutes

The rest of the story

Third time through with this recipe. Swapped an additional pound and a half of Marris Otter for a pound of Liquid Malt Extract. Hop profile stayed the same.

1.5 quart starter, six ounces of DME. I started it the night before, so it had been going for about 18 hours, sitting in a water bath between 68-70 degrees.

Decent brew day. Modified brew in the bag method, but a couple changes this time around. I used 2 quarts of water to a pound of grain (up from 1.5) and I didn’t pour in hot water to bring it to 170 degrees. Instead, I pulled the grain bag, and put it over another pot, and rinsed the grains with 170 water. The hope was to get a bit more efficiency, but also, there is no reason to do the mash out since I am not doing a real sparge.

Remembered to move the pot to a cool burner immediately, and also put it in a cool bath in the sink, but cooling the wort still takes forever. Took a reading, and added most of a gallon of cold water to bring it to target gravity. The previous two rounds of this brew were below target (1.052 and 1.054) so much better job this time around. Actually ended a point high.

Original Gravity: 1.066

Pretty good fermentation temperature management for the first few days, bouncing between 68 and 70 degrees. I was gone from Friday through Sunday (days 6 – 8) and the temperature rose to 76 degrees while I was gone. Since I was beyond the days where off flavors and esters are produced by the yeast, I didn’t worry about cooling it down, and maintained it at around 76 for the next week.

Bottled on July 5th with 3.6 ounces of corn sugar, aiming for 2.2 carbonation level. Netted 47 twelve ounce bottles and 2 twenty-two ounce bottles.

Finishing Gravity: 1.016 (1.018 previous rounds)
Ending ABV: 6.54%
Apparent Attenuation: 74.25%

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The beer turned out well again. I do like this recipe, and it will continue to be a staple. It relies on lots of late hopping for its flavor, so it is not the cheapest recipe. The hops could probably be dialed back a bit without losing too much, so I may play with it at some point.

Some of my biking buddies have now started homebrewing, so we have had some brewing and beer swapping parties. It is nice to have this back as part of homebrewing. I really miss not only geeking out a bit with Sean about brewing, but also touring local breweries for inspiration and solving the world’s problems over a Friday night brew.

I really enjoy our biking group, so it is nice to have another reason to get together. At our first group tasting, Matt and Jenica brought an Amber and I brought my latest brew of Kritters. Tasting them side by side, it was clear how much more hoppy this recipe is over a standard Amber. This is not at all a bad thing, but I may try something a little more toward the malty side in the near future. I have been considering a brown ale, similar to a Moose Drool, but I think a Scotch Ale might be on the horizon.

Whatever I end up brewing next, it is nice to have some people to share and swap beers with again. If I could just figure out how to split my time between Seattle and San Diego.