I brewed an American Amber Ale last week and have been too busy with my day job to blog about it till today. I transfered to secondary today and my gravity has dropped from 1.052 to 1.022, I plan to finish slightly below 1.010.

My grain bill

• 18.5 lbs Maris Otter (Crisp)
• 2 lbs Munich Malt - 10l
• 2 lbs Victory Malt
• 1.5 lbs Crystal Malt 40l
• 1 lbs Special Roast

I was going for a more toasty flavor as opposed to a caramel hence the victory and special roast.

Mash
I did a single infusion mash, I was aiming for 154, but over stirred and mashed at 152. I don't have an easy way to heat my mash tun and this wasn't going to cause any problems for me, the wort will just be a bit more fermentable. My temperature held steady over the next hour and I did not notice any temperature drop when I started to sparge. I batch sparge mostly because I find it easier and do not notice an efficiency difference. I brought 8 gallons of liquor to 200 degrees and used the first 4 gallons to do my first sparge / mashout. My goal is to mash out on this step, but I rarely get the mash up to 168 as the brewing programs tell me I can. I stir up the entire mash once my kettle is filled to capacity and then allow it to settle for 5-10 minutes. I picked this tip up from Greg Noonan's "New Brewing Lagers" and haven't had a stuck mash since. The grains apparently settle in a way that is advantageous to the filter bed. The first sparge I collected about 8 gallons of wort. I then added my remaining 4 gallons of liquor, stirred, waited and drained off another 5 gallons of wort. I tool the 13 gallons into my kettle and started the burner.

The Boil
I have this great propane burner, kick-a-banjo, that really heats things up quickly. I'm pretty sure this thing should be illegal, but it allows you to get liquids up to temperature quickly. I was able to bring my 13 gallons from 165 to 200 in a little over 10 minutes. My hop schedule for boil was:

• 3/4 oz Magnum Pellet (p) (60 min)
• 1 oz Cascade Leaf (l) (60 min)
• 1 oz Cascade p (10 min)
• 1 oz Centennial p (10 min)
• 1.25 oz Magnum p (0 min)
• 2.5 oz Amarillo Gold l (0 min)
• 3 oz Cascade l (0 min)

I am aiming for the top of the bitterness range for the style and a lot of aroma and flavor. This should give me a 37 IBU beer. The boil was uneventful, no boilovers (this time).

Cooling / Pitching
I love the water temperature this time of year, I was able to chill my wort to 60 degrees with my counterflow chiller without wasting a bunch of water in the process. I pitched a 2000ml starter that I began on Friday. I need to start my starters sooner. My OG was 1.052 for 12 gallons representing a 70% efficiency on my system. I typically bounce between 65 and 70, so I was happy with this.

Fermentation
I was out of town for the first 4 days of my primary, so there isn't much to report. When I checked it on Thursday night (day 4) both 6.5 gallon carboys were fermenting strong and both were pushing crud through the blowoff tubes. When I transfered to secondary today, the gravity was at 1.022. I added 3 oz of pellet hops to the secondary fermentors and 1 oz of medium toased oak chips to one of the carboys. I hope to be able to keg the un-oaked carboy next weekend. The oaked carboy I will let stand for an extra week or two before kegging.

All in all, this was a fairly easy brewing session. I plan to do some step mashes and decoction mashes later this winter, so the brew days will get much longer and challenging.