Brew No.32 – West Coast Blaster (American Amber Ale)

The Western Sydney Brewers Xmas bash is coming up in a little over 3 weeks and I am yet to brew the case swap beer! I have decided on a highly hopped (surprise, surprise) American Amber Ale and lifted the recipe from Jamil once again.

My s__t house mill is still not operational (grrr…) so have put an order in for ingredients in preparation for brewing this Saturday afternoon.

As I only need 12 bottles for the case swap, I have decided to brew 30 Litres of beer with the remainder just shy of filling an empty keg Recipe as follows:

• 7.5 kg Floor malted Maris Otter
• 0.5kg Bairds Pale Crystal
• 0.2kg Bairds Dark Crystal
• 0.5kg Munich I
• 0.3kg Amber
• 0.1kg Bairds Pale Choc Malt
• 50g Horizon @ 60 min
• 30g Cascade, 30g Centennial @ 10 min
• 30g Cascade, 30g Centennial @ 0 min
• 1 Whirfloc tablet @ 10 min
• ProCulture Pro10 Yeast – Sierra Navada Ale (2nd gen from last brew)

14th November 2009 – Fantastic brew day and hit all my numbers. Pretty good for a large batch. 90 min mash at 66 deg C, hop additions as above and  ended up filling two 15L cubes with an OG of 1.067.  Should be tasty!

15th November 2009 – pitched into two fermenters using slurry from the fat yak clone…

25th November 2009 – Kegged one of the fermenters this afternoon, and bottled the other for the case swap. Reminds me why I switched to kegs Had a swig from the fermenter and wow this is a big beer. Very malty and can taste plenty of alcohol, so may need some time in the bottle to smooth out a little.

29th November 2009 – Finished my evening with a couple of these from the keg. Quite pleased with this beer and hope the boys from the brew club will enjoy as part of our case swap this weekend.