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HOME BREW RECIPE: Title: Alaskan Amber Clone Author: Web+ modifications Brew Method: All Grain Style Name: American Amber Ale Boil Time: 60 min Batch Size: 5 gallons (fermentor volume) Boil Size: 6.5 gallons Boil Gravity: 1.043 Efficiency: 70% (brew house) STATS: Original Gravity: 1.056 Final Gravity: 1.013 ABV (standard): 5.69% IBU (tinseth): 35.3 SRM (morey): 10.59 Mash pH: 5.62 FERMENTABLES: 9 lb - Pale 2-Row (80%) 1 lb - Caramel / Crystal 10L (8.9%) 0.5 lb - Caramel / Crystal 120L (4.4%) 0.5 lb - Carapils (Dextrine Malt) (4.4%) 4 oz - Rice Hulls (2.2%) HOPS: 1 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 7, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 28.29 1 oz - Saaz, Type: Pellet, AA: 3.5, Use: Boil for 15 min, IBU: 7.02 MASH GUIDELINES: 1) Sparge, Temp: 150 F, Time: 60 min Starting Mash Thickness: 1.6 qt/lb YEAST: White Labs - German Ale/ Kölsch Yeast WLP029 Starter: Yes Form: Liquid Attenuation (avg): 75% Flocculation: Medium Optimum Temp: 65 - 69 F Fermentation Temp: 65 F Pitch Rate: 0.35 (M cells / ml / deg P)

I'm on the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" band wagon. I've been doing the 3 weeks fermentation/4 week carbonation, 3 days cold crash. My beer has been turning out very good. I would be afraid to change my process now.

The more craft beers I try the more I realize I usually prefer my homebrews.

Making this beer this weekend. Sub extract for 4lbs wheat and 4lbs pilsner. Also sub hallertau for liberty. The LHBS was out. Never used this yeast before, i have always used omegas hefe yeast in the past.

Agreed 100%. Reinheitsgebot was implemented with only three ingredients in mind - water, barley, and hops. Yeast was yet to be discovered 500 years ago, yet we now know there are many varieties of them and how much they impact beer. So to be in compliance with the original law, you'd have to brew a lambic. But other than "because I want to make a 'pure' beer", what reason is there to comply with Reinheitsgebot? Why does the definition of "purity" as assigned to beer by some 16th Century minor Bavarian government bureaucrat matter? One of the three driving reasons behind the law was to ensure that grains more valuable for use in bread - mainly wheat and rye - weren't "wasted" brewing beer. So Reinheitsgebot can more accurately be viewed as a "Bread Preservation and Anti-Starvation Law" than as a "Beer Purity Law". Additionally, Reinheitsgebot was not just about "purity" of ingredients and protecting the grains used in bread. For some reason that seems to be the only part of the law ever discussed. But there were other parts of the law: the German government setting the price of beer... and far more importantly the taxation rate of beer. So Reinheitsgebot essentially was the government telling brewers "You can only use these particular ingredients because we want better grains to go to other uses, you can only charge this amount per beer, and this is the amount you'll be paying us to sell your beer." Plus, Reinheitsgebot is no guarantee of quality. I was fortunate enough to spend almost nine years living in Germany. There are many great beers that comply. There are many crap beers that also comply. There are many great beers that DON'T comply...and also crap beers that don't. Some German styles that don't comply with Reinheitsgebot, and the styles are world-renowned: Hefeweizen, Roggenbier, Gose, Dunkelweizen, and Berliner Weisse. IMNSHABHAO (In my not so humble and borderline haughtily arrogant opinion) and not trying to denigrate the OP's intent, complying with Reinheitsgebot is more about bragging than anything else. I look at it this way: Belgian brewers have been crafting absolutely amazing beers for centuries caring not a bit about "German purity laws".

OK. You've brewed a couple dozen MrB recipes. Good. If you want to learn the science find a copy of John Palmer's book. If you want to make the magic happen, we can help you do that. Malt extracts are made by allowing barley to begin germination and heating it to stop the growth and to dry it out. How they heat it, how hot they heat it, and how long affects the color, the taste and it's ability to convert starch into sugars. There are many sources available online which will explain the processes in detail. For a self education course you only need a few ounces of a base grain such as 2 row, Maris Otter, Pilsner, etc. MrBeer sell them in small quantities for additions to their recipes. The process from there is quite simple actually. If you have a large pyrex measuring cup heat 2 cups of water to 160 degrees. Add the grain to the water in the measuring cup and stir it to wet all of the grains. The next step is the hard part, you wait. After 10 minutes stir the grain and water again with an ordinary teaspoon. Taste a spoonful. Wait 10 more minutes and repeat. What you should experience is an amazing transformation. As time passes, the water will begin to taste sweeter. The malted barley contains enzymes which convert the starches in the barley seeds into sugars. The brewer controls the temperature of his mash to create the types of sugar. At temperatures near 160 degrees the sugars being created are typically not consumed by most brewers yeasts. These sugars give the brewed beer texture (I tell people to think of how whole milk feels in their mouth). At temperatures around 145 degrees most of the sugars created are easily consumed by yeast. The resulting beer will be drier (Think of how skim milk feels in your mouth). Most recipes typically call for the water to be held at 152 degrees to create a balance. The end result is wort similar to what you have with malt extracts. Simply stated malt extracts are dehydrated wort. This is an oversimplification but it's enough to get you started down the path to having a more thorough understanding of brewing.

LME and DME are made from grain, so they comply with Reinheitsgebot. Mr. Beer HMEs contain LME, and hops, and complies. Beer uses yeast (definitional). There is nothing about brewing a Mr. Beer can of HME that is not compliant. Some Mr. Beer recipes add adjuncts, those would not be compliant. Unclear if OP wants to comply with Reinheitsgebot, or simply brew all grain.

I'll go with a local craft beer when i am out at a restaurant, if they have any. Some are very good, and I like to support "Local" small brewers. At home I drink my own, mainly because i made them the way I like, and they mostly turn out great. Plus, I like the hobby of brewing. On the issue of MB changing the fermentation and carbonation times, I bet it is to help those new brewers get a beer done in less than two months (which is typical for me). They will still get beer, and mostly it will be fine.

Cut back the shoots twice and then let the stronger ones grow. This is where theyre at after a lot of rain lately

Josh will reply to you in 4.5 years. 😜😆

Pulled 7,000 weeds just now. I avoided all the maple tree sprouts. Maybe ill save them and sell for $10 a piece in fall. Little side action...

Two things come to mind: 1) Contact MRB and ask them which HMEs conform. Brew it. Done. Or 2) Do an all-grain batch. You can probably find hundreds of recipes online. Most will be for a five-gallon batch so you'd need to scale it down to two. As a side note, barley is what's used to make most LME/DME.

Man, I wish. Some craft beers let me down but some I know ill never be able to recreate. I also think when i drink my beer vs craft beer, im drinking to a different standard. So its hard to compare the two. I like what i make but i know the ingredients i like. Seems like an unfair advantage

They sell less kits if they say it takes longer. It would be disappointing if they are changing the instructions to specify less time, but not surprising. I suspect business is off considerably from what it was a few years ago.

i don't brew MRB brews much anymore, as I have moved on to all grain, but the recommendations haven't changed. 21 days fermentation is pretty fool proof and 4 weeks in bottles ~ 70 deg will carb your brew.

Heavy stuff. The last time I read about bio transformation, that turned out to be the secret to New Belgium's Citradelic IPA.

Rather than create a new topic I am posting here since this is hop related. Josh Ratcliff posted this on Mr. B. Facebook so here it is in case you do not monitor that. It is quite relevant if you like hop forward beers like East Coast IPAs. https://scottjanish.com/examination-of-studies-hopping-methods-and-concepts-for-achieving-maximum-hop-aroma-and-flavor/?fbclid=IwAR0JFx2eJdcpwZi5kHLE7oI4NT_l1RNFDKiarkR1ZUEEcvM5uHRm-d25ju8

Making new batch thus next week. will bottle with 1/2 tsp as a little less carbonation is ok with us. Really taking sanitation time to make sure bottles and LBK are well done. That very well could have been a game changer as I sort have rushed that process. Bottles have been well cleaned as has the LBK. Will take a solid process with the sanitizer on bottling day as well as getting the wort into the LBK. Will watch fermentation time and temp and final gravity. Again, I could have rushed the process. Only time this has happened with any brew. As with my golf, not gain in rushing the process!!

The Beer Purity law was passed for reasons other than "pure beer". You certainly don't want harmful plants or substances added to your beer but, it's YOUR beer. Add what you like, fruit, wheat, corn, oats, honey, molasses, coffee, chocolate, etc. Brew a beer because it is a style you want to drink or share. If it happens to have just malted barley, water, yeast and hops, you still have beer. I think part of the fun of home brewing is discovering how many recipes result in a good, tasty beer.

Carbonating in bottles happens because the yeast remaining in the beer from fermentation eats sugar you add, and because the bottle is sealed. The amount of sugar added - table sugar, LME, DME, honey... - is insignificant. Given you are not focused on being Reinheitsgebot crazy, simply use table sugar as with Mr. Beer. I also highly recommend you get a CURRENT copy of Palmer's book, the free online version is over 20 years old and obsolete. My library has many brewing books.

What I think I got from the Mr Beer staff on the Facebook page is that the Mr Beer yeast was formulated specifically for quick fermentation and that they had tested recipes using the 14 day formula before they rewrote the instructions. However they also said - if you have a different process that works - it is probably good to keep using it. But their "standard" instructions are 2 weeks. Temperature will also have an impact. I think Mr Beer forum brewers tend to brew in the 60's, and that might take longer than if you follow the Mr Beer instructions which say to brew a bit warmer but it will depend on the yeast. Not all say 14 days though e.g. Hidden Lake Amber Ale "Put your fermenter in a location with a consistent temperature between 68° and 78° F (20°-25° C), and out of direct sunlight. Ferment for 21 days." Unclear if they will change this. They do seem to be having a lot of good sales recently so maybe that is an attempt tp move more product. I know I took advantage of it - but how much can you buy - lol.

maybe home brewing is off b/c of fitness trends, craft breweries and just retail in general. i don't brew to save money....etc. i like the process and having a cold keg of homebrew in the garage fridge. if you have a good LHBS that supports home brewers AND pro brewers, like mine does, that's probably a good recipe for success and sustainability. just guessing.

Contrary to popular belief, the Reinheitsgebot wasn't Germany-wide. It only applied to the state of Bavaria. That's why you don't see those other German styles complying with the law.

Hi Josh, Thanks for the recipe. It's been a while since I did some brewing, things dropped off the map not long after my post. I've got a hankering to start up again. This will have to wait until the winter since I don't have anywhere at a stable 65-70F with the Texas heat. I'll maybe tap you for some clarifications when I get the stuff together to give it a go. Thanks, Nigel

I have used the white labs hefe yeast and will again this weekend. I use this as the base beer for my pawpaw Heffeweizen. I still have 2lbs of frozen pawpaws in the kitchen freezer. SWMBO has requested I use them a.s.a.p.

Exactly!

Looks like Palmer is the place to start. Thank you. 🍻

there are a lot of opinions on this forum and others, but I would start simple with a BIAB recipe. watch some videos on youtube about the process. if you have a kettle already, you just need some mesh sacks which are cheap on amazon and either a home brew shop or a place to buy grain and hops online. @Bonsai & Brew posted a recipe some time ago for an all grain pale ale called "Little Trees". that might be a good 2 gal recipe to try. sky is the limit.

Or you could get 1 or 2 of the 1 gall all grain BIAB kits. or if you have a local home brew store I am sure they would love to help you - even the online ones if you give them a call. I would expect most of the MR Beer ones would be good - but as he says - no harm in asking.

Great timing on this -- a friend just gave me a starter culture of WLP029 and I need to brew with it soon.

Maybe there's something to that. I have a 3 friends that haven't homebrewed in a couple of years because they can't keep up trying new craft beers.

https://www.themadfermentationist.com/2019/01/is-american-homebrewing-dying.html https://www.morebeer.com/articles/Home_Brewers_Hobby https://www.forbes.com/sites/taranurin/2016/09/23/its-official-homebrewing-is-on-the-decline-and-heres-why-you-may-be-to-blame/#7657c0be51fd - store mentioned closed in 2019 Note points 5 and 6 -

i was in my LHBS yesterday, and it was hopping. had to wait a bit to get my grainbill put together. i guess it depends on the area of the country you live in or something.

or just send them to me for proper disposal.

All a matter of preference. I can drink a flat hydrometer sample, but to me the chilled carbonated beer makes it come alive.

when i used to carb at 68f ambient... took 4 weeks. gently upend the bottle. no leak? ok. right it and put them in a cooler..close it and move it to a 72-74f room. causes for no carb? bottle cap loose. forgot to put carb drops in. yeast was stressed out from a high grav, long secondary ferment. carb temp too low.

I think the Mr Beer Facebook may be favored.

According to the instructions for the three new "workout" beers from MRB, the Beano is added to the LBK at the same time as the gallon of cold water, before adding in the hot wort. See Step 10 here.

Before using Beano, make sure you understand what it's doing, when you're using it, and how long it will do what it's doing. Beano has one of the enzymes that breaks down starches and complex sugars into sugars that are fermentable by yeast. If you use it before the boil, it will convert starches and unfermentable sugars into fermentable sugars. When you bring the wort to a certain temperature (I forget what it is, but it's below boiling and above temperatures at which yeast survive), the enzyme is deactivated and no more unfermentable sugars are converted to fermentable sugars. If you try to use it to restart a "stuck" fermentation, then you need to ensure that you denature the enzyme before you bottle. It converts a bunch of starches and unfermentable sugars right away. Then it continues to convert unfermentable sugars, very slowly, until they're all converted. Since this happens really slowly after a certain point, you won't notice a change in hydrometer reading. So you'll bottle. And if you're lucky, you'll get beer stains on your ceiling. If you're unlucky, you'll get bottle bombs.

Yeah, but no. You want to do some research on fusel alcohol and how it affects people.

One of my favorites MB Oktoberfest, brewed with US-05. Keep the temperatures around 65-68 deg F if you can, and give it the full three weeks. I tend to go lower on the carb sugar, but that is a personal preference.

only octoberfest i have done, was a true lager. used white labs german lager yeast and did the lagering steps fermenting low and raising to diacetyl rest....etc. you could easily use the ale yeasts you have on hand and it would taste just fine.

Regardless of using MRB, -04, or -05, you're still brewing an ale that is in the style of a lager. There's nothing wrong with brewing it this way. Thousands of batches of Oktoberfest have been made and enjoyed this way over the years. For my tastes, adding the DME in addition to the LME would result in a final product that was too malty. I'd do a hop boil to help balance it out. As a newer brewer, this provides a good opportunity to see what different yeasts do. You could brew it as per the recipe now, then do it again later as a true lager just to see, smell, and taste the differences.

Here are some excellent tips for brewing and getting the result you want. I do not adhere to these to - my misfortune - I am attention deficit so try very different things each time (usually) (Sometimes I make multiple brews with very slight differences but not often.) Still, this is a good read. Also note the fermentation temperatures! https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/how-to-brew/4-trappist-brewing-tips-from-spencer-trappist-brewery/

Thank you for all your comments on here. To address a few: 1) Security concerns on Facebook are real so don't join if you are concerned at all. It OK. 2) Facebook is a totally different group than the forum here. There is no need to join if you prefer to be here. 3) Every business goes through staffing changes and we have had many people throughout the years. Our former brewmasters include Eric Green who started one of the best craft breweries in Arizona, Dragoon Brewery, Gene Sandoval started Blackrock Brewing, Pat Butler joined Dragoon Brewing, Sam Diggens joined Sentinel Brewing, and most recently we had Josh move up to Pinetop Brewing Co. Then we have others like Tim, Tyson and Renae that were here for a time and then were able to continue to grow themselves (millennials change jobs 4 times between 21 and 32 according to LinkedIn study). We continue to bring in new people with or without experience. Right now we have two current agents with over 25 years experience in brewing not counting the additional 65 years of experience with the other people in the office. 4) It may appear that Mr. Beer participation is lagging in the forum, but instead the amount of searches that go on just show that people are finding the answers that they need. Similar to what many of you have said, they dont go that next step and further participate. With almost a half a million posts, they will find their answer. We have had to adjust our way of communicating and now had more people participating in our support chat on our website more than anything else. This too could possibly take away from participation here. 5) The homebrewing business has changed drastically over the past decade. Interest grew dramatically up to 2012 then slowed, then in 2015 reverse and many people lost interest. The craft beer craze that we all enjoy has some to blame as we all can go to one of many close by craft breweries and enjoy what we once could only brew. 6) With more people working, there is less time to brew. There is almost a perfect correlation to the unemployment rate to the interest in "how to brew" google searches. Most businesses go through this cycle and it will come back around with more interest developing again in short order. When that does happen we will have this forum, Facebook, our site and continue to look at all options where people want to be contacted. This forum is not going anywhere soon. We will continue to upgrade and maintain. We will continue to engage when needed and point new brewers here to get their answers. Please continue to be the warm and engaging group that you all are.

My Tangerously hoppy IPA is on Day 5 of its fermenting. Temps in the fermenter are between 64 - 68 with the Safale US-05 Yeast. is this too hot? I am in a vertical fermenter so I cannot easily termperature control as I do my LBKs by putting them in a mini fridge hooked to a ladybird temp controller.

I use that bag for my BIAB, but use normal mesh strainer to filter out hop sludge.

That wasnt very helpful was it... anyway. Stay away from growlers. Maybe the flip top would work but still, embrace plastic for the time being. Its easier to clean up a bulged bottle vs glass shards from a bottle bomb. Read this forum front and back. It has a nice search option. Otherwise youll just get told to read the forum...

I don't think it is. Most of mine are around that temp and I dont get off flavors. You want to avoid the 70s though. The one batch I ever made that was super cidery was done in the mid-70s. Maybe even upper 70s.

Josh's Quick Hefe: For 5 gallons: 6 lb. Dry Wheat extract (or 6.6 lb Liquid Wheat extract, I recommend Coopers - 2 cans... . https://us.diybeer.com/brew-cans/malt-extract/wheat-malt-extract 1 oz Hallertau (split in half) Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan No need for a starter because this isn't a very big beer. But it's simple and tasty. Activate the yeast pack according to the directions on the back of the package. Add wheat malt to 2 gallons of water and, while stirring, bring to a boil. Make note of the time the boil starts and add 1/2 oz of Hallertau hops. Do not boil too hard, make sure it is a calm boil. After 45 mins of boil add the 2nd 1/2 oz of Hallertau hops. Boil a final 15 mins then turn off heat and gently stir for a few minutes. Cool the wort and add to fermenter on top of 2 gallons of very cold water. HINT: 8 lbs of filtered ice = 1 gallon of water. Top off to 5 gallons. After the wort cools to 80° or below open the yeast package and pour the contents on top of the wort. Ferment for 7-10 days at 68°-72° F. The final specific gravity should be 1.010-1.012. Bottle or KegAt that temp, the yeast will finish fermentation within 7 days - 10 days at most (if cooler). That yeast imparts little to no acetaldehyde, and it gives off amazing banana/clove notes at the recommended temps. There is no need for extra time to clarify or for the yeast to "clean" the beer. The byproducts in that beer are what make the flavor profile. And since it's a hefeweizen, it's not going to clarify anyway, nor should you want it to. Anyway, it's a very quick and simple recipe that can easily be expanded on. Try steeping some carapils for extra body. Or add a cup of honey for some dryness. It's a pretty versatile recipe and a great introduction for people moving away from HME and into doing their own hop schedules. You can probably do this with the Bavarian Weissbier and some Golden LME, too, but I haven't tried this yet. I think I'll give it a go sometime this month and get back to you. The yeast is the key. You can cut this in half for a 2 gallon batch, but it will be slightly stronger in flavor and ABV (not a bad thing).