Honey Amber Ale

So I was leaving work to start my week 'staycation' and really wanted to brew some beer. The only thing was it was 4:00 PM, snowing and really cold out. I decided I was gonna do something I haven't done in a long time and brew an extract batch on my electric stove.

I wanted to brew an amber ale but decided that 25% of the extract bill was going to be honey. Since it was all on a whim I wasn't able to get great quality honey but it should still turn out fine. Since my stove struggles to get anything over 3 gallons to boil I decided to do a 3 gallon batch and possibly add some water at the end to bump it up to 3.5 gal.

I boiled about a gallon of water for ten minutes covered in tin foil then threw it outside to chill in the snow while I brewed. I brought 3 gal. up to 155*f and steeped some crystal 80L for a half hour or so to get that nice amber color and sweetness I wanted. It smelled really good and the whole time I was wondering why I don't do this more often when there is inclement weather, which around here is quite often.

For the hops I decided to only use one variety so that I could really taste it by itself, I chose cluster. I wanted to keep the IBU's on the lower end so I didn't go overboard with early additions. Also since it is so cold out and I heat my house with wood I had to choose a yeast that could handle a temperature swing down to the lower 60's so I decided to use S-05.

I finished the 60 min. boil and chilled the wort down to 70ish in an ice bath which I later added some snow balls to when I was out of ice. It chilled rather quickly and I decided to add the water I had boiled earlier even though I didn't really need it. I had drank a few beers and getting more beer out of the time spent just seemed logical at the time.

Honey Amber Ale

Brewed on 1-7-10
3.5 gallons
Extract w/ steeping grains
OG 1.044
FG 1.012 (Anticipated)
IBU's 24.2
SRM 12.5

3 lbs light malt extract
12.2 oz crystal 80L
0.6 oz cluster 60min.
0.8 oz cluster 15min.
1 oz cluster 0min.
1 lb. honey into fermenter
dash of irish moss at 10min.
dash of yeast nutrient at 10min.
S-05 rehydrated

12 hrs later: happily fermenting with a 1 inch krausen.

1/21/11 Finished very dry at 1.008 although it tastes sweet. Tasted very good with lots of citrusy almost tangerine notes to it. Kegged.