Mack and Jacks African Amber clone
Yea, it's the same except for the orange peel. It was originally a byo version of the recipe, i've made it with safeale S-04, wy yeast 1098, and wy yeast american ale 1056. I made an ESB with the wlp005 just so I could repitch into the next batch. I can recomend all of the Yeasts, except the 1056 made it to dry.
Like most people when I made the BYO version, it was good, it was close, but there was something missing. I had some sweet orange peel left over from a belgian wit, and I noticed that this recipe as flavorful as it was had no flavor add? Hmmm, so I winged it, and threw the remaining 1/2 ounce of the peel in. It came out dead bang, that batch you tried at thirsty's brewday is the one i'm talking about.
Now I made an all grain batch of this, and it came out great, but not dead bang on, so i'll keep trying, i'm sure I'll nail it down, maybe the Marris otter is throwing it off.
On the other hand I took a case to a superbowl party, and the case was gone by half time, everyone marveled at it's drinkability, and the way it compliments almost any food.
Don't forget to dryhop this one, it really makes a difference.
I'm gonna try this recipe. Should I go off the original or should I change some things that you guys have mentioned?
You could make 2 batches one with the peel, and one without. I don't know if your doing extract or Allgrain, but the extract comes out great.
I like S-04 for the dry yeast, and the Wy 1098 for the liquid. The S-04 is great for extract, as it takes all the hops, and orange peel into the sediment, and you can really get in there and almost drain your primary. The bottles where the same, I can almost pour out a whole beer without any yeast or sediment.
For the Extract I used the dry orange peel, and it was very hard to remove the small particles before primary fermentation, so I just left it in, I also dry hopped by just throwing a half ounce of cascade right into the primary after 4 days of fermentation, worked great. If you try this beer, with or without the oranges, you won't be dissapointed, but I believe it's right on with the peels in it.
Well, I made this recipe with the amber extract, and it still seems to have come out right. I tasted it at bottling and it had great flavor. It's been bottled for about a week, I'm going to wait another week before I crack one open. If it's as good as it seems, I'm going to brew a 5 gallon batch and use it as my first kegged batch with the kegerator my wife bought me. I'll keep ya updated. Thanks for the recipe.
FailureDrill wrote:
Well, I made this recipe with the amber extract, and it still seems to have come out right. I tasted it at bottling and it had great flavor. It's been bottled for about a week, I'm going to wait another week before I crack one open. If it's as good as it seems, I'm going to brew a 5 gallon batch and use it as my first kegged batch with the kegerator my wife bought me. I'll keep ya updated. Thanks for the recipe.
Yea, your not going to see a difference with the amber or the light extract, I'm sorry, I misunderstood your earlier post. You get all your color, and malt aroma from the specialty malt, This one was just posted as a light.
Thanks to brewchez's suggestion, when I did extract, I always used the light extract to teach myself what specialty malt gave me the color I wanted, that way when I went all grain, I already had that knowledge.
I'm sure you'll be happy with the results of this one, I don't know how you can wait another week to taste it. Ha ha.
bruguru wrote:
Thanks to brewchez's suggestion, when I did extract, I always used the light extract to teach myself what specialty malt gave me the color I wanted, that way when I went all grain, I already had that knowledge.
This board has been good to you hasn't it.
I taught you about specialty grains.
1n1m3g gave you thoughtful insight into mashing.
Ricka182 told you what not to do.
And Thirsty made you feel like less of a man.
This is a great site indeed!
(Man things are slow at work for me. I need to actually brew more beer rather than talk about beer)
I made this beer on Feb 9. When should I put in the hops to dry hop? What are your suggestions for putting it in?
I've done the dry hopping the traditional way, putting the beer into secondary, just throwing in the hops, and bottling a week later.
I started saving time by just dry hopping in the primary after 4 days, or primary fermentation is over. The S-04 dry yeast is great for this, as it just takes all hop residue into the trub, it will even take the pieces of orange into the trub, and the taste of this yeast is great. The other yeasts are great to, but they don't flocculate as well, and it's harder to dry hop in the primary with them, as you'll still have a little hop flake left.
The first time I made this brew, I didn't dry hop, don't make this mistake, as this beer has "dry hopped and Unfiltered" right on it's label.
brewchez wrote:
[And Thirsty made you feel like less of a man.
Now what the hell did I do? Do you have proof? I challenge such an eroniuos aqusation!
brewchez wrote:
This board has been good to you hasn't it.
It certainly has. I would go as far as to say that I wouldn't even be half as far along in my brewing and my ideas about brewing if not for this site, and certainly without those brewing days. I know I wouldn't have gone all grain without seeing it first,
You would be hard pressed to find someone who would take you one on one, and show you from start to finish how to make an all grain batch, and even if you did, you would be heavlily influenced by his ideas, and the way he did things.
On the brewing days, no one sees it as a chore to answer a dumb ass question, or to explain what is going on, because everyone is observing in a party like atmosphere. Plus your influenced by everyones ideas, and can take everyones input, and get 5 or 6 different ways to do things.
So you say you dry hop after 4 days, or when fermentation slows. Does that mean you throw your hop pellets into the first fermentation after 4 days or do you transfer into your secondary and throw your hop pellets into it. I have never dry hopped so I am confused. I was going to transfer into secondary once fermentation slows down to nothing and then add my hops for dry hopping to the secondary and let it go 5 to 7 days. What do you think?
dpturner wrote:
So you say you dry hop after 4 days, or when fermentation slows. Does that mean you throw your hop pellets into the first fermentation after 4 days or do you transfer into your secondary and throw your hop pellets into it. I have never dry hopped so I am confused. I was going to transfer into secondary once fermentation slows down to nothing and then add my hops for dry hopping to the secondary and let it go 5 to 7 days. What do you think?
I can understand you being a little tenative about dry hopping, I know I was. I just open up the fermenter, and throw them in. I've tried all kinds of ways, putting the beer into seconday isn't really necesary for Ales I've found, as they get bottled within 4 weeks anyway. Save the secondary fermenters for Lagers. Thats just me though, alot of people love to secondary, to much work for me.
you might get some floaties of hops in the bottle, but they will sink, and like I said dry hopping really isn't a choice with this beer, it really adds that pop your looking for.
So after almost two weeks conditioning in the bottles, I cracked one open. The flavor was very close and the carbonation was OK, but needs more time. I then had the opportunity that same night to go out with a buddy to a bar where they serve ALL four varieties of Mack and Jack (IPA, Black Cat Porter, Serengeti Wheat and African). I had an African and noted that it was MUCH more cloudy and unfiltered in appearance to the beer I had created. Do you think it would be prudent to forego the irish moss to give it a cloudier appearance? Is it possible some of the grain is wheat or wheat extract that gives it the same cloudy effect as a hefe?
The flavor is there, though the hops seemed stronger in the homebrew version and more subtle in the real thing. I'm going to keep messing with this one. Thanks for the great recipe!
FailureDrill wrote:
The flavor is there, though the hops seemed stronger in the homebrew version and more subtle in the real thing. I'm going to keep messing with this one. Thanks for the great recipe!
It's definately best after about a month in the bottle, but as you know kegging is always going to have a different taste than the bottle.
I'm going off of my memory here, remember i'm 10 years removed from actually having an African Amber, but if you drink it all the time you'll notice that there are little changes from bar to bar, some are more foamy than others, and some barely have lacing on the sides of the glass, what hit's you first is that beautiful Cascade aroma, and the deep malt flavor with just the right amount of hoppiness.
This is definately one to keep trying to improve on. I'm truly obsessed with this beer, and I would consider nailing an all grain batch of this consistantly to be my brewing Opus.
Only a couple more days in the bottle and it's got a nice strong head with good lacing in the glass. Whether the perfect recipe (if that can be attained), this is an OUTSTANDING beer. I made a 2.5 gallon batch to test it out. I'm going to get the stuff to make a 5 gallon batch to keg up and start using my Kegerator that has been sitting in a box for the past year.
Bruguru, thanks again for the recipe. PM me if you want to arrange getting some of the real thing sent to you. I think we could arrange it.
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