My first recipe....thoughts welcomed

I think most people here would suggest you go with the lightest DME you can get vs. Amber LME.

For that malt combo, I would up the IBUs a bit. Is this Tinseth or Rager IBUs? In my experience, continental hops like Hallertau can get "hidden" in the malts especially if you are expecting an "American"style beer. So, what do you want this beer to taste like?

I generally do my starters ~3 days before I brew. ~36 hours on the stir plate and ~36 hours in the fridge to crash the yeast. Don't pitch the whole starter if you can help it. Do you have a stir plate? How are you going to do a starter?

 

I recommend not to guess what size starter you need but go here and know exactly:
http://yeastcalculator.com/

As wspscott says, three days is decent. If you are shaking only you will need ever bit of 3 days to grow/fall/chill/decant/pitch. Sometimes the yeast are not sympathetic to your brew schedule . . . it doesn't hurt to have them ready a day or two early. It's a pretty long read, but here's some good info on starters.

 

In addition to the above posts, I would use a different bittering hop. I get harshness from Chinook that would be out of place in your amber. Personally, I'd use Magnum to bitter...but that's just my tastes.

 

Just to elaborate on wspscott's post for the newbie OP, the main reason is that the lighter extracts tend to be made from all base malt or from basemalt with some carapils, which adds little if any flavor. They give you more of a blank slate for you to work with and make a recipe your own.

The amber extract that the OP is using likely already has some crystal malt. If it is Briess, they once advertised (perhaps still do) that they put 60L crystal malt in their extract. But I don't think they spell out the percentage. So the op is adding 1lb of C40 to a wort that already has C60 in it, in an unknown amount. It could end up tasting just the way he likes (especially if he likes it sweet) but if so, it is out of dumb luck and not through judicious use of ingredients. Darker extracts can be even more problematic than amber ones, because you aren't sure how much of the color comes from strongly tasting roasted malts and how much comes from sweeter crystal malts. Without having some trials and errors through sensory perception, you just aren't goiing to know what you have in that wort and what if any specialty grains to use.

As for liquid extract vs. dry extract, dry probably keeps longer. This is not a big deal if you don't intend to store your extract long and if you buy from a dealer who goes through extract fast and therefore can probably guarantee a pretty fresh supply.

 

For some reason I was thinking of this during dinner (my kids were not very entertaining ) I would go ahead and use a dry yeast here (US05) vs the liquid and avoid the whole stater thing all together.

 

This is sort of what I meant. The part about it being too sweet was hypothetical. I think I would find it sweet, buy others might like it fine. I think that by using the extracts that are pale, you are in a better position to construct the beer you want to drink using specialty grains. Also, for newbies, this approach should help you learn what the specialty grains add. With the amber extract, the C60 in the extract might prevent you from discerning what the c40 brings to the beer.

 

Agree with what JohnSnow says about Chinook, it delivers a harshness (think Arrogant Bastard) that may not be correct for an amber ale. Magnum is "gentler" on the bittering, it will balance the sweetness and leave no trace.

And just so you know, Hallertau is a very mild hop and you will barely detect its taste. Sometimes this is desirable (I use it all the time) but just be aware. The style guidelines for amber ale usually calls for American hops, something like Cascade, or if you want to avoid a citrus taste then Willamette or Fuggles. But there is nothing wrong with brewing out of style, in fact that is one of the joys of homebrewing.

This may be a dangerous overload for a new brewer, but here's some good info on hop characteristics that I reference.

 

So based on what you are aiming for, I think that Light DME, Munich DME and some C40 would give you a nice malty beer that is not sweet at all. Note: if you can get it Dried extract vs. Liquid extract will likely result in a better beer because it is less likely to be stale.

For the hops, some Magnum at 60 mins and the Hallertau at 15 and 5 will likely give you something with hop flavor but it will not taste like an IPA (which you don't want). You might think about moving the 15 minute to the 5 so that you add 2oz at 5. This would likely give you a little more hop aroma, but it would not be huge since Hallertau is "subtle".

Also, if you are not doing a full boil, you probably want to increase your hops since partial boils reduce hop utilization.

 

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Other than maybe changing the bittering hop to magnum, I like it as-is, with the amber extract, and especially with the Munich extract. Panic about non-extra-light-extracts* are probably overblown.

This is one of my earliest recipes, contained some amber extract and a lot of crystal, and it was ginormously fantabulous. One of my first self-formulated recipes, and it was so tasty when I popped the first bottle I nearly shat a brick of self-praise. Only thing I would do different now would be to add more hops (one more oz of cascade at 5 and one oz of amarillo at FO), and cut the 60 min addition of magnum down to about 21 grams (instead of 28). Even people that I sent this to in trades (presumably a bit more experienced on the pallet) liked it. It had a nice blend of malt, sweet, and hops. Yes, it was fairly sweet, but not unbalanced-ly so. To me many a tasty red is pretty sweet, even the hoppy ones.

If you don't want to take any chances on it being too sweet, either cut in half, or nix the crystal, but otherwise still leave the base recipe as is. If you totally nix the crystal I think you'll wind up with something pretty dry (but if that's your aim, do it).

*and the purported horrors thereof

 

I don't think most people have a problem with darker extracts per se. It's just that nobody knows what and/or how much of what is in them. An anaolgy... An all grain brewer would never (I hope) go to the LHBS and say "Give me 10 lbs of malt that averages out to 20L color."

I guess if you use a particular dark extract enough times that you know what it does well enough to treat it as a pseudo-standalone ingredient, that would work. (Though it would be a bitch to convert your creations to AG recipes later.)

 

I do like that you always have something sensible to say, in a non-regurgitated format.

Meanwhile, I need to bottle my extra-dark extract stout-ish thingie (with Irish ale yeast). It's been cold enough in the closet the last week that I can almost say it's cold-crashed. My guess is the yeast will still be plenty happy tho, cold for Tx is shorts and tee-shirts for most everyone else.

I think the next experimental thingie will be a pure amber extract* + US-05 + moderate hops of a not too powerful variety (probably willamette or cascade, I think I have those here). I need to do that before it gets warm, at which point I can only use saison yeasts for my mini-batches at home.

What I really need to do is get out to my bro's and brew a proper all grain batch. The rye-PA thing we talked about probably 6-7 months ago is in the queue and ready to go.

*probably munton's, last batch was briess