Homebrew Recipe of the Month
May 2025 - Feisty Ferret
Don't know where and how exactly Jeff decided on a "rodent trilogy" of some classic style favorites, but malty English beers were always his jam. It started with Cheeky Weasel, an ESB, then we followed up with Sneaky Stoat, a Pale Ale. And now we finish with Feisty Ferret Amber Ale, inspiried by Lefthand's Sawtooth Ale which we drank the heck out of back in the late 90s.
ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.049
FG: 1.010
IBUs: 42
ABV: 5.1%
WATER
We target: Calcium 39ppm , Magnesium 3ppm , Sodium 6ppm , Sulfate 51ppm , Chloride 29ppm. We achieve target generally through additions of Gypsum and Calcium Chloride. Keep the Sulfate-to-Chloride under 1.75 unless you really want this more as an ESB and accent bitterness.
MALT/GRAIN BILL
7 lb Root Shoot English Pale
12 oz Root Shoot Munich 10
10 oz Simpsons Caramalt
10 oz Simpsons Crystal T50
4 oz Simpsons Crystal DRC
3.5 oz Root Shoot Winter/White Wheat Malt
1 .5 oz Briess Blackprinz
HOPS
0.75 oz CTZ at 60 minutes [37 IBUa]
0.33 oz UK Golding at 10 minutes [3 IBUs]
0.75 oz Cascade at whirlpool (180° F) [2 IBUs]
YEAST
Fermentis S-04 or any preferred English Ale Yeast
DIRECTIONS
Mill the grains and mash at 153°F (66°C) for 60 minutes. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons of wort, depending on your evaporation rate. Pre-boil gravity should be somewhere in the 1.043 - 1.045 range. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, perform a whirlpool step: Stir or recirculate to create a vortex, add the whirlpool hops, and allow 20 minutes of contact time. Ideally, get the temp of your wort 180°F or lower before adding hops - you want the aroma and flavor, not the bitterness. If not able, consider less Cascade at whirlpool. Chill to about 68°F, aerate the wort, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 68°F until your gravity has stabilized. If concerned about diacetyl production, when the gravity has dropped to about 1.020, let free rise no higher than 73°F for a rest. When fermentation is complete and the gravity has stabilized, crash to 32°F and age 2–3 weeks. Package and carbonate to about 2.5 volumes of CO2.
BREWER’S NOTES
To focus on malt flavor complexity, this brew features a layering of different levels of crystal malt, unlike many of LUKI's recipes - we usually like to keep it simple. The whirlpool hop addition is important to give this traditional Amber or ESB (it's right on the line) a nice modern pop of citrus and pine. Careful with that whirlpool temp, however, if you can't cool it down before adding hops, you can send this squarely into ESB territory if you don't adjust the hop quantity. Dry hopping instead is something we've discussed, but never tried.