Thoughts on Red IIPA Recipe

Hey guys, I'm wanting to do a red IIPA. Basically I took the Pliny recipe and dropped a little 2 row and added some Special B, C120, munich, and roasted barley. How does this look? Should I drop the C40 or CaraPils? I'm ok with it if it gets a little maltier, Pliny has a lot of hop bite, but not too much malt backbone. This is my first modified recipe, so far I've just used existing recipes. Any thoughts or suggestions?

I'm at work, so I don't have the numbers in front of me from Beersmith, but OG should be around 1.071, FG is something like 1.013, SRM is about 13, and IBUs are high.

10 lb 4 oz American 2-row
8 oz Crystal 40
8 oz CaraPils
2 lb Munich
4 oz Special B
2 oz Crystal 120
2 oz Roasted Barley
12 oz Corn Sugar

3.5 oz Columbus 90 min
.75 oz Columbus 45 min
1 oz Simcoe 30 min
1 oz Centennial 0 min
2.5 oz Simcoe 0 min

1 oz Columbus dry hop 13 days
1 oz Simcoe dry hop 13 days
1 oz Centennial dry hop 13 days

.25 oz Columbus dry hop 5 days
.25 oz Simcoe dry hop 5 days
.25 oz Centennial dry hop 5 days

US05 Yeast

Mash 151° for 60 min

You want to keep the Crystal 40, as it will help get the red color you're looking for. I don't think the carapils will hurt either, just add more body. I know there are a few way to get a red ale, so here's another way that I see often.

Use:
1lb crystal 40
.5lb Victory
.5lb crystal 120
.25lb pale chocolate (200L)

Add that to your base malt and some munich and voila you've got a red ale. Your color might not be dark enough. As far as the hopping goes, I might move the 30 min Simcoe to 20 or 15 min. Looks good!

EDIT: I just looked at my red ale recipe and the SRM is 17

Cool, I'll play around with that in Beersmith when I get home. I was trying to keep the color on the lower side to keep it in the IIPA range, but really I'm not planning on entering it for judging, so I might just try to get a richer red color. I just copied the Pliny hop schedule exactly, but it's probably a good idea to move that Simcoe back a little like you said. Thanks!

ktblunden said:

I just copied the Pliny hop schedule exactly, but it's probably a good idea to move that Simcoe back a little like you said. Thanks!

Click to expand...

I think you're fine either way with the simcoe. I just prefer my IPAs to have most of their hops additions inside 20 minutes. After thinking about it some more I recall that the way I described to get the red color is from Jamil's Evil Twin recipe. Look that up and see if that's what you want.

Here's a link to Jamil's recipe:
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/zymurgy/free-downloads

Go to the article "Late Hops: The Secret to Hop Aroma and Flavor"
Unfortunately there no picture of the red IPA.