How about an Irish Red?

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texasgeorge

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Since I'm a newer (but ambitious!) home brewer, I don't think I have the refined palate to envision the taste of a recipe yet. I wanted to run this Irish Red recipe by everyone to see if it sounds like a winner.

Partial Mash (Per BeerSmith estimates: OG 1.051, FG 1.013, ABV 5.0%, SRM 14.5)
4.00# pale LME (boil)
1.00# honey (boil)
2.00# pale 2-row (US)
0.50# Crystal 60L
0.25# Biscuit malt (is this necessary? I know that a biscuity flavor is desired, but is this right?) :confused:
0.13# Roasted Barley (500*L)

Mash the grains at 156F for 45 minutes, sparge, add to boiling pot w/enough water to get to 6.5 gallons (final volume between 5.0 and 5.5 gallons)

Hops (estimated IBU: 22.9)
1 oz Fuggles pellets (5%) 60m
1 oz Fuggles pellets (5%) 5m

Yeast
I've got a WLP005 yeast cake from an ESB that I'd like to use. I know that WLP004 would probably be more true to style, but White Labs' website says that 005 will work well for an Irish Red...



Sound like a winner?
 
I guess this doesn't help you much George but there is a chain of brewpubs in Dublin that turn out some fantastic beers. Their Irish Red Ale is an absolute winner. They describe it as follows:

"Porterhouse Red

Alcohol by volume: 4.4%

Grain: Pale Malt, Crystal Malt, Wheat Malt, Chocolate Malt.

Hops: Galena, Nugget, East Kent Goldings.

At last an Irish Red Ale with a traditional hop flavour to balance the fruit character of the yeast and the luscious caramel flavour notes delivered from the malts used, as opposed to artificially added."

It's quite a bitter beer which I like (the Galena is typically 12-14 AA I think), but it also has a nice caramel/fruity flavour to balance it out. Now I'm a relatively new brewer and have just started to add steeped grains to my brew so I can't interpret the quantities which would be required to replicate this with extract/steeping, but if you get anywhere near it you will be very happy! From what I know of WLP004 which I used for my stout I don't think it's a fruity yeast so your ESB yeast might be more suitable.
 
At first glance there were several things I would change. After I thought about it the recipe grew on me but not w/o a couple of adjustments. I am still deciding about the honey, but somewhere between .5 -1lb. The last addition of Fuggles I would go with .5oz at 15min and .5oz at flameout. Overall I think the original is just fine including the addition of Biscuit and that you underestimated yourself.
 
Other than the biscuit and honey, this is very close to the Red in my primary. It uses wheat extract, honey sounds like a nice touch. Nothing wrong with a little biscuit. I agree on splitting the second hop addition.
 
Looks good to me! I'd agree on the hops split, though.:)

I did this one as an extract/partial and it turned out great. I did it again as an AG last Fall and I ran out of it quickly. Mine is pretty hoppy; if you cut down on the hops, it's truer to style.:mug:
 
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