Troeg's Mad Elf-Color

So I brewed this recipe for a Troeg's Mad Elf Clone and its in my primary now. I will be moving it to secondary in about two weeks but I am a little unsure about the color. The Mad Elf is supposed to be a nice ruby red but what I have in my fermenter is a hazel color. When I move to secondary I will rack it on top of 5 pounds pureed cherry will this bring out the color that I am looking for??

13 lbs Belgian Pils
2 lbs Belgian Munich
3 oz lbs Belgian Chocolate

Mash at 152

1 oz Hallertau at 90 min
.5 oz Saaz at 10 min
2 lbs Clover Honey at flame out

Cheers

It couldn't hurt.... I'm not sure if there's anything else you can do post boil. This thread talks about carafa, crystal, and even BEETS, but all during the boil. Maybe you could try food coloring if your okay with that stuff in your beer...

kpr121 said:

It couldn't hurt.... I'm not sure if there's anything else you can do post boil. This thread talks about carafa, crystal, and even BEETS, but all during the boil. Maybe you could try food coloring if your okay with that stuff in your beer...

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BEETS! I think i may have to give them a try, Halloween blood red beer??? Thanks for the link!

The color you have in the carboy is not the same as what you will have in the glass. You are, obviously, looking through A LOT more beer.

Where did you get this recipe? The chocolate will give you some color but I doubt it will come through as red. Also, what yeast did you use?

bknifefight said:

The color you have in the carboy is not the same as what you will have in the glass. You are, obviously, looking through A LOT more beer.

Where did you get this recipe? The chocolate will give you some color but I doubt it will come through as red. Also, what yeast did you use?

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I realize I am looking through a lot more beer, I took a gravity reading and that was when I realized the color really wasn't what I was shooting for.

I got the recipe from here

http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=61840

It's a recipe someone put together but people on that board seemed to have success. There are two on that link I think I am going to try the other one this weekend to see how it turns out.

I used WLP500

For what it's worth, I brewed my first scratch holiday ale back in september and added cherries during secondary and it went from hazel like you described to being almost identical in both color and taste to the Mad Elf (actually not intentional either, kinda was disappointed since it wasn't the idea I was aiming for!). The cherries add a lot to both flavor and color, I think you'll be fine. For what it's worth, I've been going to Troeg's for a long time (used to live near the brewery) and they used to put a batch out of what they called the "Naked Elf" which was the beer before they add the honey and cherries and it looked like a nice hazel-colored hefeweizen because it was unfiltered. It was delicious as well, but again, the cherries went a long way for the real thing too.

worstbrewing said:

For what it's worth, I brewed my first scratch holiday ale back in september and added cherries during secondary and it went from hazel like you described to being almost identical in both color and taste to the Mad Elf (actually not intentional either, kinda was disappointed since it wasn't the idea I was aiming for!). The cherries add a lot to both flavor and color, I think you'll be fine. For what it's worth, I've been going to Troeg's for a long time (used to live near the brewery) and they used to put a batch out of what they called the "Naked Elf" which was the beer before they add the honey and cherries and it looked like a nice hazel-colored hefeweizen because it was unfiltered. It was delicious as well, but again, the cherries went a long way for the real thing too.

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I haven't had the Naked Elf but am going to keep an eye out for it this year. When you added your cherries during secondary did you add them whole or puree them? fresh or canned? and how long did you keep them in there for??

Thanks-

I'm not sure if they still put out the Naked Elf, it used to be a brewery-exclusive batch like their scratch beers, but since I moved to Philly I don't get up there nearly as much as I wish I did! If you can catch it though, it was definitely a delicious brew. As for adding cherries, I was going to get pureed cherries from my LHBS but he was out, but he told me just to get cherry pie filling from my grocery store, which were essentially whole cherries in syrup. I got two cans, which was around 2LBs and dumped them in entirely with great results. I actually kept them in for maybe 2-3 weeks before transferring but your mileage may vary. I think Troeg's used to release the naked elf almost at the end of the summer/start of fall, so they seem to keep the cherries in for quite a while. Either way, I'm sure it'll be a great brew! You'll have to let us know how it turns out for you. Cheers!

We don't do the Naked Elf every year anymore. A bunch of Scratch beers ago we re-released it for fun, #21. It's pretty tasty, I prefer it to the Mad version, personally.

You will NOT get that red color without the cherries. Unless you use red food coloring like Killian's.

I'm unsure exactly how long the brewers keep the cherries in the beer, but I know the beer re-ferments like nuts, so just keep them in there a few days after you stop seeing fermentation activity and you'll be alright. They also use a mix of tart and sweet cherries.

Naked Elf is like a 7.5% beer, and the Mad Elf ends up around 11%, those cherries pack quite a bit of fermentables!

The cherries will turn your beer red. I have an American wheat that I sometimes rack onto 6lbs of raspberries. Without the raspberries its about 4 SRM - pretty light but with raspberries it turns a deep red.

Thanks for all the info really helped me out! I'm gonna rack it on top of sweet and tart cherries for a few weeks.