Irish Red Ale

Yup, another "check my recipe" thread. If you've read any of my previous posts, I have stated that I will be doing this for a while. I think this one is in the bag but I want to be sure.

Style: Irish Red Ale

Estimated Measurements:
SRM: 12.4 SRM
IBU: 18.9 IBUs
OG: 1.051 SG
FG: 1.014 SG
ABV: 4.9 %

84.2% 8 lb Maris Otter
7.9 % 12oz Carared
3.9 % 6 oz Special Roast
2.6 % 4 oz Melanoiden
1.3 % 2 oz Black Patent

Add 10 qt of 130F water - 122F for 20 min
Add 7 qt of 210F water - 154F for 60 min
Decoct 5.5 qt of mash and boil it - 168F for 10 min

0.50 oz Willamette 4.0 % ---------- Boil 60 min
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent 5.4 % - Boil 30 min
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent 5.4 % - Boil 15 min
1 Whirlfloc Tablet ---------------- Boil 15 min
0.50 oz Willamette 4.0 % ---------- Boil 1 min

White Labs Edinburgh Ale Yeast WLP028

2 weeks primary at 67F
2 weeks secondary at 67F

That's it. It will be brewed July 27. I'm open to suggestions. I am hoping for a slightly nutty, medium-high malt flavor and a deep red color. Hopefully a big dense head but that's negotiable.

It looks fine to me, love the hops. I would swap the black patent for roasted barley, but that's what I prefer.

I'd reduce the flavor/aroma hops too. Its supposed to be malty and have little (if any) flavor/hop aroma, and that hop schedule is dangerously close to my bitter recipe.

I also say roasted barley instead of black patent, but looks good otherwise!

I was a little suspect of my later additions. Thanks for the input! The SRM seems a little low to me, should I add an ounce or two more of roasted barley? Here is the revised recipe so far.

Style: Irish Red Ale

Estimated Measurements:
SRM: 10.7 SRM
IBU: 22.8 IBUs
OG: 1.051 SG
FG: 1.014 SG
ABV: 4.9 %

84.2% 8 lb Maris Otter
7.9 % 12oz Carared
3.9 % 6 oz Special Roast
2.6 % 4 oz Melanoiden
1.3 % 2 oz Black Roasted Barley

Add 10 qt of 130F water - 122F for 20 min
Add 7 qt of 210F water - 154F for 60 min
Decoct 5.5 qt of mash and boil it - 168F for 10 min

0.50 oz Willamette 4.0 % ---------- Boil 60 min
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent 5.4 % - Boil 30 min
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent 5.4 % - Boil 20 min
0.50 oz Willamette 4.0 % ---------- Boil 15 min
1 Whirlfloc Tablet ---------------- Boil 15 min

White Labs Edinburgh Ale Yeast WLP028

2 weeks primary at 67F
2 weeks secondary at 67F

I made an Irish Red Ale with an SRM 13-14 and it didn't seem red enough. Jamil's Irish Red Ale is up at 16 SRM I think. I'd suggest 4oz of Roasted Barley, I've seen recipes that go up to 6oz.

With regards to the hop schedule, don't bother with a complicated one, make it simple: 60/15. With the last one I did I didn't even bother with anything less than 60. But its your beer, anything I am suggesting is just nitpicking.

So what do you suggest? 0.5 oz each at 60 and the rest at 15? That would put me at 24.2 IBUs. A little higher than I want but it's within style range. I don't like storing open bags of hops, so I try to distribute full ounces throughout the boil.

I was considering adding more roasted barley because the same thing happened to me. The last one I made turned out cloudy and pale with no red color at all. Adding an additional ounce of black roasted barley raises SRM to 14.5 and one more on top of that puts me at 16.4. I think I will add one instead of two (3 oz total).

Use your 60 minute additions as a flexible tool to achieve the IBUs you want. Choose your flavor and aroma by amounts.

I would suggest doing only a 60 minute addition, but if you want some hop presence I would do .25 at 0 and .25 at 15 (or just .5 at 15). Either way, choose your 60 minute addition to meet your IBUs.

I brewed this up a week ago. Been lazy/busy. At the advice of my LHBS owner, I substituted the EKG for Fuggles. Here is the new recipe and the numbers:

Estimated Measurements:
SRM: 14.5 SRM
IBU: 21.1 IBUs
OG: 1.051 SG
FG: 1.014 SG
ABV: 5.1 %

84.2% 8 lb Maris Otter
7.9 % 12oz Carared
3.9 % 6 oz Special Roast
2.6 % 4 oz Melanoiden
1.3 % 3 oz Black Roasted Barley

Add 8 qt of 130F water - 122F for 20 min
Add 5.5 qt of 210F water - 152F for 60 min
Decoct 5 qt of mash and boil it - 168F for 10 min

0.50 oz Willamette 4.0 % ---------- Boil 60 min
0.50 oz Fuggles 4.2 % ------------- Boil 60 min
0.50 oz Fuggles 4.2 % ------------- Boil 15 min
0.50 oz Willamette 4.0 % ---------- Boil 15 min
1 Whirlfloc Tablet ---------------- Boil 15 min

White Labs Edinburgh Ale Yeast WLP028

2 weeks primary at 67F
2 weeks secondary at 67F

Measurements:
Pre-Boil: 1.050
OG: 1.055

Looks a lot better than my first attempt at a red. I've got a good feeling about this one. Everything went smoothly and I'm happy with the process so far. I will update again when I rack to secondary and take another measurement.

I measured 1.018 when racking to secondary today. It tastes pretty good, but not quite what I was hoping for. It's a little too roasty and bitter. I'm expecting that to calm down during secondary though. Overall, I'm mostly happy with this one. I will update again in a couple weeks. Cheers!

vinnythering said:

I measured 1.018 when racking to secondary today. It tastes pretty good, but not quite what I was hoping for. It's a little too roasty and bitter. I'm expecting that to calm down during secondary though. Overall, I'm mostly happy with this one. I will update again in a couple weeks. Cheers!

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That will definitely mellow in aging. I had a batch that I used 8oz of roasted barley due to some efficiency miscalculations, and in secondary it was barely palatable due to the roast. I let it age 3 weeks and the barley hit the right tone and the MO was able to shine through.

I was hoping someone would tell me that!

It's not really authentic, but if you don't like the roasted barley flavor you could use 6 ounces of crystal 120 and an ounce of carafa III. It gives the color you want and a touch of roast without being too pronounced.

Oh I don't mind the roasty flavor by any means. I love it, but the flavor of this one overall wasn't what I was expecting. I want a more nutty flavor. The roast is totally welcome, but it was just missing that specific depth I was looking for. I don't know if tzhat would be within style, but that's what I wanted. Oh well, I will work on it later.

If you want some really amazing depth you should experiment with kettle caramelization. It makes a longer brew day but you will not regret one sip of it.

Well now THAT is an idea. Next time maybe I will give that a shot. Any suggestions with that? I've never considered it and haven't done much reading on the subject.

vinnythering said:

Well now THAT is an idea. Next time maybe I will give that a shot. Any suggestions with that? I've never considered it and haven't done much reading on the subject.

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It's pretty simple really.. You mash on the thick side, and draw off your first runnings. Then you boil this down to a syrup or as close to that as you have time for. It will bubble like thick sap (1 gallon will boil over a 10 gallon kettle if you're not careful) and develop delicious rich flavor. Then you just sparge heavy to get your volume and add it to the syrup and proceed as usual. It takes about an hour extra. We had an 80 schilling brew off in our club in the spring, and I had one that was simply 10 lbs MO and 4 ounces of roasted barley, but caramelized. It blew the socks off of all the specialty malt recipes. I will make a 10 gallon batch of this every year now.

Wow that sounds incredible. I can handle an extra hour. I would love to try this. Thanks!

vinnythering said:

Wow that sounds incredible. I can handle an extra hour. I would love to try this. Thanks!

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You won't regret. The only thing else I would mention is that if you are shooting for a certain color profile you should either plan on it being darker than that, or go lighter on the dark malt because the caramelization will develop a lot of color. The 80/- I just mentioned came out almost as dark as a stout. I'm not even sure what you would add for a red, I haven't done anything like that yet. I would like to though.

This sounds like a good reason to start making small experimental batches. I can start making gallon brews instead of jumping in with both feet with 5 gallons.

Not to jack your thread/recipe, but how would this recipe do with a single infusion mash? I'm looking to do an Irish Red for my second batch this weekend and this came up in my search. I'd like to get into stepped mashes eventually, but I need to get the brewing basics down first. Hope it turns out great!

jaaron91 said:

Not to jack your thread/recipe, but how would this recipe do with a single infusion mash? I'm looking to do an Irish Red for my second batch this weekend and this came up in my search. I'd like to get into stepped mashes eventually, but I need to get the brewing basics down first. Hope it turns out great!

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There's really no reason why you would need to do a step mash for something like this. The malts are all so highly modified these days there's usually no need for protein/acid rests. Only time you might need to is if you are using under modified malts to make a pilsner, or mashing with a lot of 6-row

Thanks!

Bottlebomber, I had an idea and wonder what your input would be. I have a small mash tun (2 gallons) in addition to a larger 5 gallon tun. I'm thinking that I can mash a small portion of the MO with all the specialty grains and also do a larger mash of just MO to use for kettle caramelization so I can avoid making the beer too dark and still keep the flavors and aromas. Think that would work?

vinnythering said:

Bottlebomber, I had an idea and wonder what your input would be. I have a small mash tun (2 gallons) in addition to a larger 5 gallon tun. I'm thinking that I can mash a small portion of the MO with all the specialty grains and also do a larger mash of just MO to use for kettle caramelization so I can avoid making the beer too dark and still keep the flavors and aromas. Think that would work?

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It seems like it could work, although it may be needlessly complicating things. I have never done it so it would be hard to give advice, but I am thinking on a gut feeling that the specialty malts should be there for the caramelization as well. I really think if you just lighten up a tad on any RB you use, and accept that you're beer may be a little darker you'll be fine.

That's what I do best! Haha. You're probably right too, so I will do it that way. Thanks.

Well this one is mighty tasty! I bottled it and can't wait until it is ready to drink. I totally screwed up and left the bottling bucket spigot open and lost probably a half gallon on the floor. I still got 37 12 oz bottles and 1 22 oz bottle out of it so that isn't at all bad. Very excited for this one.

vinnythering said:

Well this one is mighty tasty! I bottled it and can't wait until it is ready to drink. I totally screwed up and left the bottling bucket spigot open and lost probably a half gallon on the floor. I still got 37 12 oz bottles and 1 22 oz bottle out of it so that isn't at all bad. Very excited for this one.

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You mean when you started the transfer? Hopefully it didn't wash all your priming solution out.

Yeah but I don't think it all washed out. It drained slower than it filled so I'm sure the sugar mixed in pretty well. If anything it will just take a while longer.

vinnythering said:

Yeah but I don't think it all washed out. It drained slower than it filled so I'm sure the sugar mixed in pretty well. If anything it will just take a while longer.

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More time won't take the place of less sugar. You only get X amount of CO2 for X amount of sugar, regardless of how long it is in the bottle. I'm thinking if a half gallon drained out you could easily have lost half of your priming sugar. I'm sure it will be ok though even at that, IRAs dont need to be too fizzy.

Hmm... I didn't think of it that way. I only put just over 3 oz of sugar. Well I guess it will have to do because there's really no going back!

vinnythering said:

Hmm... I didn't think of it that way. I only put just over 3 oz of sugar. Well I guess it will have to do because there's really no going back!

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I'm sure it's fine. If it came out super flat you could always get some Coopers carb tabs and drop some in each bottle, but that's no fun.

Ick that scares me. I'm insane with my sanitation and I would be afraid of both overcarbing and infection. I guess I could use a dropper and boil up a little more suger for each bottle? I don't mind the extra work but reds aren't really supposed to be very carbed so I guess it wouldn't really matter much would it? Either way I will figure it out and I will drink it regardless!!!

Post the results just out of curiosity lol.. I've come close to doing what you did about 20 times but never actually done it

I brew a lot of Irish Reds, Fuggles and Kent Golding. Willamette is actually a US strain taken from Fuggles. I have used both. There is just something something special about Fuggles for 60 and Kent Golding for 15-20.

Well it definitely isn't flat! Even after just a week in the bottle it is lighty carbed and everyone that tasted it loved it. The flavor isn't quite what I was going for but it is still very good. Its nutty and a little roasty. Next time I am going to bring up the malt flavor. I think I'm going to add more dark crystal malt. I like the roasty flavor so I'm not touching that. The color is good too. Altogether I am very pleased and I don't think these bottles will last long.

It doesn't sound like it lol. Awesome!

After 4 months, this is still a favorite to everyone that drinks it and it only gets better. The reason they have lasted so long is that I love it so much that I refuse to share more than I need to! That said, I am running incredibly low and will probably brew this one up again soon. I probably won't change the recipe like I previously said I would, I think it is as good as it will get and I won't fix what isn't broken.

I'm finally getting around to re-brewing this on the 25th. I changed the recipe slightly to the following:

8.5 lb Maris Otter
8 oz Carared
4 oz Melanoiden
4 oz Special Roast
3 oz Black Roasted Barley

Mash at 154F.

Same hop schedule, same yeast.

Not drastically changed, but still a little different. Looking forward to this one!

Hey I'm kind of new and I was looking at your recipe and when talking about the water what does "Decoct 5qt of water mean. Again I apologize if I'm an amateur and not getting it.