Brewing a reddish color Abbey Ale...

Hey guys! Going to try my hand at an Abbey Ale that I was inspired to brew recently from an Abbey I had at a Brewpub in Grand Rapids... The part that really interested me was that it had a nice bright, but deep red color... and I have been reading about different malts that can give a red color (CaraRed, Melanoidin) but after reading through some of the threads on here it seems everyone thinks it's easier to just use a small amount of Roasted Barley. I plugged my hypothetical Recipe into BeerSmith and no matter how much I play with it, it still seems to predict a Darker Brown/Amber color. (Yeah I know, I shouldn't weigh too much on the predicted color from a computer...)

But I am curious if anyone has any suggestions for me. Here's my proposed Malt Bill:

11 lbs Belgian Pale
2 lbs Melanoidin
1 lb CaraVienne
4 oz Roasted Barley

2 lbs Homemade Candi Sugar

Any suggestions???

Thanks in advance guys! ~CB

try .75lb aromatic malt and .25lb special B in place of melanoidin. that should get you a nice red. you can also drop teh candi in half and replace with corn sugar or even table sugar. depending of course on how big you want to go.

Is the candi dark? If it is, you may overshoot your color with two lbs. I brewed a single, and 1/2 lb gave me an amber color, I am sure that two lbs would get you more mahogany color.

Go with some Special B in place of some melanoidin malt. If you're going to be making dark candi syrup, it'll be between 80-100L itself, and two pounds of it will contribute signifcant color. I'd drop the melanoidin malt to one pound or less and replace the 4oz roast barley with the Special B. You won't need the color and any roasty notes or bitterness that carries over, even in the finish, would be out of place. The CaraVienne might be unnecessary, but if you really like the flavor it contributes from experience, go with it.

You guys rock...! I really appreciate the input. I have not used Melanoidin or CaraVienne before, basically just experimenting. I usually dive in headfirst into stuff I don't know just for fun. The Candi Sugar I made is actually quite light, a clear light caramel color, maybe similar to what Fat Tire looks like. I'm pretty sure my candy thermometer is way off, because at what temp my thermometer said when I killed the heat on the sugar, I prob should have had nuclear roasted black candi sugar haha... but I will def go with the Special B instead. I have been doing a lot of reading about the malts and I like what I hear about the CaraVienne so I may stick with that and drop the melanoidin down or altogether... I'm not sure. I will do some more brainstorming and figure it out. Thanks again guys, you're the best! ~Cheers! CB

And skip the roasted barley, too... Roasted flavors are out of place for the style. Did you hold the heat at hard crack and watch for color change. I got very little color change on the climb, I got the vast majority of the change when I held just a bit higher than hard crack. Mine is a deep red, and tastes like rum and cherries. It's really neat, seeing as the only two ingredients were lemon juice (3 tbsp) and 5 lbs of sugar.

It is really cool, I had made another batch a while back and let it go much longer and used it in a belgian tripel. Fun process for sure! Now I'm addicted to Belgian style beers. This Belgian Abbey I had at the brewpub in GR has me going OCD-Crazy and I'll probably never rest until I perfect a recipe. I'll keep everyone posted if I come up with something fantastic.

I just had a Scaldis Noel last weekend. It had a lovely amber red hue. I don't know what was done to get that color (but given the 12%abv strength, it might have been just a truckload of base malt and a long boil), but you might look into it. It was damned beautiful in the glass.