Recipe mess up

A couple of weeks ago I brews what I thought was a Kona fire rock recipe with the following grain bill:

8.1 lb. pale malt, paris otter
.9 lb. munich malt
.45 lb. Honey Malt
.25 lb, Cara-pils

O.G-1.047
F.G-1.006

Judging by the comparison the color is not even close, not sure if the brew store gave me the wrong malts. It taste fine, just not what I expected. It was my first all-grain, so its not that bad.

Any ideas?

You didn't use any darker crystal malts, and very little Munich malt (which imparts an orange color). Your picture looks like what I would expect with your grainbill.

So if I was going to get the bill more like the Kona, How would I change the grain bill?

dhoyt714 said:

So if I was going to get the bill more like the Kona, How would I change the grain bill?

Click to expand...

I haven't had that beer in ages- but I do remember it being a bit darker. Maybe some crystal 60L would match the color.

Just squirt some red food coloring in it and call it good.

I think there's a very good chance the brew suppy forgot the Munich all together. Unless there are multiple kinds.

dhoyt714 said:

I think there's a very good chance the brew suppy forgot the Munich all together. Unless there are multiple kinds.

Click to expand...

Well, there are! But it's most common to use "regular" Munich malt, which has an SRM of about 9. It does give a slight orange-y hue, but you'd need more than that to get a darker colored beer.

Thanks for the advice yooper. So if I wanted to get closer to the original recipe some German Munich would be the way to go?

I plugged those numbers in to Tastybrew's calculator and it came out more like yous than the sample.

I would say add more Munich,,, something like:


You can compare the two later and see if we are headed in the right direction..

I scaled it down from an 11 gallon recipe. Not sure if my calculations were off there. I just divided 5/11 got . 45 and scaled everything based on that.

According to my LHBS' (AHB) grain list Briess makes a Munich 10 and 20 according to their respective Lovibond colors.

Weyermann has Munich Type 1 @5.1-6.9°L and Type 2 @8.1-9.9°L

Dingemans' Munich is 4-7°L

So there is some 50-200% variability from 10°L right there, and who knows what redness each would yield?

Are you sure the original clone recipe for the Kona is correct? Did it specify the Munich brand or Type?
With those low Lovibond numbers, 10% of your grain bill is not going to yield that much color depth.

DPBISME's 30% suggestion may bring you more in the ballpark, and it still depends largely on the brand of Munich used, if you ask me. I would try to find a better or more accurate recipe.

As far as I can tell the recipe is correct. The original recipe for 11 gallons was:

18lbs-Maris otter
2lb-Munich
1lb honey malt
.5 lb cara-pils

It did not specify what type if Munich. So, Iam guessing that is where the problem lies.

http://vintage63brewing.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/kona-fire-rock-pale-ale-clone-all-grain/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/kona-fire-rock-pale-ale-ag-clone-52220/

same recipe pretty much, check out their color samples, particularly of the commercial sample

Essentially this is what did or what I thought I did. I think the chick at the brew store either mis-read my list or forgot the Munich all together.

hillhousesawdustco said:

http://vintage63brewing.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/kona-fire-rock-pale-ale-clone-all-grain/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/kona-fire-rock-pale-ale-ag-clone-52220/

same recipe pretty much, check out their color samples, particularly of the commercial sample

Click to expand...

Is this the one you're referring to? That's not a good match on color.


Here's the original picture of the commercial poor the OP posted:


and I did a quick color correction (removed some green cast) on the one the OP took to get a closer comparison:


In both clone samples, the red is missing quite a bit. So what's giving the commercial brew the red?

My Irish red has a couple ounces of roasted barley to make the red color. It doesn't take a lot to get color without the flavor. You could probably get some of it with something like C 120.

Mine will eventually end u close to islandlizard's once it is cold crashed. So, just the addition of a darker malt would have solved the problem?