Brew Log - Mcmenamins Ruby Ale Clone

Hey folks,

I'm getting this brew prepared. I'm brewing sometime tomorrow so I went ahead and ground up the grain bill the night before (today). I'm putting a ton of pics up so please feel free to criticize if your internet speed sucks. I'll cover as much of the brewing as I can tomorrow.

Recipe provided by EvilTOJ (link below).
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f75/mcmenamins-ruby-68755/

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: dry
Yeast Starter: no
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.25
Original Gravity: 1.042
Final Gravity: 1.011
IBU: 19
Boiling Time (Minutes): 90
Color: pink
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 days at 65º
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14 days at 65º

This is a clone of McMenamin's Ruby. McMenamin's is a chain of brewpubs in the greater Portland area.

8.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row)
1.00 oz Hallertauer (60 min)

6.00 lb pulverized raspberries (Boil 5.0 min)

Mash schedule;
Mash in with 2.5 gallons of water at 161º
Drain, then sparge with 3 gallons of water at 180º
Drain, then sparge again with 3 gallons of water at 180º


Picture time!

Super old (40 years or older) Corona Grinder.


Corona Grinder


Pale 2-Row, picture is blurry because of the camera lense


Grain loaded into the grinder.


Quick look at the grain. Not perfect, had to make some adjustments.


Ground Pale 2-Row

Had a one day delay while equipment was being fixed. Had a spigot issue.. Brewing right this moment actually. I love wireless internet..

Collecting some wort! Mashed in at 161 F. Sparged twice at 178-180 F.


Damn this pot is full! Collected 6.75-7 gallons of wort.



Boil is beginning.


One ounce hallertauer hops.


30 minutes into boil, its time for our hop addition. Hoppin' in action!

I'll get some pics of the berry addition, and of the carboy when the wort cools off. Perfect day for brewing, its cloudy, drizzly, and around 40 F.

We got a small boil-over near the start of boil, so I removed a bit of the wort from the boil pot. I am tinkering with the gas now and have it under control, but I haven't done a ton of brewing in a turkey fryer.

The OG called for in this recipe was 1.042, I ended up hitting 1.041-1.042, its hard to see in the picture, but its floating right between the two. So I'm just about dead on so far.

Also the wort in the hydrometer looks much lighter than it really is. Now quite sure why the color is that off... Either way, this recipe is right on track, and I'm very excited about it.

I know I'm post whoring here, but fruit addition comes in 15 minutes.

Raspberry Puree, quite dark looking. I placed as much of it in a grain bag as I could to help catch of the the fruit particles. It did not work very well.


Fruit being added to the boil pot.


Fruit in the pot being boiled. The pot looks terrible because of the small boil over I had earlier.


Wort color after boil. Very hazy. It changes after settling down for a while.

Wort is in the carboy, yeast is pitched, airlock set with vodka. GOOD LORD, this beer is messy!! I can definitely see why people suggest racking to secondary.

Carboy, all ready to go.


Airlock with vodka.


Agitated wort, very cloudy and full of particles. I'll take more pictures as it all settles down.

Hey alright! Another member of the "Fill that turkey pot to the top" club!
That brew looks delicious, nice job! Thanks for the pictures.





Curt

Haha another member!! Glad you liked the pics bro. I wasn't able to control the gas as well as I would have liked, so I did have a small boil over, but ah well I didn't want to waste any of that collected wort. That picture of your boil pot is exactly where I was at today haha!
Lets hope the brew turns out well.

fishkid said:

Hey alright! Another member of the "Fill that turkey pot to the top" club!
That brew looks delicious, nice job! Thanks for the pictures.

Curt

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BlackForestBrewery said:

Haha another member!! Glad you liked the pics bro. I wasn't able to control the gas as well as I would have liked, so I did have a small boil over, but ah well I didn't want to waste any of that collected wort. That picture of your boil pot is exactly where I was at today haha!
Lets hope the brew turns out well.

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I've gotten a lot better with preventing boil overs...One hand on the regulator the other with a spray bottle of water trying to knock the foam down

Make sure to update the thread with a picture of that pint when that bad boy is ready!

I am curious on how the flavor comes out please let us know.

fishkid said:

I've gotten a lot better with preventing boil overs...One hand on the regulator the other with a spray bottle of water trying to knock the foam down

Make sure to update the thread with a picture of that pint when that bad boy is ready!

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Will do bro! Good idea on the spray bottle. I wish I had one handy while I was brewing. I'm getting ready to do an update soon since most of the sediment has settled down. I might wait until fermentation has begun since I've been a bit of a post whore today.

Can't wait to bottle this and see how it turns out.

shamrockdoc said:

I am curious on how the flavor comes out please let us know.

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Will do man. I'll be sure to let you know. The color is already much darker than I imagined. I don't know if the dark colored puree will keep the brew darker, but I'm hoping it gets that nice ''ruby'' color that is found in the original.

Fermentation has begun, less than 24 hours. Used Safale-04 dry yeast. Airlock is quite active, about 3-4 ''ticks'' per second. Will take a few pictures and post them up shortly.

BlackForestBrewery said:

Fermentation has begun, less than 24 hours. Used Safale-04 dry yeast. Airlock is quite active, about 3-4 ''ticks'' per second. Will take a few pictures and post them up shortly.

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DO it DO EEEEEET!

shamrockdoc said:

DO it DO EEEEEET!

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:rockin: OH YEAH FERMENTATION PICTURES!! The pictures are a little dark though.

Is there alot of trub in the bottom? If so how much? a gallon maybe?

shamrockdoc said:

Is there a lot of trub in the bottom? If so how much? a gallon maybe?

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Well it appears to be built up more so on the side facing the camera. I believe a large portion of the build up is fruit particles that are starting to settle. That and trub of course.

My damn SS hose (bottom of Mash tun), came off. It's possible that I might have sucked out more grist/grain than I wanted. I fixed it and cleared the spigot before reattaching it. I don't think very much grist/grain was sucked out, but who knows... it's possible.

To be honest, I had to leave the house soon to pick up my girlfriend from her class, so I cooled the wort and poured it into the fermenter, and ran out the door. I didn't think much of this since it will be going into secondary fermentation. I have to play the lazy brewer card today. I wish my schedule wasn't so busy. See I'm making excuses now.

Airlock activity is slowing down and the kräusen is starting to settle down a bit.

I'll either rack to secondary today or tomorrow. Will take more pictures.

Well a quick update. I've let it sit in primary for 16-17 days. That's quite a bit longer than I've planned but the airlock hasn't dried up or anything and I've often left the brew in primary up to a month before.

I might transfer to secondary tomorrow if I decide to get off my ass and do it. As long as I transfer pretty soon I'll be satisfied. Once I transfer I'll leave it in secondary for a week or two. Everything has settled down really well, and the color is beautiful.

I'll take a gravity reading, and then transfer it over.

Really interested in this, made a half ass clone using extract once and it came out pretty good. I know the mcmenamins brewer at the bend location, been meaning to ask a couple questions on this beer because it would be a great thing to have for the lighter beer drinkers that come over

Elimination said:

Really interested in this, made a half ass clone using extract once and it came out pretty good. I know the mcmenamins brewer at the bend location, been meaning to ask a couple questions on this beer because it would be a great thing to have for the lighter beer drinkers that come over

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I'll be sure to put up all the info on it. It's super easy to brew. Grain bill is about as simple as it gets, and the fruit addition isn't complicated at all. All in all its a really simple brew, and I hope it turns out a lot like the original.

Like you mentioned, it's a great brew for the lighter beer drinkers. I tend to drink IPA's, and stouts mostly but I think this brew will be really refreshing when the weather warms up and I'm out mowing the lawn, BBQing, etc. I'm mainly brewing this for my parents because they lived out in Oregon for about 20 years and always loved this brew.

Still haven't racked this to secondary, but like I mentioned before, I'll get to it soon. Schedule has been really busy lately.

I think I'm going to bottle this brew in 24 ounce swing top bottles. Save a few of the 12 ounce bottles because I know these will get cracked open all the time.

Racked to secondary, and it sure looks/smells wonderful! FG is right where it should be. Gonna bottle it in about a week or two.

It's been bottled. I will post up pictures of bottling soon. Ended up with 38 (16 oz) swing top bottles. I think I got about 4.25 gallons total. Give or take.

Here is the lovely brew, after 30 days in bottle. Still has a way to go on taste (still tastes young), but its really nice, light, refreshing, and the fruit was not overpowering at all. The aroma is wonderful.

Color is hazy and slightly pink as it should be.

Still tastes tart. I cracked another one open and the tartness of the brew overpowers it a little bit, since the brew itself is so light in body. I'm just going to leave it alone in bottle until summer and see how it turns out then.

I've had a lot of good feedback from people who've sampled the brew. My folks love it, but I'm still hoping the tartness mellows out a bit. I will say though, even after 30-40 days in bottle the tartness has mellowed a lot.

I have been thinkingto try this, did you ever solve the tartness?

Not sure if you ever got your answer but I've made an attempt to clone Ruby 4 times and finally am very close. The secret was to drastically lower the amount of fruit. On their website McMenamins says they use 42# of raspberry puree per 210 gallon batch. This works out to be 0.2lb/gal. My last recipe iteration is below. Hope this helps.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1464446230.072826.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1464446243.817657.jpg

Edit: I used S-05 dry yeast, not Nottingham.

I've also been looking at cloning Ruby for my wife. We were at the farmers market and they raspberry selection was too good to pass up.

First, I will be creating a puree, and will be adding a pound per 5 gallons, just like the previous poster mentioned.

Unlike the original poster, I will not be adding the puree to the boil. I will be adding towards the end of fermentation. I chose this option because I will be adding a small amount of table sugar to the puree as it is made, which I want fermented out. I believe that boiling the raspberry's in the boil absolutely would create some bitterness/astringency.

Also, I found this online and will be using it as a guideline.

https://blog.mcmenamins.com/happy-birthday-ruby-ale/

Has anyone attempted freshouj's recipe? Its very close to what i have sitting in my secondary right now.