grain bill for bright red belgian wit?

[aangel]

Hey all, I'm trying for a beer that resembles my basic Belgian wit recipe (50/50 pale & wheat, coriander, orange peel) but is brightly red colored. I don't really want to change the flavor much - the point of this is to confuse the taste buds and not actually create something with a different taste.

I'm wondering if subbing RedX malt for the two-row would suffice. I see that at 1.044OG it gives me about an SRM of 12. Is this sufficient? Or should I switch the wheat for caramel wheat or add some midnight wheat for extra darkness? I'm searching for a bright, unmistakable red color.

On my kegerator in about a month I'm hoping to have "blue moon", "red moon", "black moon", and "moon moon", respectively belgian wit, red wit, black wit, and a picture of a derpy husky. Gonna try to have one of those blind taste tests to demonstrate just how much flavor expectation matters.

 

[Weezy]

Using red x or Munich or something like that is going to have a significant flavor impact due to you having to use so much of it to get the right color. I'd consider using a debittered black malt in just enough quantity to get to whatever SRM you want (16ish?).

 

[aangel]

Ok, with that in mind I guess what I'll do is add enough to the mash for the lighter end of amber and then start adding more to get the exact color I want. If I recall correctly, wort pre-ferment is usually slightly darker than the end product, right?

 

[dstockwell]

Maybe CaraRed, or Simpsons Dark Crystal, or both.

 

[jmark]

You could potentially use a couple of beets... shred them and add after primary fermentation has ended... beets will provide a bit more sugar for the yeast to consume and shouldn't have a huge effect on flavor (they're kind of earthy) if you only use a small amount. The color can be quite dramatic!

 

[z-bob]

Use hibiscus to acidify the mash and sparge water? And a little Midnight wheat malt to darken it.

 

[aangel]

Use hibiscus to acidify the mash and sparge water? And a little Midnight wheat malt to darken it.

While I do love hibiscus for its floral tartness, I'm mostly trying to get red appearance without any change to the underlying flavor. If all else fails, I may try food coloring...though that'd be a lot of food coloring for a batch.

 

[Grod1]

i second the hibiscus (Jamaican sorrel) just a few grams will impart much color in the beer with little flavor.
i have used as much as 3# of carared in a 3 gallon batch. The beer was not red.

 

[Weezy]

Ok, with that in mind I guess what I'll do is add enough to the mash for the lighter end of amber and then start adding more to get the exact color I want. If I recall correctly, wort pre-ferment is usually slightly darker than the end product, right?

The end of mash/preboil color is pretty close to the beer color. You can certainly add crushed blackprintz or midnight wheat neat the end of the mash to add just color.

 

[bolus14]

I would 3rd the hibiscus idea. I just made a hibiscus/lime Wit that is bright red, don't have a pic at the moment but could get you one if you'd like. I "dry hopped" the hibiscus because i wanted the flavor, but I would think that if you put it in the mash or early in the boil you'll lose all or most of the aromatics and flavors with it being boiled for 60 min.