Imperial Red Ale Advice

[kyt]

My last couple batches that I've tried to make red have failed.
I made the American Amber Ale from How to Brew, and my attempts to make it a little more red just made it a tad more brown.
Then I tried to alter the BeerSmith Dry Stout to make it less dark and more red, like a Guinness Red Harvest clone, with some Carared. I think it still had way too much black malt and it wasn't red at all, just dark. Tastes good, it's just not what I was wanting to end up with.

So, next I want to try making some thing very red. Then maybe I can translate that later to remake my failures. Obviously using red has escaped me thus far.

Here's what I have currently; what would you alter about it, and what would you expect the difference to be? This is meant to be a drinkable learning experience.

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Imperial Red Ale 20L
Brewer: KYT
Asst Brewer: 
Style: Imperial Red Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0) 

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 22.69 l
Post Boil Volume: 20.80 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 20.00 l   
Bottling Volume: 18.00 l
Estimated OG: 22.55 Plato
Estimated Color: 15.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 59.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                         %/IBU         
25.24 l     Distilled Water                          -             
6.500 kg    Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)         76.5 %        
1.000 kg    Carared (20.0 SRM)                     11.8 %        
0.500 kg    Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)   5.9 %         
0.200 kg    Oats, Flaked (Briess) (1.4 SRM)         2.4 %         
0.200 kg    Rye Malt (4.7 SRM)                      2.4 %         
0.100 kg    Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM)   1.2 %         

28.0 g       Galena [12.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min      32.6 IBUs     
28.0 g       Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min      26.0 IBUs     
28.0 g       Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 1.0 min     0.6 IBUs      

1.0 pkg      American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056)

 

[jayway]

Carared is just another type of crystal if I'm not mistaken, so that would come 20% of your grain bill as crystal malts. Seems like it would come out candy sweet to me but I've never used carared. I made a red rye IPA that turned out nice and red, I'll have to look at my recipe when I'm home but I remember using 2 oz of roasted barley I threw in at mash out. I think that did the trick to get the deep red color.

 

[plankbr]

Red X Malt

 

[kyt]

Carared is just another type of crystal if I'm not mistaken, so that would come 20% of your grain bill as crystal malts. Seems like it would come out candy sweet to me but I've never used carared. I made a red rye IPA that turned out nice and red, I'll have to look at my recipe when I'm home but I remember using 2 oz of roasted barley I threw in at mash out. I think that did the trick to get the deep red color.

I called down to my LHBS just a minute a go to see what they even had that I could use. He was saying I should swap out the rye malt for something else because it would take too much of it to get a good red, that it may be too much rye flavor for the style.

From what's listed in the OP, I took out the oats, the rye and the crystal 80.
Then added 50g of roasted barley.
It bumped the estimated color up to 16.3 SRM

 

[Brewmex41]

Red X Malt

+1 to this.

 

[DylanTO]

This one is very red:

http://wiki.homebrewersassociation.org/WestCoastBlaster

 

[kyt]

I Don't think my LHBS carries Red X. I'll look for it when I go in this weekend.
I'll be picking up supplies to make 20L of oatmeal raisin ale, I'll get some stuff to make a test batch of this.

If they have the Red X, how much of it do I need to use?
Replace the 1kg of Carared with Red X? Still need the roasted barley?