red ipa?

[bloodysafety]

So I kinda followed a recipie for a partial mash IPA out of the homebrewers book by the dude who started the zymurgy magazine... Anyway maybe im just used to store bought but ive never seen a red ipa. The recipe wasnt very specific outside of hop varieties. And was very confusing to procure as i dont know wtf a lovibond degree is. I ended up letting the clerk pick most of it. He hooked me up with some 2 row to toast and some 15* crystal and the wort was a bright golden color pre boil. after the boil my brew looked more like chocolate milk and now that its clearing its a red-brown. Is this kind of change normal or did I screw the pooch somewhere? Oh and the malt extract (liquid) was pale.

Edit: the recipe called for dry extract and the book said to use 17% more extract if using liquid so I bought a half pound more than it called for and made up the difference with agave syrup. not sure if that's pertinent or not.

 

[TechyDork]

I would think that with 2 row, pale LME and C 15 this would be a pretty light colored beer.

Did you use pale extract or amber extract? The amber is a bit darker and could give you the slightly red color in the carboy, but not that much. The beer always looks darker in the carboy than in the glass. You mentioned your LHBS gave you some 2 row to toast? Did you toast it? If so did it get much darker? That could also change the color of the beer.

Lovibond is the measure of how dark the roast/toast of the malt is. IE Crystal 20 is 20L, Crystal 60 is 60L. The higher the number the darker the malt.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

Well your post is pretty confusing too so lets attack the items that might have happened based on the incomplete and confusing information:

First 15* crystal is crystal toasted to the color of lovibond 15...so first mystery for you solved.

My guess for 5 gallon batch would be that the ferementables where something like this if it really was a partial mash and not an extract plus specialty grains:

3# two row, 1# to be lightly toasted
1# crystal 15
3-4# light DME

So you probably ended up toasting all the two row and possibly for much too long or...
You added all the DME while still applying heat to the wort after the 60 minute mash and scorched the crap out of it...was the pot hard to clean?
Finally, you might just have boiled for 90 minutes because he told you too, in a concentrated boil and significant malliard reaction from boiling all the DME the whole time (plus probably some residual grains) casued what most folks call "carmalization".

IPA's run the gamut these days from traditional British style to AIPA's (West and East Coast) and even a lot of stuff that should not be called IPA's. Red Brown is not out of the question for the style but certainly is not the most common.

 

[bloodysafety]

yeah I toasted it at 350 for 7minutes and it was still light so I let it go for a little longer(less than a minute) untill I got some nice brown hues but still pretty light. Im sure the malt was on the pale side as it had almost no color. Lets see if I can sucessfully get a photo on here. Hopefully that worked. I have it attached but dont know how to get it "inline" and belive me its about 2 shades redder in real life. I have drunk some of it when i was racking and it more or less tastes right..im hoping it will be better after bottling and whatnot. It's just not what I envisioned.

 

[bloodysafety]

lol it went inline by itself! im lovin the forum software!

 

[bloodysafety]

onkel - I guess you were typing as I was. I didnt mean to be confusing im brand new to this and dont know what details are useful. Anyway the origional recipie called for:

5.5 lbs light malt dry extract (I actually used 6 liquid and added about a half pound of agave)
1lb crystal
.5lbs toasted barley malt
2oz northern brewers hops (one oz for the whole 60 minute boil adding the resthalfway through).
.75 oz cascade hops (i rounded up to 1) for the last 1 minute
"American ale" yeast

after the boil my hydrometer said I was a little over 1.060 now 6 days later it is at 1.009 and has said that for the last 3 days but im still seeing yeast rockets....anyhow I hope thats a little less confusing

 

[microbusbrewery]

Color-wise it looks like it'll probably be somewhere between a pale and an amber. As techydork said, it appears much darker in the carboy than it will in your glass. Looks like it will be a tasty brew regardless of color and I think it was a good move to round up the final hop addition to 1 oz.

There are some red IPAs on the market but IMO it's kind of an oxymoron, like black IPAs (black pale ales?). Don't get me wrong, I've really liked all the ones I've tried, I just think it's kind of funny in its contradiction of itself. I can't complain much though, I recently made a golden milk stout.

I think I saw various colors for IPAs listed in the new BJCP style guidelines (2014 or 2015...whatever they're going to call them).

 

[1977Brewer]

Red IPA is a thing. Odell makes one that's delicious. Yours most likely will be much lighter than red, as others have noted.

 

[bloodysafety]

Im currently drinkin the stuff from the transfer now that the yeast has settled out and for being flat an immature its pretty friggin tasty and pretty hoppy considering only using 2oz in 5 gallons. now that I think back on it I did get a scorch mark about the size of a quarter in the bottom of my pot so maybe thats it. Either way it tastes good and I can definitely feel the effects. It looks the same in the glass though. Im sure bottle conditioning and aging will have some kind of effect in that regard. Maybe next time ill hit that golden chill hazed hue I was wanting. Thanks for the info!

 

[Onkel_Udo]

onkel - I guess you were typing as I was. I didnt mean to be confusing im brand new to this and dont know what details are useful. Anyway the origional recipie called for:

5.5 lbs light malt dry extract (I actually used 6 liquid and added about a half pound of agave)
1lb crystal
.5lbs toasted barley malt
2oz northern brewers hops (one oz for the whole 60 minute boil adding the resthalfway through).
.75 oz cascade hops (i rounded up to 1) for the last 1 minute
"American ale" yeast

after the boil my hydrometer said I was a little over 1.060 now 6 days later it is at 1.009 and has said that for the last 3 days but im still seeing yeast rockets....anyhow I hope thats a little less confusing

OK, this is not a partial mash it is an extract plus specialty grains. Not that is matters for color that much, but how did you handle the grains? All in a muslin bag tossed in about 2 gal of cold water and left in until the water hit like 160 f, remove and squeeze?

Even the slight toasting of two row will likely get you to 20-30L. Couple this with a little bit of darkening due to "carmelization" from adding the all LME at the beginning of 60 minute boil and now you could be looking at as much as 8-10 SRM easy. Finally, add the solids still in the wort and the increased "intensity" of the perceived color from the carboy verses a 3" glass...you will be looking a lot darker than you expected. Still likely in the range of a traditional IPA.

So when you thin of an IPA, what the first beer that pops to mind when you commonly buy it at the store...that might help temper your expectations.

 

[bloodysafety]

yeah im not on the up and up as far as the jargon goes onkel. I had the grains crushed at the store. After toasting the 2row I did combine it all in a bag. I waited till the water (1.5gallons as per recipe)was about 160 and then I added the bag. I let this steep for 36 minutes keeping the temps between 150 and 160. Then I poured an addition 1.5 gallons of 160ish water over the drained grain bag in an attempt to get all the goodies out. Just before the water started boiling I added the extract and agave and stirred the piss out of it. I continued to stir it regularly during the hour long boil during which time my hop bag exploded. Before pouring this into the cold water in the fermenter I poured hot water over the grains again for good measure. about a half gallon. After all that I topped it up to the 5 gallon mark with more cold water.

Any way whats the difference between just using specialty grains and mashing? Dont they both convert starch into sugar? I seem to be missing the core concept of what you are trying to say.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

Any way whats the difference between just using specialty grains and mashing? Dont they both convert starch into sugar? I seem to be missing the core concept of what you are trying to say.

Specialty grains are really just to add color and flavor but often add a bit of fermentables...with you method, likely a reasonable amount. Partial mash is more along the line of about half your ferementables come from grains...mostly a base grain...that are mashed for a specified time, etc, etc to convert unferementable sugars into simple sugars.

Outside of possibly having the wrong LME (if they gave you amber), the only two things that you might have done differently was sticking to the toasting schedule (not much of an impact) and adding only 1# for the LMe at the start of the boil and the rest at flame-out.

Relax, when the suspended solids drop and the you get it into a normal glass, it will only be somewhat darker than you expected. Besides, will likely taste just fine!

 

[bloodysafety]

thanks for the explanation. Im going back to that shop today to get more stuff to make beer with. Ill look up wtf flameout is and try your recommendation this time.

EDIT. flame out means to turn off the heat dosent it. :doh:

 

[bloodysafety]

one last quick question and then well call this thread quits. If I make the sameish recipie can I just dump my yeast from the last batch in it? Or is that just dumb.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

EDIT. flame out means to turn off the heat dosent it. :doh:

Yep.

FYI, consider that the recipe you described is a more traditional English IPA. Want a West Cost Hop aroma bomb...add and equal amount of "aroma" hops as a dry hop. This is just tossing them in the ferementor after you have feremented for about 7-10 days and leaving them for 5-7 days before bottling.

 

[bloodysafety]

Yep.

FYI, consider that the recipe you described is a more traditional English IPA. Want a West Cost Hop aroma bomb...add and equal amount of "aroma" hops as a dry hop. This is just tossing them in the ferementor after you have feremented for about 7-10 days and leaving them for 5-7 days before bottling.

lol the more i read here the more I realize that the book i went must be dated or something Thanks again! Maybe if I get it right this time ill put up a pic or something.

 

[TechyDork]

thanks for the explanation. Im going back to that shop today to get more stuff to make beer with. Ill look up wtf flameout is and try your recommendation this time.

EDIT. flame out means to turn off the heat dosent it. :doh:

Flameout means at the end of the boil. So after 60 minutes you turn the "flameout." Generally this is when a lot of extract brewers would want to add the majority of the DME, dry malt extract, or LME, liquid malt extract.

When i was doing extract I would add it all just prior to the boil, but i would turn off the flame, or dial it way down while i was adding the extract. I never noticed a problem with scorching this way YMMV.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

Flameout means at the end of the boil. So after 60 minutes you turn the "flameout." Generally this is when a lot of extract brewers would want to add the majority of the DME, dry malt extract, or LME, liquid malt extract.

When i was doing extract I would add it all just prior to the boil, but i would turn off the flame, or dial it way down while i was adding the extract. I never noticed a problem with scorching this way YMMV.

Actually flameout means at the end of the boil when you will not supply ANY more heat. With LME, the wort will darken considerably (some perceive this more than others) with partial boils if you add all the LME for the full boil...just adding a # or so accomplishes everything you need for hop utilization and the rest gets "sanitized" at the end when you kill the heat for good.

 

[TechyDork]

Actually flameout means at the end of the boil when you will not supply ANY more heat. With LME, the wort will darken considerably (some perceive this more than others) with partial boils if you add all the LME for the full boil...just adding a # or so accomplishes everything you need for hop utilization and the rest gets "sanitized" at the end when you kill the heat for good.

True that flameout means at the end of the boil when no heat will be applied. I was just over simplifying.

I agree that adding it all can/does lead to slightly darker wort, but adding all at once worked for me when I was brewing with LME. I never brewed the same batch twice using both methods of adding LME to compare, but I was always happy with the results and at the time the kits i was using told me to add it all at once.

 

[bloodysafety]

well guys I got through my first bottling. Glad I decided to use my brew-pot as a catch pan because my bottling wand leaks badly. Any how I made another batch using the same recipe. This time though, I didn't toast the 2 row for as long (3vs7minutes) and only added some of the extract right before the boil. This batch looks much lighter and seems to be fermenting more vigorously. It blew its tube out twice I think maybe a shorter run of tubing is in order next time.

Thanks again for the advise.

 

[TechyDork]

well guys I got through my first bottling. Glad I decided to use my brew-pot as a catch pan because my bottling wand leaks badly. Any how I made another batch using the same recipe. This time though, I didn't toast the 2 row for as long (3vs7minutes) and only added some of the extract right before the boil. This batch looks much lighter and seems to be fermenting more vigorously. It blew its tube out twice I think maybe a shorter run of tubing is in order next time.

Thanks again for the advise.

Great idea brewing it again right away and tweaking your process a bit. It should give you a pretty good idea of how those changes will alter the finished product.

Update us when you have a chance to try them both side by side.