All grain at one time?

[Brewster42]

Hey guys; I’m new here and this is my first post. If this is posted in the wrong spot I apologize.

my question is, do you add all your grains at one time for the steeping process? For example, I was making an Irish red ale the other day. It came out dark, dark brown. The kit had the usual base malt, but it had 3 or 4 packs of darker malts (200L, 400L etc) in 1lb quantities. Do you add the base malt first, then add these malts in later for less steeping time for the color effect?

ex:
base malt 10lbs add at 60 min
add darker malts 30 mins in before sparging? Or was I right to add all of them at one time for the whole 60min process?

sorry if this was confusing, but thanks for the help in advance

 

[Dland]

Usually all grains go into mash at the same time. But the exception is with those darker malts, sometimes these are added to the mash in the last 10 minutes or so to avoid bitterness and because their sugars were already mostly converted during kilning.

 

[Brewster42]

Gotcha. Is there a rule to go off of to determine which ones go in later? Like anything over 200L set aside for the last 10 mins or is that something I’ll just have to experiment with? I’m using a robobrew Incase that matters at all

 

[McKnuckle]

Even though Dland is correct in describing the late mash option for dark roasted malts, that's really an advanced technique - and it's definitely not necessary. It is absolutely typical and fine to mash all grains at once.

The problem here is with 1 lb quantities of very dark malts in the recipe. Is this a 5 gallon recipe? Dark roasted malt in the 400L range should be a much smaller percentage of the grist, especially for a red colored beer. Perhaps you can provide the recipe here, including malts and weights/percentages.

 

[Brewster42]

Hey McKnuckle,

yes it was a 5 gallon batch. I tossed the packages already but this is what is listed on my order sheet:

10lbs 2 row base

1LB crystal 120L

8oz chateau monastique

8oz caramunich

2oz black roasted

2oz special B


I apologize about the weight, I had a milk stout going at the same time and got them mixed up. The beer tastes great don’t get me wrong, I was just super disappointed to see it mud water brown, not even close to any shade of red at all. I figured it has to be something I did wrong. I tossed in a clarifier tab the last 5 mins of the boil. Could it have been my mistake of adding a whole tab of clarifier instead of half? OG was 1.058 and fermented down to 1.015

 

[McKnuckle]

Honestly, I don't think you did anything wrong. I plugged this recipe into my tools and it comes out to a color of about 21 SRM, depending on the exact malts used. Maybe that's somebody's idea of red, but it's solidly at the far end of anything remotely resembling red, leading into brown. A real red is going to be closer to 15-16 or so.

The clarifier - Whirlfloc most likely - would have no effect on this.

 

[Brewster42]

Yessir it was whirlfloc. Thanks for the help as well. Would you happen to have an Irish ale recipe that you know will come out deep amber red that you could share? Or do you have any tweeks on that recipe to maybe get the amber color?

 

[Wayne1]

Use 100% Red X malt from Bestmalz

https://bestmalz.de/en/malts/best-red-x

Depending on your efficiency, shoot for 12 degrees Plato 1.048 SG and you should get a 12 SRM color.

 

[Brewster42]

Use 100% Red X malt from Bestmalz

https://bestmalz.de/en/malts/best-red-x

Depending on your efficiency, shoot for 12 degrees Plato 1.048 SG and you should get a 12 SRM color.

Thanks for the help! Sorry for the late reply.

 

[camonick]

Hey McKnuckle,

yes it was a 5 gallon batch. I tossed the packages already but this is what is listed on my order sheet:

10lbs 2 row base

1LB crystal 120L

8oz chateau monastique

8oz caramunich

2oz black roasted

2oz special B


I apologize about the weight, I had a milk stout going at the same time and got them mixed up. The beer tastes great don’t get me wrong, I was just super disappointed to see it mud water brown, not even close to any shade of red at all. I figured it has to be something I did wrong. I tossed in a clarifier tab the last 5 mins of the boil. Could it have been my mistake of adding a whole tab of clarifier instead of half? OG was 1.058 and fermented down to 1.015

I know from that ingredient list that that is the Irish red ale kit from MoreBeer (I just did that exact recipe myself). When you say muddy brown, is that what you’re seeing in your fermenter? This is a hydrometer sample of my batch and is a beautiful red color in good light.
Sláinte

 

[Brewster42]

Yep! That’s the kit just the all grain version. Yours came out great! Unfortunately no, when I poured it from the kegerator it looked looked like the Mississippi River after a storm

 

[camonick]

Yep! That’s the kit just the all grain version. Yours came out great! Unfortunately no, when I poured it from the kegerator it looked looked like the Mississippi River after a storm

That’s too bad that it doesn’t look good. Maybe some time to lager in the keg will help it clear.