Do you think the color will be too light on this one? (Imperial Red)

[Beehemel]

So here's my recipe, wanted to make a big hoppy red beer for St. Patty's day:

10lb Extra Light Dry Extract
8 oz Crystal 60
4 oz Caramunich
3 oz Roasted Barley

3 oz Simcoe @ 60 min
1 oz Simcoe @10 min
1 oz Cascade @ 10 min
1 oz Centennial @ 10 min
1 oz Simcoe Dry hop
1 oz Cascade Dry hop
1 oz Centennial Dry hop

Wyeast Irish Ale yeast

5 gallon batch
OG (estimated by Brewtarget): 1.092
FG (again, estimated): 1.025
SRM 14 (estimat....oh you get it by now)

My questions are as follows
1. will this be too light in color?
2. Should I add more grains?
3. Will this combo of grains give me a red color?

Any insight is appreciated!

 

[bigdug]

Wow I entered most of this recipie in Beersmith and and it came up with 134 IBUs that is a lotta hopps even with out the dry hop. The color is 16.6 so that is in style for an Irish red. ABV comes in at 8.64%. I hop you like it really hoppy

 

[Beehemel]

Oh yeah, I love it hoppy, Brewtarget puts it at 135.3, but some of the AA% are a little lower than the hops I got from Austin homebrew (NTTAWWT). I figured with the higher FG, I would hop it up real good.

 

[RiverCityBrewer]

14 SRM sounds about right, style guidelines put an Irish Red at 9-18 SRM. The crystal 60 and caramunich should put a nice copper tint in the beer... looks tasty to me!

 

[Beehemel]

You think this is a good combo for "red" beer though? I was going to use Crystal 80, but couldn't get any in time. I'm going to be brewing this on Sunday, so I guess there's not much time to change the recipe, but we'll see how it comes out.

 

[Rushis]

14 SRM sounds about right, style guidelines put an Irish Red at 9-18 SRM. The crystal 60 and caramunich should put a nice copper tint in the beer... looks tasty to me!

Won't the roasted barley be the dominate color component in that recipe with a 500L?

 

[Beehemel]

Won't the roasted barley be the dominate color component in that recipe with a 500L?

There's only 3oz, 1/3 of the total grains, plus there will be some light color from the DME. Many red beers use a tad bit of dark grains to get an added dimension to the color. If it overpowers the rest, then I guess I'll come up with a new name for it!

 

[Rushis]

I understand your recipe choice, I was questioning RiverCityBrewers comment on the Crystal 60 and Caramunich contributing in a significant way to the color profile. The roasted barley, being the darkest grain by a factor of 10, should provide the bulk of the coloring. Unless there is something I am misunderstanding about the use of highly roasted specialty grains for coloring.

I am of course only commenting on color contributions, each grain will provide it's own relevant flavor contribution.

Your recipe is very similar to what I used for my first irish red (with 1/5th the IBU's and 1/2 the DME). The color was a little light for my liking but it fit well within the style guidelines. I finally got the deep beautiful red color I was looking for from a minor modification of this irish red recipe.

 

[RiverCityBrewer]

You are probably correct that the roasted barley does add a majority of the total color. What I should have inferred in my comment is that while all 3 grains will determine the final color, the ratios of the caramunich and the crystal 60 are really the ones that can be adjusted quite a bit without without a single malt dominating the flavor profile of the beer.