Last minute change up...

[Blitzkrieg]

Well I'm on the middle of my second all grain brew day and had to make a recipe change. I went to grind my grains and found that they shorted me a lb of crystal 80 on my last order... So instead of 2 lbs of crystal 80 I had to improvise with 1lb of English brown malt that I had reserved for my next batch...

It's an Irish red ale and was supposed to be 10lbs 2 row, 2 lbs crystal 80. Now it's 10lbs 2 row, 1lb crystal 80, 1lb brown. I ran it through brewers friend before crushing the grains and it seemed ok... But now that I've reached the boil it looks quite a bit darker than I was hoping.

Is this still going to be an Irish red ale? I'm only going to add 1oz of hallertauer at 60 mins so it should be light on the bitterness and aroma...

 

[brewkinger]

When you say brewers friend looked OK, what do you mean?

That brown malt is gonna add much more color and other flavor characteristics per pound than the 80L crystal.

It might be more of an Irish darker red Ale


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[Blitzkrieg]

I was just going by the SRM approximation in brewers friend... I've no idea how to formulate beers based on flavor and such. I just went with what I had... OG turned out spot on if that means anything, 22L at 1.060. Was planning on 23L but I decided to leave a bit in the kettle as it started looking pretty scummy.

 

[brewkinger]

The OG would not have varied much because your 2 row amounts are the same in both.
The crystal and brown add flavor, color and body characteristics BUT not much in the way of fermentables.

The beer will be fine, it will most likely be darker and maybe a little maltier than expected, but drinkable nonetheless.
Maybe dry hop it a little to balance the flavor out.
Or leave it alone and maybe it will be one of your best yet!

Edit: I wanted to add that even if it looks a little scummy, dump it all in the fermenter, it will all settle out anyway.


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[JohnSand]

I've made two "reds" that had to be held up to a light to see any light through them. But both were really good. If it ends up too dark, call it a porter.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Haha sounds good, anyway fermentation kicked off in about 4 hours and within 24 hours it had a 6" krausen which has since dropped off. With a flashlight held up against the semi opaque fermenter it does have a somewhat red hue, so maybe I'll be alright. I also did the calculation and looks like this one was 82% brew house efficiency, a slight drop from my last one but then Again the volume estimate on my last could have been wrong, I now have fermenters with graduated marking.

 

[JohnSand]

Good. Please post the final result.