Red Ale

[SurlyLeprechaun]

I'm making a red ale for a friend and was looking for a bit of help with the recipe since i've never brewed this style before.

Recipe:

size-1gallon (it's just a test batch so i'm keeping it small)

Grains
½ lb (227g) British Pale
¼ lb (113g) Vienna
¼ lb (113g) light crystal
1oz (7g) cara-pils
1 oz (28g) roasted barley or chocolate malt

hops
60min- .125oz Willamette
45min-.125oz Willamette

i haven't decided on a yeast yet but i'll probably just be using a dry yeast

my friend's kind of a light weight so i'm trying to keep it between 3% & 4%abv

 

[PhlyanPan]

Do you have experience doing 1 gallon test batches? I've tried it and not had it go well.

Basically it took just as long to do a 1 gallon as it did a full batch and I only got like 8 beers out of it. And it didn't really taste right. I would have rather done a full batch and dumped the beer if I didn't like it (which I never would do, I'd drink it anyway).

 

[SurlyLeprechaun]

Yeah, I just finished a one gallon batch of an imperial stout that came out awesome.

 

[Bittertooth]

Seems like your proportions might be off. Do you mean 1/4 oz cara pils? Also, I would bump up the percentage of two-row. Color now might be a deep mahogany, and your ABV is going to be light.

 

[SurlyLeprechaun]

Thanks, my main concern is the amount of cara-pils and roasted barley. I've never used cara-pils before and I'm worried about the roasted barley being over powering. I think I might not use the cara-pils at all and reduce the amount of roasted barley to either .5oz or .25oz. I'm trying to keep the abv low because my friend likes red ale but he has a really low alcohol tolerance and I wanna brew him somthing he can drink casually without getting too intoxicated.