Red X Malt

[thaymond]

This malt is beautiful. It's malty, but it isn't overwhelming like a 100% Munich ale/lager. I used it in a blood red ale, 10 lbs red x, 1lb Maris Otter, 4oz. C120. It is amazing. Lots of people said that it was delicious and complex.

As for the red color, I'm sure the C120 plays a major part in it. But it is seriously delicious.

When I formulated the recipe, I read somewhere that it is a 9:1 ratio of Munich 10 and melanoiden, so that's what I used.

View attachment 1433503938431.jpg

 

[JINKS]

13# Red X and 1oz Cascade today, we'll see in a month or two.

 

[wobdee]

Nice, I'm still waiting to taste my Red X lager, its going to be a couple weeks.

 

[wobdee]

Here's a pic of my latest red X lager. 100% red X with a few ounces of carafoam. OG 1.052. It's hard to get a good clear picture with the glass instantly condescending but believe me it's a real nice color with a nice malty taste. I think I also get a hint of caramel.

 

[JINKS]

Here's a pic of my latest red X lager. 100% red X with a few ounces of carafoam. OG 1.052. It's hard to get a good clear picture with the glass instantly condescending but believe me it's a real nice color with a nice malty taste. I think I also get a hint of caramel.

That beautiful, cripes I can't hardly wait for mine to finish.

 

[JordanKnudson]

Here's a pic of my latest red X lager. 100% red X with a few ounces of carafoam. OG 1.052. It's hard to get a good clear picture with the glass instantly condescending but believe me it's a real nice color with a nice malty taste. I think I also get a hint of caramel.

Haha! Just as you try to snap the pic, the glass says something absolutely withering about your photography skills...

Seriously, though, that beer is beautiful!!!

 

[te-wa]

a condescending glass is soon left in the goodwill bin. i prefer jolly or welcoming. ha!

 

[ajdelange]

Here's a pic of my latest red X lager. 100% red X with a few ounces of carafoam. OG 1.052. It's hard to get a good clear picture with the glass instantly condescending but believe me it's a real nice color with a nice malty taste. I think I also get a hint of caramel.

The pic is lovely but remember that a lot of the color it shows is injected by the camera in order to provide a jpeg with 'Kodak moment' or Velvia liveliness. If you want a more realistic rendering of what it actually looks like convert the .NEF version of the picture into a jpeg without boosting saturation.

Also keep in mind that beers made with this malt are no redder than others made with ordinary malt of the same SRM.

 

[wobdee]

The pic is lovely but remember that a lot of the color it shows is injected by the camera in order to provide a jpeg with 'Kodak moment' or Velvia liveliness. If you want a more realistic rendering of what it actually looks like convert the .NEF version of the picture into a jpeg without boosting saturation.

Also keep in mind that beers made with this malt are no redder than others made with ordinary malt of the same SRM.

Problem is we don't know the exact blend of malts used in Red X. According to Brewers Friend this recipe hits 11.69 SRM but I've brewed other beers in that range and they don't seem to have that redness, they seem more copper colored.

 

[ajdelange]

Problem is we don't know the exact blend of malts used in Red X. According to Brewers Friend this recipe hits 11.69 SRM but I've brewed other beers in that range and they don't seem to have that redness, they seem more copper colored.

The key word is 'seem'. Spectrographic analysis of beer and wort made with Red - X show that it is not appreciably different from other beers of the same SRM. See #143 on page 15

 

[brisboy]

I've got one on at the moment which is 1 kg of Heidleburg (Kolsch), 500 g red x and 10 g of roasted barley for an SRM of 13.4 (assuming that red x is 9:1 Dark Munich and Melanoidin) along with Horizon and Summer hops. Really looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

 

[tracyk]

I have used it in an Irish Red Ale and it came out a nice deep dark red. Perfect for this style of beer. Replaced half of the Pale Ale with RedX and it came out to 17.1 SRM.

 

[JINKS]

Bottled yesterday, now the conditioning phase begins.
Bottled at 35 degrees (3 week cold crash) so I will add an extra week to condition.

 

[JINKS]

Had a few problems with my first BiaB so this beer didn't turn out as wonderful as I had hoped. Tastes good but cloudy so no picture. Will try again when I get the process down.

 

[wobdee]

95% red X 5% caramunich III. I got another similar recipe lagering but I stuck in about 10% Pilsner to lighten it up a bit. This one is just a bit too sweet but very good.

View attachment 1440629753298.jpg

 

[RRJLind]

10 lbs red x
2 cups of sugar (to dry out the sweetness)
Ctz and mosaic @ first wort/20/8/dry hop, its been called red mon man (new glarus moon man)
Great beer, make it twice a year witty bry 97 west coast yeast

 

[wobdee]

A local brewery told me his malt rep said Red X was a malting mistake and it took them a year to duplicate it. Said it was a single malt, not blended.

 

[JINKS]

OK must have had a bad bottle. This is from a "palla" growler that I conditioned in.

 

[wobdee]

Received a reply from Best Malz. I asked if Red X was a blend or not.

thank you for your friendly Email with the pleasing feedback to our BEST Red X®.

*

I would like to ask for your kind understanding that I am not allowed to reveal all the detailed secrets of this innovative craft malt. But you can be absolutely sure, that it is far more than a simple blend of 2-3 conventional malt types. We have developed this type during several months with our experts and by conducting also very intensive trials in partnership with several chummy brewers (using very different brewhouses, batch-sizes and technologies of brewing) to verify the results (of getting out excellent reddish beers with the utmost probability). ***

*

So the mentioned rumors are what they are: only rumors, maybe released by competitive maltsters in the market, who are not able to offer such products (and who may be a bit jealous about it?). **

*

So thank you for your understanding and for using our products, don´t hesitate to ask for any further information.

*

All the BEST for your further brews and

*

Best regards

BESTMALZ AG

 

[jturkish]

I'm formulating a ten gallon aipa recipe and want a little red color to it

Right now it has 8oz melanoidin and 4oz midnight wheat to give most of its color. Wondering if I should use red x instead of melanoidin.

Rest of the grain bill is 72.7% two row

16.2% Vienna

8.1% flaked barley

I'm shooting for 70 ibu with galaxy, citra, Amarillo

 

[MXDXD]

I just brewed a SMASH with it, using WLP029.

OG 1.051 --> FG 1.019.

A bit scared honestly. It accidentally fermented a little too cold (+- 60F, probably a bit below), thus it might have had an effect on attenuation, but I ramped up to +-65F after a week and a half. I never had bottle bombs, but this one is a candidate for my first (in 40 batches).

Or is it possible that this malt is quite dextrinous?

 

[slym2none]

It certainly lives up to its promise of fiery, reddish colored beer. If you want to get red color without the use of crystal or roasted malts, this does a great job. However, my only problem with it is that it has a rather malty flavor - almost like an aromatic malt - and doesn't do so well with beers where you want a lot of hop aroma/flavor. I found its inclusion in our red IPA to mostly be a distraction from the hops. Other than that, its neat stuff. A red wheat beer sounds pretty cool.

@bierhaus15 - what percentage of Red X would you use in an IPA recipe to keep the nice, red colour but (in your opinion) would not be a "distraction" from the hops?

 

[GurraG]

I just brewed a SMASH with it, using WLP029.

OG 1.051 --> FG 1.019.

A bit scared honestly. It accidentally fermented a little too cold (+- 60F, probably a bit below), thus it might have had an effect on attenuation, but I ramped up to +-65F after a week and a half. I never had bottle bombs, but this one is a candidate for my first (in 40 batches).

Or is it possible that this malt is quite dextrinous?

I made a beer with 95% red x and 5% carared, fermented with Safale K-97. It had 69% apparent attenuation, which I thought was on the low side. After searching a bit I found a site where several underattenuated batches of red x beer was mentioned, and they suggested a step mash to make the wort as fermentable as possible.
https://nationalhomebrew.com.au/brewers-blog/brewing-with-red-x

 

[bierhaus15]

@bierhaus15 - what percentage of Red X would you use in an IPA recipe to keep the nice, red colour but (in your opinion) would not be a "distraction" from the hops?

Stone just did a 100% red x IPA and I thought it was pretty good. Not crazy hoppy and did have some of that melanoiden character. I wouldn't see an issue doing a 100% red x ipa, so long as you omit caramel malts and adjust hopping.

That said, I still prefer using a small amount of debittered malt to get red color without flavor. Midnight wheat is great for that.

 

[slym2none]

I am looking at a grain bill of around 80% Red X and 20% rye, with 6 oz of hops total, for a 2.5G batch. Columbus, Amarillo, and some experimental hops I have.

I am just going to go for it, and hope for the best.

Thanks for your reply!

 

[ajdelange]

I was pulling dead soldiers out of the cooler for cleaning and when I grabbed one it didn't move easily because it wasn't empty, it was full of the 'Pils' I did with about 5/8 redex. It had sat in the back of the cooler for, must be, over 2 yrs forgotten. Man, what a good beer it is! What's surprising is that the hops quality hasn't faded totally away. So there it is. Lager your Redex beer for over 2 yrs!

 

[Beer-lord]

Here's what I've put together that I'm brewing this weekend. Small things may change but I've not brewed with RedX yet nor Equinox so I'm looking forward to seeing how this comes out. I really don't have any idea but it will be beer and I will drink it. I was going to keep it simple but just decided to F(*& it and go for it.



BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: El Rojo Incognito
Brewer: Paul
Asst Brewer:
Style: American IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.26 gal
Post Boil Volume: 6.76 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 6.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.055 SG
Estimated Color: 14.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 59.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 76.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 82.3 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
10 lbs RedX (BestMälz) (15.2 SRM) Grain 1 82.0 %
1 lbs Borlander Munich Malt (Briess) (10.0 SRM Grain 2 8.2 %
8.0 oz Carapils (Briess) (1.5 SRM) Grain 3 4.1 %
8.0 oz Vienna Malt (Briess) (3.5 SRM) Grain 4 4.1 %
3.0 oz Honey Malt (Gambrinus) (25.0 SRM) Grain 5 1.6 %
0.50 oz Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 21.9 IBUs
1.00 oz Azacca [12.20 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 7 17.7 IBUs
1.00 oz Equinox (HBC 366) [15.00 %] - Boil 10.0 Hop 8 15.9 IBUs
0.50 oz Equinox (HBC 366) [15.00 %] - Boil 5.0 m Hop 9 4.4 IBUs
1.00 oz Equinox (HBC 366) [15.00 %] - Steep/Whir Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpoo Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [35. Yeast 13 -
2.00 oz Equinox (HBC 366) [15.00 %] - Dry Hop 5. Hop 14 0.0 IBUs
2.00 oz Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Da Hop 15 0.0 IBUs


Mash Schedule: BIAB, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 12 lbs 3.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Saccharification Add 33.61 qt of water at 160.0 F 152.1 F 75 min
Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 7 min 168.0 F 10 min

 

[JordanKnudson]

Here's what I've put together that I'm brewing this weekend. Small things may change but I've not brewed with RedX yet nor Equinox so I'm looking forward to seeing how this comes out. I really don't have any idea but it will be beer and I will drink it. I was going to keep it simple but just decided to F(*& it and go for it.

.....

Has this finished yet? If so, how'd it turn out? The recipe sounds fun!

 

[Beer-lord]

Has this finished yet? If so, how'd it turn out? The recipe sounds fun!

Yes, it's done. It's nice but different and I definitely see how people can suggest going easy on the Equinox hops as I do get a somewhat, green pepper flavor though not bad. My next brew using Red X malt will definitely feature more 'normal' hops.

Red X gives this a more balanced malt flavor and feel. I think the Equinox hops might not be the best match with this malt. While this is definitely enjoyable, I'm not a fan of those hops in this beer so I've added some Citra and Amarillo to the keg for a few days to take away some of the green pepper. As I said, it's not overwhelming but enough that it is noticeable.
Friends really like this beer and like the fact that its different.

 

[wobdee]

Are you guys seeing low attenuation with this malt? I can't seem to get under 1.014-1.016.

I posed this question to Best and they said it should be similar to their other malts but maybe a tad higher FG. They also stated this years crop has a higher gelatinization temp and to make sure your sacc rest is at least 65°c. A recipe they sent me had a very long step mash with a single decoction in it. Maybe this malt just requires a little more work?

 

[dstockwell]

I could not get below 1.020, I know I didn't mash to high, or too much specialty. Even tried pitching more yeast after five days and still finished @ 1.020. It's not fully carbed yet but still tastes fine.

 

[wobdee]

Last batch I went 40 min at 143 and 40 min at 161 and ended up at 1.015.

The recipe they sent me had dough in at 118 for 20, a 30 min rest at 126 then a long rest at 149 for about 80 min along with a decoction of 10% of the mash to bring it up to 158 for another 20 min.

I think that may be overkill. I may go with doughing in at 118 then slowly ramping up to 149 and resting for 60 then another rest at 158 for 30 min.

 

[kh54s10]

Are you guys seeing low attenuation with this malt? I can't seem to get under 1.014-1.016.

I posed this question to Best and they said it should be similar to their other malts but maybe a tad higher FG. They also stated this years crop has a higher gelatinization temp and to make sure your sacc rest is at least 65°c. A recipe they sent me had a very long step mash with a single decoction in it. Maybe this malt just requires a little more work?

How low do you expect the attenuation to go? 1.014 -1.016 is about my average FG. How low it goes also is dependent on what yeast you use.

I don't know what percentage of Red X I have used, but I have not noticed any attenuation problems. But then again an FG in that range would not even get my attention.

 

[dstockwell]

The recipe they sent me had dough in at 118 for 20, a 30 min rest at 126 then a long rest at 149 for about 80 min along with a decoction of 10% of the mash to bring it up to 158 for another 20 min.

WOW, don't think I would want to go through that...

 

[wobdee]

How low do you expect the attenuation to go? 1.014 -1.016 is about my average FG. How low it goes also is dependent on what yeast you use.

I don't know what percentage of Red X I have used, but I have not noticed any attenuation problems. But then again an FG in that range would not even get my attention.

I want to dry it out to about 1.010- 1.012 with a 100% Red X brew at 1.050. I use WY2124 and usually see low 80's attenuation with majority Pils malt and high 70's with a high amount of Munich and crystal. I thought Red X might be similar to dark Munich as far as attenuation goes but it seems a few points lower.

 

[wobdee]

WOW, don't think I would want to go through that...

Yeah, me either but maybe doughing in at that lower temp helps?

 

[dstockwell]

Maybe.. My next brew is pretty basic, not using as much - 65% Ashbourne Mild, 32% Red X, 3% Crystal. Was going to mash @154 but maybe need to rethink that..

 

[thaymond]

Now this may change a flavor profile, but if you're looking to dry it out a little more, could you ferment with something like US05 until it reaches a FG, then repitch something like Belle Saison to dry it out further? BS tends to give me results that are near 1.004 when I use it. It's super aggreasive, and chews through just about everything. Maybe a later addition of it might ease on some of the estery profile that it tends to give off. Just a thought.

 

[wobdee]

Latest 100% red X brew

View attachment 1475286203806.jpg

 

[ajdelange]

The photo is very deceiving. No beer is that color (unless you put fruit juice or dye into it). The reddest of red beers (krieks, stouts) exhibit a* no greater than 45. In this picture some parts of the glass show a* almost 80. Taking a picture with a smart phone and posting it here doesn't reproduce color very well..
Beers made with RedX don't appear to produce beer any redder than all malt beers made with normal malts to the same color depth.