Wrong colour?

[Theo24]

Hi to all!
Yesterday i brew an Irish Red Ale. My recipe is here: http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=63885

My mash efficiency went well. I got 23lt of wort @ 1.050 pre boil gravity, so i added 2.5lt water to bring it to 25.5lt of wort.
So i had 25.5lt of wort @1.044

Probably something went wrong during boiling.
60min boil and i finally got only 17 lt of boiled wort @ 1.052
Is it normal to lose 8.5lt after a 60min boil? Maybe i boiled it too hard?
But again i should have get a higher OG than 1.052 i suppose.

Added again 1lt of water to bring it down to 1.050 OG.
Beersmith gives me 82% mash efficiency and only 62% total efficiency!!!

The colour is not satisfying. More like a brown ale than a red one.
Maybe the colour will change during fermentation?

Can you imagine what went wrong?
Thanks!

 

[brewkinger]

I think it all sounds OK other than your boil off being a little too much perhaps. 1-1.5 gallons is my usual boil off, so yours is slightly over 2 gal.
Adjust your heat so that you get a constant rolling boil that keeps the surface moving. No more and no less.

As far as the OG, most reds that I have seen and made are somewhere between 1.040 and 1.055, so you should be fine.
The color on every red I have made always seems wrong until after ferment and bottle conditioning. Wait and tell me if it does not finish at a different color.

Cheers!

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

If this is a new system (equipment that you have never used), it's quite normal not to have an accurate knowledge of the boil-of rate. Everybody's is different, and it needs to be adjusted based upon your experience with this equipment.

For instance, my system loses approximately 2.5 to 2.75-gal per hour. For most people, that's a lot. For mine, it's normal I start at 13.25-gal and end up at 10.5-gal (US gal).

As for the color... You're probably looking at a large volume of wort (e.g.: in a carboy or bucket), but the final product will be lighter due to less width in the glass. A carboy is 10-12" wide while a pint glass is about 3" wide.

MC