Irish Red Ale Recipe - Extract

John here. Brewing up an extract version of an Irish Red Ale.

Ingredients:

6.5 Extra Light Dry Malt Extract
6 ounces Roasted Barley
6 ounces Crystal 40°L
6 ounces Crystal 120°L
.5 ounce Northern Brewer boiled 60 mins
1 ounce East Kent Goldings boiled 30 mins
1 teaspoon Irish Moss boiled 15 mins

Yeast: WLP004

Predictions:

Original Gravity: 1.054
Final Gravity: 1.014
Color: 17 SRM
Bitterness: 25 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 5.2%

I was probing around some online chat forums and discovered some advice on making a red ale. I have struggled in the past with getting a red ale to actually be red and not some sort of weird yellowish-hued-brown color. A couple other red ale brewers said that low amounts of black patent or roasted barely (1-2oz total) imparts a red color without much flavor.

So I put my own recipe together. Don’t know when I’ll get to it, but I am intrigued to try it. Here it is:

Irish Ale #1 - All Grain

9-D Irish Red Ale

Size: 6.5 gal
Efficiency: 65%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Original Gravity: 1.049 (1.044 - 1.060)
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.010 - 1.014)
Color: 19.2 (9.0 - 18.0)
Alcohol: 4.82% (4.0% - 6.0%)
Bitterness: 26.79 (17.0 - 28.0)

Ingredients:

12 lbs American 2-row
1 lbs 2-Row Carapils® Malt
0.5 lbs Midwest Wheat Malt
0.5 lbs Crystal 60
0.125 lbs Crystal 120
0.25 lbs American Black Patent
0.25 lbs Roasted Barley
1.5 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 15 min
0.5 oz Nugget (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1 oz East Kent Goldings (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min

1 ea White Labs WLP004 Irish Stout

Mash temp 154F.

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.28

Winter time homebrewing. 

In some ways, a better brewing experience than its counterpart in summer.   The heat from the fire actually warms you up.  The cold break you get from the immersion chiller is well defined.  Your beer stays cold outside.

All good points but distracting from the main reason for this post.  Today I brewed a Maibock.

As voted on by readers of this blog, this was my first attempt at a lager style.  

If you are following along at home, I updated the Maibock Recipe to reflect what happened today. 

After the mash, I was able to get the boil going pretty soon (ok, it took a while).

The brew itself had a nice caramel color.  I was able to get a 7.5 gallon boil volume going, which tested the limits of my heat source and the size of my kettle. 

While things were chilling, I got my yeast starter out for a photo. 

I decanted most of the “beer” off of the yeast cake at the bottom of the glass jug.  The bit that was left I used to help swirl around to get all the yeast out. 

While things were chilling (it took a while to get it down to the target fermentation temp - a little colder than an ale yeast temp), I was able to pour a beer we got from the Buckbean Brewing Company.  Full disclosure: They sent us a couple of cans free of charge. It was a schwarzbier, which was the other choice for my first lager. It went well with the brewing day.

Wort chilling New England style.  I had my immersion chiller going and packed the snow around the kettle.  It still took an hour or so to get it cold enough, but I think it was faster than without snow. 

Good brew day.  I hit my original gravity and pitched a good amount of yeast.  I am hoping this Maibock comes out well.

Here’s some other posts associated with this brew:

Maibock Ingredients

Maibock Substitutions

Continuing my brew log for the Maibock lager brew….

The ingredients are pretty simple and I think that’s perfect for this attempt.

I am buying 10.5 lbs. of Pilsner Malt and 5.5 lbs. of Munich Malt.

I am also going to get a half ounce of Magnum hops.  One hop addition at 60 minutes to go in the boil is pretty sweet too.

If I can get White Labs WLP833 - German Bock Lager Yeast, I will.  If not, I will settle for the WLP830 - German Lager Yeast.

I will probably buy 3 vials of the stuff and make a pretty big starter.

I don’t have a brew date targeted yet.  I need to figure that out with the holidays coming up.

So I have decided to “go all grain” rather than “go back to extract” for the first lager brew.

I think the majority of my hesitation is the performance of my mash tun.

Here’s the back story: I got a bazooka screen for the cooler I bought.

Here’s the admission: I didn’t buy the right one for the cooler size that I have.

Oh well, I can use the screen I have now as a strainer when I use plugs or whole hops in my boil.  It will screw into the outlet in my kettle.

Now, I could buy a bazooka screen that fits a 5 gallon cooler…and that’s the screen that is shaped like a “T”.

But I think I will buy a false bottom.  I want to understand the performance of the false bottom.  This lager brew gives me the chance to buy one and report on its performance.

So that’s the first step.  The next step is buying ingredients…but that is another post.

I don’t brew too many porters.  I can only remember two in my lifetime.  But I have become intrigued with the Brown Porter style (BJCP 12A).  I have never used Brown Malt before and this recipe and style seems like a perfect way to get a taste of it and see what its like.

For a 6 gallon batch
70% efficiency
1.046 OG
154F Mash Temp

I’ll actually be pitching some yeast slurry of Safale-o4, from a current batch of Ordinary Bitter.

This recipe is slightly based from the Brown Porter in Brewing Classic Styles.

BREW ON!

So I am thinking about my strategy for my first lager attempt.  I am going to be shooting for a Marzen/Oktoberfest style beer. The biggest step will be preparing enough yeast in advance.  My recipe it to make 5.5 gallons of 1.055OG wort.  According to Mr.Malty and the pitching rate calculator, I will need 2 vials in a 1.7 Liter starter!

Luckily I have a 4L jug I think will fit on the stir plate.  This should work just fine.  I may make the starter a little bigger than the calculator recommends, just to be sure I pitch enough yeast for my first try.  I’ll set up the starter 4-5 days in advance giving it plenty time to finish out, and settle.  Then I’ll pour off the spent wort and pitch mostly yeast slurry.

The second phase of this Lager prep, is that after the Oktoberfest is done, I’ll have a rather large cake of lager yeast ready to use.  I am thinking I may plan to pitch some of that cake into two more lager batches; a Munich Helles and an pseudo-American light lager (recipe to follow soon).

Then I’ll lager all three at the same time at 32-34F.

Stay tuned, I’ll post up the All-grain true lager oktoberfest recipe and my psuedo-American lager to the recipe page.

BREW ON!

Hey there,

Time once again to put up a brew log. This time, it all about the honey wheat ale.

I purchased a few things from Beer Wine & Hobby. Here’s some photos of the latest stuff…

5 pounds of American Wheat Malt (Milled)

5 pounds of American 2 Row Malt (Milled)

1 pound of Honey Malt (Milled)

New 5 Gal. Glass Fermenter

Fermentation Lock and Stopper

1 Pound of Rice Hulls

The first 3 things are for the recipe. The fermenter, stopper, and airlock are for secondary fermentation experiment with half the batch…details to follow.

The rice hulls are for the mash to keep it from getting stuck. I plan to brew Sunday morning…should be a good one.

If you would like to follow along with this brew session, check out these links:

Honey Wheat Ale Recipe

Honey Wheat Ale Update

Honey Wheat Ale Plans

Honey Water Solution

Honey Wheat Ale Bottling Day