Irish Red Ale Recipe
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 brewed this recipe and here is the details of the brew day.
Here’s the review of the first tasting.
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Here is Mike’s all grain recipe:
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
on December 3rd, 2007 at 6:01 pm
When you tried getting a red color before, did you try using 80L Crystal malt? From what I have read, it seems like that this type of malt imparts a red color.
on December 4th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
IMO, the problem with deriving color using crystal malt is an imbalance in the finished flavor. Crystal malts give you good residual sweetness with varying degrees of flavor, lighter crystal is a maltier sweetness and higher amounts startes to give you raisin dried fruit flavors. To get the the same color from a quarter once of 450 Lovibond roasted barely using an 80 Lovibond (or even 120 Lovibond) crystal would put you in a range that imparts more crystal flavor than I would want in a beer. Such low amounts of the darker kilned roasted malt keeps that flavor impact minimal, but the hint of roast gives that drier finish in the final flavor. For this style, I think that a drier, maltier flavor profile is sought after. Too much crystal would give a sweeter malt character closer to English Pale instead of the drier Irish Amber. This recipe already has a fair amount of crystal in it, using more to drive the color would start to increase the residual sweetness out of style.
Realistically, I should drop the crystal 120L and use a little more “roast” now that I think about it.
on September 11th, 2008 at 8:40 am
I would keep the 120, drop the wheat as it doesn’t contribute to the style. Increase the 120 to 4-5 ounces; no wheat, no black patent. You may also want to drop the Roasted Barley to 2-3 ounces. Also keep either a 4-5 ounces of Crystal 20 or 40. CaraPils amazes me. lthough is greeat in contributing to some body and good at head retention, it throws the style off. Actually crystal 20 or 40 offer the same qualities, but of course increase color. Overall the recipe listed produces a good looking beer the color seems way high. I would like to see more alcohol to this beer and call it an Imperial Red instead.
on December 10th, 2008 at 6:41 am
[...] I was rereading Mike’s post about his Irish Ale Recipe. [...]
on April 5th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I’ve read on a beer tools red ale thread a brewer uses black patent, uncrushed, just a handful during sparge to get his red color. He doesn’t uses 20 L crystal also not the darker ones.
never tried it..
DC
on August 11th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I’ve found that crystal 80 and roasted barley did indeed impart the desired color.
10 gals.
13 lbs. maris otter
3½ lbs maize
11 oz. crystal 80
6 oz. special B
3.7 oz roasted barley
EKG 25 IBU
Irish ale yeast
Delicious!
on January 8th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Actually, if one reads Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion-red ales only really have about four grains-Pale Ale malt, Crystal Malt, Roasted Barley and Corn/corn syrup. It even has the percentages.
Special B and a lot of these other crazy grains are not really used much in large scale brewing.
on March 13th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
I’ve tried using trace amounts of roasted barley to impart a red color. The first time around, I used 6 ounces and found the beer too dark, but I also used a pound of Munich in that batch.
Eventually I ended up using something like 1 ounce of roasted barley with the munich to get the color I wanted, but it’s still more brown than red.
I think the theory is a light spectrum thing, that the dark malt in a lighter base comes across as red to the eye rather than just contributing the straight color one would expect according to SRM.
on March 13th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
half a pound of the black stuff?????
That’ll be a good dark garnet colour.
on March 15th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Looks like a perfect St. Patty’s day brew… I think I will come up with some sort of brew party Wednesday night… Thanks for the recipe, been looking for a good one.
on March 16th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
I just made an Irish red – still in the fermenter – can’t recall how red it was will have to wait till the weekend when I bottle. Here is what the grain bill was for comparison:
10.5 pounds
2 Row Base, 1.5°L 9 pounds
Crystal 40L 0.75 pounds
CaraPils, 1.5°L 0.25 pounds
Barley (Roasted), 500°L 0.25 pounds
Special B, 140°L 0.25 pounds
on March 17th, 2010 at 10:37 am
[...] up a brew log for the next session. This time around, I’m brewing up the Irish Red Ale based on the extract recipe that I posted last week. I bought my supplies from Midwest Homebrewing [...]
on May 12th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
[...] This week is a week full of first tastings. The first of the, um, first tastings is the Irish Red Ale. [...]
on May 14th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
[...] The base beer? Well, I don’t know if it’s there at all. I think there is a roasty, dryness at the end that is the last remnant of the original Irish Red Ale. [...]
on January 4th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
[...] too long ago I posted an Irish Red Ale recipe I generated using BeerTools Pro, and I said I would post a review of the software once I had some [...]