December 10th, 2008
Make Red Beer
Posted by
John in
General
I’m feeling punchy this morning, so the bullets are gonna fly. The title of this post should be Make Red Beer, Not War.
- I was rereading Mike’s post about his Irish Ale Recipe.
- From Mike’s post, the key to getting a red color is adding a bit of roasted barley to the grist (~2 ounces for 5 gal. batch).
- BJCP guidelines agree.
- I have reading more about specialty malts and the type of colors they impart.
- Many of the descriptions of lower Lovibond crystal malts like Weyermann CaraRed state that they give a beer a red color.
- The outcome of beers I have brewed with caramel/crystal malts have always been in the “shades of brown” arena.
- Since the SRM scale is limited, and what our eyes see can be much different when it comes to picking up color subtleties, are all these descriptions sorta bunk any way?
- Is this another experiment we should run?
- End of bullets. You can lift your head up now.
P.S. I have been getting into the color of beers lately. The appearance/presentation never mattered to me before. Now it’s something I focus on before I take a sip. I guess it is another step in the progression of beer geekdom…
on January 2nd, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I have not done all that much experimenting on the colors the specialty malts contribute. But I can say that ever since I have been home brewing, (only going into year 3) I definitely do pay much attention to the appearance/presentation. My wife laughs at me because I will pour a beer, then smell it, then take a slight sip, and while I am tasting the beer, I usually hold it up to the light (especially if it is a darker beer) to get a good look at the color.
Having said that, I agree with you that the beers I have brewed with caramel/crystal malts have always been in the “shades of brown” arena, and have not imparted any red coloring at all.