Shades of Red

This past sunday, I tried my hand at an Irish Red Ale. This is the first of many potential "Wedding Beers" that I will be brewing. Basically, I will be brewing beer for my wedding next year and am spending the time until then brewing various recipes and evaluating the results. So in a nutshell, I have to brew a lot of beer and then drink a lot of beer. How horrible!

Shades of Red
Brew Type: All Grain
Date: 8/19/2007
Style: Irish Red Ale
Brewer: Joshua
Batch Size: 6.00 gal
Boil Volume: 8.06 gal
Boil Time: 90 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %

Ingredients
10.23 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
0.58 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)
0.58 lb Carared (Weyermann) (24.0 SRM)
0.15 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)
1.50 oz Fuggles [4.00 %] (90 min)
0.60 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.00 %] (30 min)
0.60 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.00 %] (15 min)
1.00 Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)
1 Pkgs Irish Ale (White Labs #WLP004)

Beer Profile
Estimated Original Gravity: 1.050 SG (1.044-1.060 SG)
Measured Original Gravity: 1.050 SG
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.014 SG (1.010-1.014 SG)
Estimated Color: 11.9 SRM (9.0-18.0 SRM)
Bitterness: 26.0 IBU (17.0-28.0 IBU)
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 4.77 % (4.00-6.00 %)

Mash Profile
Name: Batch Sparge
Mash Tun Weight: 9.00 lb
Mash Grain Weight: 11.54 lb
Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Sparge Water: 6.5 gal
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE

Original Recipe created by Fred Dujour.

Hopefully this beer turns out to be a malty, easy drinking beer. I'm hoping for something that is palatable to people who aren't used to drinking much beer outside of Bud/Miller/Coors (BMC). For people who already eschew the macro-breweries I will hopefully have more bold styles on display.

On to the brew notes! This is my 5th All Grain beer and things are finally working pretty smoothly. I heated 14.5 qts of water to 166° and put that in my Coleman extreme cooler. I doughed in and gave it all a good stir, I was aiming for 152° and hit it pretty close. After stirring a lot to eliminate hotspots, I was reading between 151.8° and 152.5°. Close enough for me. I did a longer mash at 75 minutes (mostly because I got distracted and forgot), then collected my first runnings. I sparged with 6.5 gallons of 168° and got to my pre-boil volume of 8.10 gallons (or there abouts, I don't measure that exact).

This is where I first started to feel good about the brew, I was looking for a pre-boil gravity of 1.038 and sure enough, I was right on target.

I boiled for 90 minutes then started cooling. I cooled as low as I could with my water (~75°), then aerated and put it into the chest freezer overnight. This morning it was quite cool at 52°, I pitched my yeast and will let it warm up to 62° or so. I'm aiming low because I don't want many esters in this beer. I want the malt flavor to be dominant.

I deviated a bit from the original recipe. The original recipe called for a decoction mash, I'm far too lazy for that. I switched that up to a simple infusion mash.

Hopefully, it still turns out well.