American Red Ale - Draft recipe opinions… be nice 😊

[fourlambs]

Scrutiny of my draft American Red Ale recipe please, I need to do a mini mash as my kitchen setup won’t allow all grain quantities:

Vitals
Original Gravity: 1.057
Final Gravity: 1.011
IBU (Tinseth): 53
BU/GU: 0.93
Colour: 40 EBC

Mash​

Temperature — 65 °C — 60 min

Malts (3.273 kg)​

2.5 kg (47.4%) — Briess Pilsen Malt 2-Row — Grain — 2 EBC
278 g (5.3%) — Weyermann Caramunich I — Grain — 101 EBC
278 g (5.3%) Rolled Oats — Grain — 2.7 EBC
111 g (2.1%) — Weyermann Caraaroma — Grain — 350 EBC
56 g (1.1%) — Roasted Barley — Grain — 1300 EBC
50 g (1%) — Bairds Chocolate Malt — Grain — 985 EBC

Other (2 kg)​

2 kg (37.9%) — Coopers Amber Malt — Liquid Extract — 41 EBC

Hops (78 g)​

18 g (29 IBU) — Columbus (Tomahawk) 14% — Boil — 90 min
13 g (16 IBU) — Columbus (Tomahawk) 14% — Boil — 30 min
14 g (4 IBU) — Cascade 7% — Boil — 10 min
33 g (4 IBU) — Columbus (Tomahawk) 14% — Aroma — 10 min hopstand

Hopstand at 80 °C

Yeast​

2 pkg — Fermentis US-05 Safale American 81%

Fermentation​

Primary — 20 °C — 14 days
Carbonation: 2.4 CO2-vol

 

[philrob]

Looks mostly OK to me, but I don't know the reason for your 90 minute Columbus boil. Personally, I never add hops longer than 60 minutes. Also, I wouldn't bother with the Roasted Barley in this style, you'll have plenty of colour in this brew without it, and its roastiness would by be inappropriate. The Caraaroma with the Chocolate Malt should give you all the red hue you need.
It's your brew, so you can do as you wish. You'll make beer, anyway!

 

[Droopy Brew]

Agree with Phil. I would go with just a pale liquid extract and let your specs bring the colour. Up the Caraaroma if you need more colour, that malt makes a red.
I would also get you IBUs more from later additions. I worked on 30% IBU at FWH, 40% st 10 min and 30% at whirlpool. Give it 2g/L dry hop too. It should have a good fruity hop character balancing with the red malts.

 

[Droopy Brew]

I'd also drop the oats. Shouldn't need the additional mouthful and body. Also it is likely to prevent clearing which results in a browner beer rather than deep red. Need that clarity to get them ruby hues.

 

[yankinoz]

Agree with the above. The Briess base malt is quite good, but costly at current exchange rates, and alongside those flavour malts I'm not sure how much difference you'd notice going Aussie. And I'm an American who used to live a short drive from Briess.

 

[dmtaylor]

I'm an American who lives literally 10 minutes north of Briess. And I agree, you don't need to use Briess! But you can, I guess, if you need to be able to say that you used American malt!

That recipe looks great. I could drink a lot of it. However I do have some ideas for your consideration. (EDIT: And I wrote all of these ideas independently, BEFORE I read any of the preceding comments -- looks like we're consistent!):

It’s going to turn out brown, not red. I would throw out the roasted barley, which is a color adjustment making the difference between red and brown. Either that or take out the chocolate malt.

I would also ditch the oats, as they don’t do whatever you think they do (creamy head and mouthfeel, etc. -- all a bunch of baloney).

This beer will be very bitter with that BU:GU level, and beyond the bitter end even by American standards. I would cut out the 30-minute addition altogether and bring the IBUs closer to 40.

One pack of US-05 is plenty, you shouldn’t need two. If I’m wrong and it’s not bubbling within 24 hours, you can add the second pack… but I’m pretty sure you won’t need to.

These are all just ideas and it’s going to turn out great whether you take my advice or not. Enjoy.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I don’t know if you can get Red X malt in Australia I’ve used it 42% with Vienna and Maris Otter. It does what the name suggests.
Red X 42%
Vienna 31%
MO 21%
Cara red 5%
Carafa 3 0.7%.

 

[TheWiggman]

You forgot one thing: HOPS. Assuming a red ale and amber ale aren't far removed, for a 6% US beer you are lacking in late hops. You haven't posted your brew length but assuming a 13l brew I'd be looking at 40g at the end of the boil at least and then some dry hopping. I'd move the 10 min addition to the hopstand to get better flavour utilisation (unless you're chasing a specific profile).
I find you tend to have to go hard with hops in a red ale because the malt profile can take up much of the... I dunno, palate if you get my drift. More intense hop flavour is required to pair with the malt rather that take the centre stage like it would in an APA. Counterintuitive, but hey that's brewing.

 

[Brewman_]

I don’t know if you can get Red X malt in Australia I’ve used it 42% with Vienna and Maris Otter. It does what the name suggests.
Red X 42%
Vienna 31%
MO 21%
Cara red 5%
Carafa 3 0.7%.

Yes you can get Red X

Will have it in stock in a week.

 

[dmtaylor]

You forgot one thing: HOPS. Assuming a red ale and amber ale aren't far removed, for a 6% US beer you are lacking in late hops. You haven't posted your brew length but assuming a 13l brew I'd be looking at 40g at the end of the boil at least and then some dry hopping. I'd move the 10 min addition to the hopstand to get better flavour utilisation (unless you're chasing a specific profile).
I find you tend to have to go hard with hops in a red ale because the malt profile can take up much of the... I dunno, palate if you get my drift. More intense hop flavour is required to pair with the malt rather that take the centre stage like it would in an APA. Counterintuitive, but hey that's brewing.

American Amber can be hopped like an IPA... but it doesn't have to be. Many amber ales are on the maltier side of the spectrum. I think the hop levels in his current recipe are just fine, even great. Add more hops if you want, or just brew as is, it's going to be great either way.

 

[TheWiggman]

Depends if you are brewing to the style guidelines or making something to your tastes. Red IPAs are also a category which obviously have a higher hopping rate again. I agree with your comments earlier about the early hops but I still maintain to go a bit harder on late hops than a typical pale ale of the same strength.
And I just realised I missed the extract in the recipe. This is a 23l batch. So yes in my opinion this is under-hopped for the style with that 10-min addition and no dry hops. I suggest -
* Moving all early additions to 60 mins to about 35-40 IBU
* Single late addition at whirpool/hopstand (50-60g of the C hops)
* Dry hop as well, typically to same level as late hops

And brew the same thing with different hopping rates, ratios and/or without dry hops to see the impact it has on this style.