Mac's Sassy Red

[Jye]

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
50.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 25.6 60 min.
30.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 0.0 Dry Hop
20.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 1.7 5 min.
30.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 0.0 0 min.
20.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 2.0 10 min.
30.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 2.6 5 min.
Yeast
-----

2 5min additions... thats hard core

 

[warrenlw63]

Oh bugger. Rushed that I think. Might just double the 5 min addition. :lol:

Warren -

 

[jaytee]

Always thought it was B Barry so a quick google on realbeer brought up an article by Neil from 2006

"It is has a smooth mouthfeel with hints of caramel, nuttiness and oranges before a lovely intense finish from the Saaz B hops which helped inspire the name."

What do you reckon to Warrens hop schedule then Barry - any pointers ?

cheers, jaytee

Edit - I must admit that either of B or D would be excellent !

 

[warrenlw63]

2 5min additions... thats hard core

Hops amended. Not sure what I'm on half the time.

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
50.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 25.6 60 min.
10.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 1.4 15 min.
20.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 2.0 10 min.
30.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 2.6 5 min.
40.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 0.0 0 min.
30.00 g. B Saaz Whole 7.70 0.0 Dry Hop


Warren -

 

[ohitsbrad]

I emailed Macs in September. I asked whether they use D Saaz or B Saaz and they replied B Saaz only. (About time we started calling it Motueka too!) Some of the specs have already been posted but this is what I got in my response.

Stated grain bill as:
60% NZ Cellar malt
20% Australian caramalt
1.5% English chocolate malt - which is the only English malt used
And the rest is made up of two types of crystal malt.

30 EBU
41 EBC

Yeast is their own. They start fermenting at 15 deg and rise to 21 deg. Since the descripton on the website mentions some fruity esters, I plan on trying Wyeast 1028 as already suggested.

Could try it with all additions at 30mins and later since brendanos reported that bittering with Motueka was not so great.

 

[pmolou]

any kit and extract recipes????

 

[Pumpy]

Dont you just love that weyermanns Cara red wish I had a bag of it


Pumpy

 

[brendanos]

Dont you just love that weyermanns Cara red wish I had a bag of it

Oh I do indeed!!

I realise that it was a little slack of me to never follow this thread up with results, so I guess it's better late than never.

The original recipe (5th post) I brewed posted turned out very dark, and in all ways "bigger" than the Macs, though it was an amazing beer in it's own right, and several tasters declared it the best beer they'd ever tasted. A real crowd pleaser, which was surprising based on how heavy it was. Very intense ripe stone fruit character with a faint roast note in the finish, very drinkable, though not befitting of any style so didn't do well in comps. The Nelson Sauvin definately overpowered the Motueka.

After discovering the Mac's was available commercially when I moved back to Perth I tasted thoroughly and revised my recipe, to brew the following...

80% JW Pils
10% JW Wheat
4% Cara Red
2% Cara Hell
1.5% JW Cara
1.5% JW Crystal
<1% Choc Wheat

Mashed 3L/kg at 66 (ph 5.2) to get 19L @ 1.054 into fermenter FG 1.014, dry hopped then diluted with 5L spring water to reach 4.7% abv (estimated OG/FG 1.042/1.011) or 5% carbonated.

Hopping was to 30IBU with...
20g Motueka (flowers) FWH
15g Motueka, 10g NS (pellets) 20mins
15g Motueka, 5g NS, 5g Cascade (pellets) 10 mins
15g Motueka, 5g NS, 5g Cascade (pellets) 1 mins
10g Motueka, 5g NS, 5g Cascade (pellets) DRY 5 days

Fermented with Safale S04 at 20C.

While closer in colour to the real deal, mine was definately sub-par, and while a drinkable pale ale, it was unpleasantly bitter (which I put down to that particular batch/season of Motueka - a character I also noted in similar vintages of other NZ beers like Emersons Pilsener and Mac's SR), and not quite dark/red enough. It smoothed out with age, and grew on me once I noticed the similarities with commercial examples, but was definately not how I wanted it. I didn't really like the S04 either.

And after all that I have a mild fermenting now on 1028 and plan to brew something much closer to my original recipe when the mild's done, as it was a ripper of a beer, regardless of it's mongrel-like nature!

Oh and thanks Brad for taking the initiative of actually asking the brewery.

 

[brendanos]

any kit and extract recipes????

Based on Brad's reply from the brewery, I'm guessing you'd be looking at something like (can't really think of a k&k recipe, but...)

Extract and steeped grains (23L), something like...

2.5kg Coopers LME (or equivalent in DME)

Steeped specialty grains...
750gm Joe White Caramalt
50gm Bairds Chocolate
300gm Weyermann Carared
300gm Bairds Crystal
(the last two crystals could be substituted for your favourite crystals)

...and bittered to 30IBU with Motueka (or isohop) and flavoured with as much Motueka as you want.

 

[pmolou]

cheers mate this looks tasty, i have also found a recipe for a red ale that looks promising (but haven't brewed yet) its yukons brewing company's artic red

can be found on the BYO replicator website

not realy a new zealand style but could sub the goldings for b saaz as its around 30 iBU also

just for those also only up to extract brewing

 

[ohitsbrad]

Had a go at brewing this a couple of months back. I tasted the real thing side by side with it on the weekend. To get it closer I think I would need much more hops in the flavour and aroma. Probably twice as much. But maybe 5 IBUs or so less bitter overall. The colour was OK. Next time I won't be afraid of going with only 60% base malt and the full 20% caramalt and remainder crystal, as Macs have stated they use. Wasn't too sweet. Although finished at only 1.014. This could be that I didn't pitch enough yeast or aerate. In fact maybe the most noticeable difference was that the real thing had a perceived honeyish sweetness in contrast. So I would consider a different yeast if I was to do it again too. Maybe Wyeast 1099 or 1318.

My recipe was:

OG 1.047
18 SRM
30 IBUs
23 litres
90 min boil

3.4kg Galaxy malt (69%)
800g BB caramalt (16%)
450g Bairds crystal (9%)
220g Bairds dark crystal (4.5%)
80g Bairds chocolate malt (1.5%)

Mash at 67 degrees.

20g Motueka (B Saaz) 60 mins 21 IBUs
50g Motueka (B Saaz) 5 mins 9 IBUs
20g Motueka (B Saaz) dry hop

Wyeast 1028
Ferment at 19 degrees.

I emailed Macs in September. I asked whether they use D Saaz or B Saaz and they replied B Saaz only. (About time we started calling it Motueka too!) Some of the specs have already been posted but this is what I got in my response.

Stated grain bill as:
60% NZ Cellar malt
20% Australian caramalt
1.5% English chocolate malt - which is the only English malt used
And the rest is made up of two types of crystal malt.

30 EBU
41 EBC

Yeast is their own. They start fermenting at 15 deg and rise to 21 deg. Since the descripton on the website mentions some fruity esters, I plan on trying Wyeast 1028 as already suggested.

Could try it with all additions at 30mins and later since brendanos reported that bittering with Motueka was not so great.

 

[reviled]

Im thinking of putting this on the to do list, only problem is the yeast for me... Would this come out ok with US-05? Or maybe S-04?

Cheers

 

[Screwtop]

I emailed Macs in September. I asked whether they use D Saaz or B Saaz and they replied B Saaz only. (About time we started calling it Motueka too!) Some of the specs have already been posted but this is what I got in my response.

Stated grain bill as:
60% NZ Cellar malt
20% Australian caramalt
1.5% English chocolate malt - which is the only English malt used
And the rest is made up of two types of crystal malt.

30 EBU
41 EBC

Yeast is their own. They start fermenting at 15 deg and rise to 21 deg. Since the descripton on the website mentions some fruity esters, I plan on trying Wyeast 1028 as already suggested.

Could try it with all additions at 30mins and later since brendanos reported that bittering with Motueka was not so great.

Close to 40% crystal malts, think they might be fibbing?? you'd have to chew it, or maybe their yeast is the PacMan strain :lol:


What do others think?

Screwy

 

[ohitsbrad]

reviled: I'd probably give S-04 a go. S-05 worth a try too. Since they apparently use a strain not available to us I suppose its going to be hard to get it quite right anyway.

Screwtop: Most of it is caramalt which just seems to give it body and head retention. A few swirls of this beer in the glass and a huge foamy head will re-form. I had 31% specialty grains in my attempt, I don't know, it doesn't taste too chewy, strange. I certainly was afraid to begin with though!

Whatever you go with, an enormous amount of Motueka will probably do no harm!

 

[aaronpetersen]

Dragging up an old post here but I'm very keen to make something similar to the Sassy Red.
Has anyone managed a good approximation?

Ohitsbrad: did you have another go with the different grain bill?

 

[T.D.]

Close to 40% crystal malts, think they might be fibbing?? you'd have to chew it, or maybe their yeast is the PacMan strain :lol:


What do others think?

Screwy

I think sometimes these breweries over-simplify their grain bills for the description. I have heard JS Amber be described as having 20% crystal, which I also find hard to believe. My hunch is they include things like munich and very light crystals in this category. Its certainly not all medium and dark crystals!

The Sassy Red could have 20% Munich, 10% caramalt and then maybe 5% Carapils and 5% medium Crystal. Still pretty sticky, but its plausible...

 

[hazard]

I think sometimes these breweries over-simplify their grain bills for the description. I have heard JS Amber be described as having 20% crystal, which I also find hard to believe. My hunch is they include things like munich and very light crystals in this category. Its certainly not all medium and dark crystals!

Ah yes, but JS Amber Ale is also 20% sugar - and that's straight from Chuck's mouth (source: interview in BYO magazine). Which would dry it out compared to an all malt with 20% crystal.

And why shouldn't they include light crystal in the percent of crystal??? I agree that munich shouldn't be included in the crystal percent, but its a bit weird to say that you don't believe its 20% crytsal because you've got a hunch that there's light crystal in there as well.

 

[T.D.]

Ah yes, but JS Amber Ale is also 20% sugar - and that's straight from Chuck's mouth (source: interview in BYO magazine). Which would dry it out compared to an all malt with 20% crystal.

And why shouldn't they include light crystal in the percent of crystal??? I agree that munich shouldn't be included in the crystal percent, but its a bit weird to say that you don't believe its 20% crytsal because you've got a hunch that there's light crystal in there as well.

Is somebody gave you a recipe that called for say 5% crystal, what spec would you assume that meant? The first thing that jumps into most people's minds when you say crystal malt is medium crystal, that is my point. You can't just lump all crystals into one category, they have entirely different effects on the beer. Either the beer does not use 20% crystal or its mainly a very light variety. Either way there's not much point in even saying that it has 20% crystal in the first place.

 

[cwhouston]

I'm having a blast at this, based on a recipe a mate made which was pretty awesome but bigger and the wrong colour for Sassy Red. Going with:

19L batch / OG 1.052 / IBU 33

3.9 kg MO (88%)
250g Caraaroma (6%)
200g Dingemans Biscuit (4%)
100g Wheat (2%)

15g Challenger @ 60 min
15g Motueka @ 15 min
5g Cascade @ 15 min
10g Motueka @ 5 min
5g Cascade @ 5 min
10g Motueka @ FO
5g Cascade @ FO

15g Motueka dry hop.

Wyeast 1318 - overpitching to keep it cleaner.

Feedback on the hop schedule very welcome - it looks a little light on flavour compared with some of the other attempts.

 

[jlm]

I'm having a blast at this, based on a recipe a mate made which was pretty awesome but bigger and the wrong colour for Sassy Red. Going with:

19L batch / OG 1.052 / IBU 33

3.9 kg MO (88%)
250g Caraaroma (6%)
200g Dingemans Biscuit (4%)
100g Wheat (2%)

15g Challenger @ 60 min
15g Motueka @ 15 min
5g Cascade @ 15 min
10g Motueka @ 5 min
5g Cascade @ 5 min
10g Motueka @ FO
5g Cascade @ FO

15g Motueka dry hop.

Wyeast 1318 - overpitching to keep it cleaner.

Feedback on the hop schedule very welcome - it looks a little light on flavour compared with some of the other attempts.

I'd ditch the Cascade and keep it all Moteuka and maybe bump up your dry hop a bit. There's a recipe buried deep in the recipe DB called "Slutty Red" by warresdfsdf.....or something, I forget his name now and haven't seen him around here for a while, and I tinkered with that recipe a few times a while ago. The hop schedule on that I found to get within the ballpark. For my money I'd keep it where you're at and work up from there if you need to. If I were to brew this again I'd probably use good ol' 1272 now, I think the beer is let down a bit by mac's yeast which I find a tad... ah... rough....(?)in that beer. Keep it nice and clean and let the moteuka provide the character around the malt.