Classic Irish Red Ale

[Theo]

Hi again.
After my first AG beer (in fact i never made any kit or extract beer) that was an American Pale Ale, i am about to make my second beer in a few days. An Irish Red. I will show you my recipe and you could give me some recommendations or suggestions if i have planned anything wrong.

5 gallon batch (est.total efficiency 70%)

Grains
1) Pale malt Maris Otter (4.5 EBC) ---> 3.4kg (78.2%)
2) Caraamber (70 EBC) ---> 0.5kg (11.5%)
3) Biscuit (50EBC) ---> 0.35kg (8.0%)
4) Roasted Barley (1000 EBC) ---> 0.10kg (2.3%)

Hops
1) 20gr Fuggles (5.55%) 60min
2) 10gr East Kent Goldings (6.57%) 20min
3) 10gr Fuggles (5.55%) 10min
3) 15gr East Kent Goldings (5.5%) 5min
4) 20gr Williamette (4.20%) 3min
5) 10gr East Kent Goldings (6.57%) 1min

Yeast
WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast
It produces a slight hint of diacetyl, balanced by a light fruitiness and slight dry crispness.
Great for Irish ales, stouts, porters, browns, reds and a very interesting pale ale.

Estimated OG: 1.050
Bitterness: 23.4 IBU
Color: 32.5 EBC
4.9% ABV


(Actual image in BeerSmith is a bit darker than that)

[john luc]

Looks fine but the colour needs to be darker so add some chocolate malt and maybe pull back on the pale malt as this so called style is not as high as 1056, more like 1037 so less alcohol.

[Theo]

Looks fine but the colour needs to be darker so add some chocolate malt and maybe pull back on the pale malt as this so called style is not as high as 1056, more like 1037 so less alcohol.

I don't think that the Irish Reds can be as low as 1.037.
BJCP limits are 1.044-1.060 and 4.00-6.00% ABV.
Samuel Adams Irish Red for example is at 5.8% ABV.
I have chosen roasted barley because this gives a reddish hue in contrast with the chocolate malt which gives a brownish one.

[Theo]

I have reviewed the Irish Red strength and found out that john luc is right.
Original Irish red (from Ireland) are normally 3.5-4% abv while American clones or irish reds for export are as high as 6%.
So i will have to pull back quite a bit on the MO malt (recipe updated).

[john luc]

What the American's call Irish Red is far from what has become the sad reality of Red ales here in Ireland. Smithwick's Ale has being the main brand available not because it was good it was once but the big Brewers decided that's what they are going to let us have and we should be grateful . Over time they lowered the gravity and altered the recipe to the point that it had a 1034/1037 SG finishing at around 1006. The current market here is changing and more and more micro's are starting up so as expected now we are being given Smithwick's Pale Ale using such Hipster hops as Amarillo Although without the aroma of Amarillo . A good Irish Red for me is a dark ruby coloured beer that has a nice Malty sweet taste.

[Theo]

What the American's call Irish Red is far from what has become the sad reality of Red ales here in Ireland. Smithwick's Ale has being the main brand available not because it was good it was once but the big Brewers decided that's what they are going to let us have and we should be grateful . Over time they lowered the gravity and altered the recipe to the point that it had a 1034/1037 SG finishing at around 1006. The current market here is changing and more and more micro's are starting up so as expected now we are being given Smithwick's Pale Ale using such Hipster hops as Amarillo Although without the aroma of Amarillo . A good Irish Red for me is a dark ruby coloured beer that has a nice Malty sweet taste.

So do you suggest to make it heavier? 1.050 perhaps?
I don't want to make a Smithwick's clone. I want to make what an Irish Red should be in Ireland (not in the USA or elsewhere). The original Irish style.

[john luc]

A Brewery called O'Hara's from co Carlow make a nice Red http://www.carlowbrewing.com/our-beers/ ... irish-red/ and they also contract Brew for Aldi stores a beer called O'Shea's Red http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/osheas-tra ... le/114889/ which is really nice. It is so dark that I thought I bought the Stout but is a really good Red.

[Ben711200]

I haven't worked it out, but what efficiency is that based on? 3.35kg grain bill for 5 gallons at 1.040 sounds kind of optimistic (and/or you've got your system dialed in really quickly?)

[Theo]

I haven't worked it out, but what efficiency is that based on? 3.35kg grain bill for 5 gallons at 1.040 sounds kind of optimistic (and/or you've got your system dialed in really quickly?)

Nice point!
I have let the default 72% total efficiency of the Beersmith software. At least that's how i made my first (APA) recipe.
It' was actually quite optimistic, so i compensated by boiling a bit harder so i got the designed OG but at a lower volume. Instead of a 5 gallon batch (18.9lt) i got only 16 lts into my fermenter.
I am still into the process of evaluating my setup efficiency so i changed the mash tun specific heat from the default 0.30 to 0.50 and see how precise it gets. That was because with the default options my mash in temparature was 4-5 deg C lower than designed. There are quite a lot of factors going on here so i try to change one (or some) at a time and see what precision i get, step by step.
Anyway, thanks for pointing this out, i may change the default efficiency of 72% to something like 65%.

[Ben711200]

No, 72% sounds a reasonable starting point to me. What I mean is that the quantity of grain, at 72%, using Brewmate gives me an estimated OG of 1.033 for 5 gallons

EDIT:
I see you're using US gallons. 5 US gallons (approx 19 litres) gets me to your predicted 1.040 so ignore my previous question.

[Theo]

I also updated the hop additions by lowering the late hop quantities to give less of Goldings aromas to the beer. I've read that traditional Irish Reds are low in hop aroma.
What do you think?

[Theo]

Thinking af adding a small quanity of late addition Williamette foa aroma.
What do you guys think? I want to stay close to the traditional Irish Red but i would also like to make something a bit more complex.