The new year has not been kind to me so far. I had to dump a batch due to contamination, and lost another one due to a treacherous picnic tap.
Pressing on, I’ve gone back to the drawing board on my Irish red in an effort to get the flavor I want from a truly beautiful, ruby red beer. This time around, I’m trying out a pretty serious amount of Red X malt.
Full post is here, if you care to read.
Fun read, thanks for sharing. I look forward to hearing if you obtained that elusive ruby red color when it’s all done and cleared. Cheers!
Thanks! I will report back for sure. The signs when I poured into the carboy were encouraging, but it can be so tough to nail.
I feel you pain. I have lost a couple of batches due to being careless this year as well.
Keep us posted on the color.
My experience with Red X is that it makes the perfect red colored beer per Best’s usage directions but I have yet to use it at less than 100%. My next beer is a red lager that will use 50% red x and a bit of roasted malt to make up lost color so I am curious to see where how that one will look.
I sure will. For those that are reading this thread but don’t want to click and read, my grain bill is:
50.2% Golden Promise
38.6% Red X
3.9% C20
3.9% C40
1.9% Flaked Barley
1.5% Roasted Barley (500 SRM)
Predicted SRM is 16.2; in theory, this ought to be a really red beer. We’ll see.
Best of luck with the Irish Red.
I have had a very similar (yet different) experience recently. After brewing at least once a month for about 4 years I took over a year off. The wife & I had our second kid in a 20 month span and even the thought of carving 5-6 hours out of a day for brewing was laughable. I made my much anticipated return to brewing this past Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving). I brewed Jamil’s Evil Twin clone from BCS & missed every single important number I could have on brew day. Mash temp, water volumes, specific gravity, chill temp. It was a mess. The beer ended up “drinkable” but nothing like what I was going for. The final product was what I called a hoppy Imperial Brown Ale. I decided to get right back to it and mid-December I whipped up an English IPA that I AGAIN missed numbers on and this time ended up with a weird, sweet hoppy mess (70 IBU - FG 1.020). After choking down a case of the stuff I have finally decided to put myself out of my own misery and just dump the case I have left to free up all of my bottles & get a new HOPEFULLY better batch going.
This hobby can be more frustrating than fun sometimes. Especially with the time we put in to create something we are proud of from scratch. I feel your pain as it is sometimes a relief to know that I am not the only one that makes “brew-stakes”. Thank you for sharing & again, best of luck with the Irish Red.
OH, I also relieve my stresses with matches of Titanfall!
Hang in there, lbrennan. If you read back over my older blog entries, you’ll find more screw-ups that you can shake a stick at… but man, pouring a pint of beer that compares favorably to good craft stuff makes it worth it.
lol @ Titanfall. That was one saving grace of that day; I seemed to channel my frustrating into becoming a killing machine. MVP in back to back matches, my best moment ever in the game where I waded into an unwinnable melee (me vs. three enemy titans), ejected in the center of them, doomed all three AND killed their pilots with nuclear ejection. Aw, yiss.
Ha, there are few better Titanfall feelings than getting out of a situation that you know you shouldn’t have even walked into!
No lie. That said, the guys in those matches did kind of suck. Standing still and shooting at my titan, in an open field, with your carbine? Maybe not the best idea.
But I was having a bad day, so I’ll still claim those points.
Thanks for sharing, going to have to give this one a go next time. i’ve been looking at trying the BestRed X malt lately and now I have a recipe. Is this by chance from a George Killians clone recipe?
Hey bucknut,
There’s no clone at play, here. This is a 100% from scratch recipe, made from some homework on the style, chatting with brewing buddies, and playing with Beersmith. I will report back as to how this one turns out in both color and flavor.
See RedX thread in ingredients, pH issues all over the map. 5.14pH in distilled water on my current sack, 5.19pH on my last. The malt is much more acidic than an Irish Red should be IMHO. If you are using a full bodied base with medium- dark crystals and a few oz of dark malt you will get the red you want. I was told 14-15 srm gives you a great Red beer. I was doubtful at first but trusted those here that helped me with my brew. I absolutely was blown away with the results.
Interesting that you ay that, JJefers. My pH was way lower than I expected, though I had a similar issue last time I brewed, and know that my water company has done something wonky. Something to keep an eye on, for sure.
Thanks!
This is the first I’ve heard of RedX. Have you tried Carared before? I’ve used that in Denny’s “Waldo Lake Amber” and thought it was really nice. I used 1.2 # in a 3-gallon batch (just over 18% of the grain bill).
I’ve tried carared, didn’t get the red I wanted (more orange). The beer also had a flavor I didn’t care for, but a lot of that was probably due to me getting too cute. Crystal x 2, carared, melanoiden, roasted barley.
Were do you get the RedX malt? I’ve only been able to find it online at http://www.farmhousebrewingsupply.com/red-x-malt-best-malz-1-lb/ Never ordered from there before, but I need to start gathering up ingredients.
Neither LHBS in my area carried it. I ended up ordering it from Rebel Brewer, who has a stellar reputation.
I wish I had read this thread earlier. I would have sent you some of my sack.
Well, I appreciate the thought, anyway. Thanks!