What is the best grain for achieving a reddish color to your beer? Something like a Killian’s Irish Red?
I don’t want that much caramel character, mostly color only.
Red X?
Goldswaen Red could be an option.
Viking (sold at morebeer.com) has two red malts. Both claim to enhance red color.
Thanks! How about Carared?
It does enhance redness but it is a caramel malt.
Roasted barley
Traditional Irish Reds use Crystal Malt for the color and a small amount of Roasted Barley for the red tint.
+2 for Roasted Barley. I use around 4 oz. per 5 gal.
Red X is an interesting option, but you’ll have to use a lot more than RB to get enough color contribution. At that level it will bring a bunch of malt flavor, kinda like Munich Malt.
100% Best Malt Red X malt @ 1.050 is a beautiful red color. Agree that roasted barley finely ground is too.
CaraRed will add some reddish amber color and would help deepen a 100% Red X malt grist - it has a pleasant, smooth caramel flavor.
I use a small amount of roasted barley and 70-80* L cara / crystal malt in Irish Red. This gives a rich red color but adds caramel flavor. When I brew an American Red I skip the dark crystal and roasted barley and use 45*-60* L crystal and add a little Carafa 1 dehusked chocolate malt to add red color. The lighter colored chocolate malts at 2-3 oz will also add red color.
Thanks for all of the help!
A Vienna Red Lager is up next.
There is nothing that looks as vibrantly red as a 100% Red X beer at 1.050 or so OG, once it drops completely clear. But the flavor of that beer just isn’t for me. Red X tastes in the ballpark of a very dark Munich spiked with a bit too much Aromatic/Melanoiden malt. It’s just too strongly rich for me to drink in any great amount. Sure looks great in pictures, though.
Roast barley and CaraRed will help push a beer in that direction, but at best you will get a reddish amber. One other way to get brilliant ruby red color in your beer is cherry juice if adding fruit is an option.
At the bottom of this BYO article there is a recipe for a Vienna called Red Ball Express. I brewed it years ago and I believe I recall it being a nice red color.
I agree I’m not 100% sure I love the flavor. At YH a red lager was our flagship beer and I tried to use Red X for ease but it was not something I personally enjoyed. Sinamar is what was and probably is still used. Before that a cold steep of Carafa Special II was made and added directly to BK.
For roast malts intended for color, they get turned into a find powder in a coffee grinder. The powder goes in at Vorlauf to minimize flavor extraction.
I can vouch for Rebellion Red. Damn good pint.
You might do a search for Nürnberger Rotbier and see what they use.
a little roasted barley for me. sometimes also add some middle srm malt when the style calls for it.
It depends on what kind of red you want.
I have used Viking Red malt and Red-X malt (up to 80%) to get a nice orange-red like the color of this fellow’s moustache: Tycho Brahe - Wikipedia
That is not really what you want in an Irish Red ale, though. I brewed one of those today and used a bit of roasted barley.