What is the best way to get a brilliant red color? Other than fruit or food coloring?
I don’t know of any other way. I’m not even sure you can do it since the malt will add color that will detract from a brilliant red. You can pretty easily do “reddish”, but that doesn’t sound like what you want.
An oz or 2 of roasted barley gives an amber beer a nice red tint.
+!
Or beets, but I wouldn’t recommend that. But that was the reddest beer I have ever seen or judged at KCBM this year! Looked way better than it tasted…
I have a friend who made a beet beer and there was no color from the beets post fermentation.
I was blown away when I started making fruit beers for my wife at just how red cherry or raspberry puree makes a beer.
I tried to make a red colored wheat beer last year and used beets, total waste of time. The beer was average and the beets provided no color at all, drank it but never brewed it again.
+1 to the roasted barley and even a small amount of a mid range crystal will provide a deeper amber color while only a small flavor contribution.
I used cherry juice to prime a wheat beer I made. It gave it a nice red color, but not what I’d call ‘brilliant.’
Thanks guys. I’ll see how this batch turns out. Might be redder once the cold break falls out. 5# MO, 4# 2row, 3# carared. It might have 11 srm. Amber sure, not red though. I don’t have any roasted barley, next go around I might try 3 or 4 ounces chocolate
I did this with Carared and some Caramunich 3. Not exactly red, sunlight helped a lot in this picture.
Awesome! Maybe my red will be red lol
Ahhh… the legend of the beet beer. Looks psychedelic, tastes like dirt. Quite a polarizing beer that is, the brewer has gotten 20s and then won Cat 23 depending on the comp.
Beet beer, bad idea.
Beet wine…now there you have it.