Red Beard Irish Ale

This is meant to be an easy drinking, well balanced red with a little extra color to show it off.  The Carared is the namesake.

Ingredient rundown:

• American 2 row for economy (so maybe this is actually an American red…)
• Carared for a deep red color and to add a little body and malt aroma
• Caramel 20L for body and head retention
• A sprinkle of roasted barley because, well it wouldn’t be an Irish Red without the color
• East Kent hops to keep the bitterness down and to add a slightly floral hint.
• Irish moss to clean up the beer
• Wyeast 1084 or White Labs WLP004, both Irish Ale yeasts

2013

Brew day: 13Jul2013
Learning from previous attempts at all grain, I knew I needed to slow down my sparge.  I slowed it WAY down.  It took right around 1 hour and 15 minutes.  But it was worth it.  My OG exceeded my target and I ended with a good wort.  I let only a small stream come out of the mash tun.  I waited until the water was only 1 inch above the grain bed before adding any water and then monitored the flow from the HLT to ensure my water stayed at that level.  I did find that I had missed my estimation of boiling losses. Boiling losses were found to be 19% in 90*F ambient.  This resulted in a slightly smaller batch than anticipated.

Transfer to secondary: 24Jul2013
Judging by the first tastes of this beer, it is going to be another great brew.  There is no noticeable bitterness from the hops.  That was one of the goals of this beer.  I managed to transfer some sediment from the primary, that was left in my siphon, that then ended up in my tasting glass, so the final results may be a little different, but the flavor is a very rich, woodsy, smooth, red beer.  I have to think this will liven up a little bit with carbonation.  I might keep the carbonation down initially to avoid modifying the flavor too much. The body of the beer is thick for a red, but again, I think this will change a little after it clears up in the secondary.  There is an almost oaky aftertaste with the beer.  Not like choking on smoke oak, but more like a fine bourbon oak flavor.  From the seat of my pants, I’m guessing this beer came in right around 6% ABV, judging by the smell and initial taste.  I’ll measure final gravity once it is done in the secondary.  The color was almost dead on what I wanted; a dark, rich red.  I’m attributing this to the Carared; that’s why it was in there.  It looks like I hit most of my targets for this beer.  I’ll know for sure in about 2 weeks when it is done in the secondary.  But, for my first try at an Irish Red (although, it’s probably more accurate to call this an American Red due to the barley used), I think I did alright.  I’m really looking forward to getting this thing in the keg and tasting the final product.

Kegging Day: 6Aug13
The beer is in the keg.  From the taste test, I nailed this brew.  It’s dark, earthy, rich, malty, delicious.  A little more flavor than your average red, which is what I wanted.  The ABV turned out a little higher than estimated (6.6%) with this brew beating both the estimated OG and FG.  A couple of days in keg (9 PSI @35*F for 2.5 volumes CO2) and it will be ready to go.

2016 (5Jun)

Here we go again.  I had to have some of this red to get me through the summer.

Today did not go very well. Again mash temperatures were an issue.  I had an estimated evaporation at about 10% (it was 75*F outside), but realize much greater than that.  Post boil, I produced approximately 5 gallons of wort.  I added top off water out of the tap to give me a little over 5.5 gallons in the fermenter.  There was a lot of hops that was transferred to the fermenter.  I will definitely have to run this through a secondary to clean it up.

As an experiment, I substituted the 2-Row base malt with Maris Otter.  The results were less than exciting.  The MO was too much for this style of beer.  It left the red tasting more like a brown ale.  Not a substitution I would make again.

OG: 1.040
FG:. 1.010

ABV: 4.0%

Extract Recipe (Oct 2014)

This extract recipe was a nice clone of the all-grain version.  It placed 5th at the 2015 Brewfest. 

To make this beer from extract, substitute the 2-row for 4.75 lbs (I rounded up to 5 lbs)  of extra light DME, and up the 60 min hops to a full ounce.  I used a 4 gal boil (in order to get the hops utilization correct), and assumed 10% boiling losses (it was 40*F outside).  The boiling losses might have been estimated low.  For top up water, I boiled another 2 gal on the stove, let it cool, marked my 5.5 gallon mark on a carboy and added water to the carboy as needed to bring it up to the desired mark.

OG:  1.052 (target 1.055)
FG:  1.013
ABV:  5.12%

9Nov14:  So far, so good.  This is fermenting a little cold, right around 67*F.  There was a fairly vigorous fermentation period, but it has no settled down.  Maybe another week and I’ll transfer it to the secondary.

7Dec14:  This went straight from the primary to the keg today.  The flavor is a little more “earthy” than I remember.  It shouldn’t be too far off once it is carbonated.

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