Red Ale #3

This is my third attempt at brewing a hoppy red ale. The two previous versions were both pretty good. This recipe is pretty much the same as the first version except I reduced the amount of pale chocolate malt. I thought there was a little too much roast flavor in the previous versions. I originally started with the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles. I want this to be a red ale with a hop forward flavor. I missed my mash temp way to the low side, resulting in a pretty low final gravity. I think I'll lower my target to 152° next time so I can keep it on the dry side. If I use the Wyeast 1450 again I might reduce the amount of Crystal a little as well, it does a nice job of accenting the malt flavors.

Color is a rich amber, pretty much what I want. Pretty clear too. The aroma is mostly malt, caramel, bread, and a little toast. Some citric overtones from the hops. Next time I want to add some dry hops to give it a little more hop aroma. The malt aromas carry through to the flavor. Toasty bread with a caramel flavor but not very sweet, thanks to the low FG. Finish is dry and smooth. Well balanced and easy to drink. Won't last long.

Recipe:

Expected OG: 1.055

Actual OG: 1.055

Expected FG: 1.015

Actual FG: 1.010

IBU: 45

Boil: 60 minutes

Pre-boil Volume: 6.25 gallons

Final Volume: 5 gallons

Apparent Attenuation: 81.1%

ABV: 6.05%

Grains:

10 lbs. Two-row Pale (Briess)

1 lbs. Crystal 40 (Briess)

8 oz. Victory (Briess)

4 oz. Crystal 120 (Briess)

2 oz. Pale Chocolate (Thomas Fawcett & Sons)

Hops:

1.0 oz. Centennial (pellet 8.6% AA) @ 25 min.

1.0 oz. Cascade (pellet 5.0% AA) @ 10 min.

1.0 oz. Centennial (pellet 8.6% AA) @ 10 min.

1.0 oz. Cascade (pellet 5.0% AA) @ flame out
1.0 oz. Centennial (pellet 8.6% AA) @ flame out

Yeast:

Wyeast 1450 Denny's Favorite 50, 1 quart starter

Water:

Spring water from Welpman Spring in Morgan County, MO

Mash Schedule:

60 min @ 154° (4 gallons @ 168°)

Sparge

20 min @ 168° (4 gallons @ 190°)

Sparge

Should be about 6.5 gallons of sweet wort.

Notes:

Brewed on 10/22/10 by myself.

10/21/12:30pm – made a one quart starter using 4 oz. DME.

Estimated mash water temps with help from brewheads.com

10/22/2010:

10:30am – Initial mash temp is around 145°. Grain temp was closer to 70°. added about 4 ½ cups of boiling water, still not as high a temp as I wanted. Ended up with a little over 6 gallons of wort, call it 6.25.

2:20pm – 1.055 on the money! Around 63% efficiency.

2:30pm – Pitched yeast at about 67°. 5 gallons on the nose!

Instead of the flame out hop addition I added them after the wort had cooled to about 120°, I read somewhere that you get better aroma than at flame out this way because there is less heat to drive off volatile aroma compounds. Some of the pellets never full dissolved, so I'm not sure if I got all the aroma from them, we'll see.

10/23/2010 :

10:00am - Fermentation is going strong. Should have used blow off, a little bit of yeast leaking out the top. Temp is around 68°.

2:00pm – added a blow off. Fermentation is still going strong. I wonder how low it will finish considering the mash temp was pretty low.

10/25/2010: Fermentation is starting to wind down a bit, temp seems to be holding around 68°.

12/3/10: Bottling day. 4.8 gal, 65°, 2 vol CO2 = 2.7 oz table sugar. 20 x 22 oz. + 5 x 24 oz. + 4 x 12 oz. = 4.75 gallons. FG was low, probably due to the low mash temps. Didn't smell as hoppy as I wanted it.