Saturday, August 9, 2008

Irish Red Ale Part 1

I am planning an Irish Red Ale for the next brew. I am no longer brewing from kits. The kits are easy and all but I haven't found any that come with no-compromise authentic ingredients.

To design the my Irish Red Ale I consulted the Beer Judge Certification Program style guide and the book Designing Great Beers. I wanted to make something that would be legal to use in a competition with super high quality ingredients.

Irish Red Ale
Grains

4 pounds Mountmellick (Ireland) light extract
3 pounds Munton & Fison (UK) extra light dry malt extract (Added in last 15 minutes of boil)
12 oz Crystal 50-60L Simpson's (UK)
2 oz Roasted Barley 500-600L Simpson's (UK)
2 oz Cara Malt, crisp malting (UK)

Hops

1 oz Kent Goldings 4.8% AA ---- boiled 60 minutes
1 oz Fuggles 4.0% AA ---- boiled last 2 minutes

Yeast

White Labs Irish Ale Yeast WL004

Additives

1 t Irish Moss added in last 15 minutes of boil (clarifying agent)

5 oz corn sugar for priming (carbonation)

I did some calculations based on the recipe. We'll see how close they come to reality.

Predicted Starting Gravity - 1.061
Predicted Finishing Gravity - 1.015
Predicted Alcohol by Volume - 5.9%
Predicted IBU (bitterness) - 20

I should be brewing when I get back from Columbus.

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