Making the color of your beer (red)

[cyanide]

In about a month or so, I'll think I will try to come up with my own recipe. I'm good at cooking and can look over many different recipes to form one of my own to my specific tastes, I'd like to try that with beer.

I'm looking into color right now. I've been looking over the internet about how to calculate and manipulate color, the problem is, most seem to focus on going from light yellow to black. In my case, I want to make a very red ale. I'm not talking about brownish red, but however close I can come to full blown red. I'd like it clearish and not darkish red.

Most "red" recipes I've seen use light and amber malts along with speciality grains of about 60L.

Has anyone here tried making a specific color? Has anyone here tried to see how red beer could be made? Any advices, tips, websites that could help me figure out how to make reddish beer would be nice!

[b3s]

what i do is use the recipator over at hbd.org. one of the reasons i use it is because it will calculate, based on your recipe, the ibus and hcus...but more importantly, it will give you a color swatch right next to the hcus. allows you to tweak gravity, bitterness, and color pretty easily. the irish red recipe i came up with needed just a bit of 60L and amber malts.

hth.

[Tweek]

put about a 1/4 lb of chocolate malt in to make it red.

[cyanide]

Will that make the color really red? I'd like this beer to be as close to bright red as possible for beer.

According to the recipator using 1/4 of chocolate malt makes the color a bit brownish in a 5 gallon batch and makes it more reddish in a 6 gallon. Which size did you mean it for?

Using 1 pound of crystal 60L, I can make a reddish color of 20 HCU. Using 1/4 pound chocolate malt in 6 gallons makes 21.

[Tweek]

you are not going to get bright red without food coloring. but in a 5 gallon batch it will make a nice red hue, or a 6 gallon or even a ten gallon for that matter. with a quantity that low you are not going to extract much by the way of flavor but just color. you can get that mucky brown color that you are worried about from your extract and your hops, you wont get it from that little chocolate.
If you want to you can lighten your base by using a lighter extract and then the red will show up better, remember to use a clearing agent like irish moss.

[fuji6100]

you wont get it from that little chocolate

I don't know if it has to do with technique, brand of grain, ect, but I get a LOT of color and a good amount of flavor from my chocolate malt. 1/4 pound is typically what I used in my nut brown to give it a nice brown color, and a dry roasted taste. I definatly know it's in there!

I only had to use 2# in my irish red to give it that nice red color and it was almost too much (And i didn't want the chocolate malt being the dominant flavor)

I get a nice red/amber using

6# amber DME
1# light DME
6 oz 20L crystal
6 oz 60L crystal
2 oz chocolate malt

This is for a 5 gallon batch (and I use Irish Moss to clarify)

It might look more brown than red (like a mohoghany) in the fermenter, but poured in the glass, the finished product's color is somewhere between Killarney's and Killian's.

[Theakston]

The reddest beer I have ever seen is Rodenbach. A "Flanders Red" It is the colour of burgundy. It is also very sour. People have been known to mistake it for a red wine.

It achieves the colour mostly by aging in wood. I have heard some home brewers have acheived a similar effect by adding oak chips into the secondary and letting it sit on these for an extended amount of time.

I would recommend you try and taste one before you go for it yourself. It's an aquired taste and not everyone is keen on it. I personally rate it as one of the best.

[cyanide]

Originally posted by Tweek
you are not going to get bright red without food coloring. but in a 5 gallon batch it will make a nice red hue, or a 6 gallon or even a ten gallon for that matter. with a quantity that low you are not going to extract much by the way of flavor but just color. you can get that mucky brown color that you are worried about from your extract and your hops, you wont get it from that little chocolate.
If you want to you can lighten your base by using a lighter extract and then the red will show up better, remember to use a clearing agent like irish moss.

Well, I'm not expecting it to look like Kool-Aid, but I am interested in seeing how red beer can be made.