Irish Red Ale

[CrealCritter]

Here's the double checked and final recipe, I'll be brewing tomorrow morning. This will be the first time brewing on my new tiered all-grain system with new hot liquor tank and new pump to move hot liquids around.

Should be fun

Shown in US measurements.

Yeast is Lallemand Nottingham Ale Yeast harvested from last year's Irish Red Ale. Nottingham, fermented a excellent Irish Red Ale extract with mini mash brew last year. I hope for the same or better with all grain.

 

[CrealCritter]

You could also do a Leprechaun instead of a bar maid ... but I like what you have also

how about something a little more sinister, like Little Red Irish Ale?

 

[CrealCritter]

Brewed recipe 9 gallons pre boil 7 gallons post boil. Somehow I overshot the amount of sparge water by 1 gallon. So I had to adjust the recipe for a 90 minute boil. First time brewing with a hot liquor tank, so I need to study a little more and rework my math.

But here is the brewed recipe for 7 gallons with a 90 minute boil.

Dispite having 1 gallon to much sparge water I still was over a little on my post boil gravity by 2 points. So by adding the hot liquor tank and sparge vorlauf assembly. I increased my brew house efficiency by 8% to 78% instead of 70% like it was. I might be able to sqeeze out an additional 2% as I learn how to use the system I developed better.

Post boil and chilled starting gravity 1.052, good looking and tasty wort too.

 

[CrealCritter]

Ale yeast is notorious for making a mess, no matter how much head room you give it. Yeah, I think it's fermenting.

 

[CrealCritter]

Bottling day... After 1 week of primary and 2 weeks of secondary fermention (22 days). My son in law and I brewed this one together so we split 64 bottles instead of kegging it.

The final gravity 1.008 which puts this Lil Red Irish Ale at 5.8% ABV. It will pick up another ~ .5 % ABV munching on bottle priming sugar to carbonate. So it will finish at ~ 6.3% ABV.

I need to finish the label which was inspired by reading my new granddaughter Little Red Riding Hood from Grimm's book of Complete Fairly Tales. BTW... Grimm's version ends a lot better than the traditional version.

Lil Red Irish Ale is blood red, pre carbonation, just like what happened to the big bad wolf

 

[CrealCritter]

Needs more time to bottle carbonate, but it's a smooth easy drinker plus it's red

label for this years contest. My letters are horrible but hopefully better than no label at all. I grew tired of playing around with it.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Can you make the letters BOLD so they show up better?

 

[CrealCritter]

Can you make the letters BOLD so they show up better?

I can yes and I will, thanks for the feedback.

I tried the air brush tool in GIMP for letters, but I really need a touch screen with a pen to make it work right. I kind of got frustrated with it all and said fine, just a text block, then.

Maybe one of these days I'll get a good tablet with a pen. But for now, I can only do so much with my laptop and mouse.

 

[CrealCritter]

Yummy... I love a good Irish Red Ale. This batch turned out even better than last years.

I don't think I could ask for anything better from an ale. It pours with a white head, It's clear and smooth without even a hint of bitterness. Which is unusual for ale yeast. It has a barley and woodsy flavor with an slight almost fresh cut hay (earthy) type of arroma.

I literally slammed the 12oz in the glass, it was that easy drinking. My recipe is in one of the previous posts, feel free to use it, if you want to brew your own

@sumi would love a mug of this.

 

[CrealCritter]

Before

After

After Thoughts