Should my Irish Red Ale be red in color? My brew resembles an IPA-dark Amber, no red color. Thx. Mike
Extract kit? Its hard to get the color perfect with extract kits. I did one like 6 months ago and it was also darker than I expected. Tasted great tho
Ideally, an Irish Red should be reddish in color. But that’s harder to do with extract. I had success doing my own recipe and doing it as a partial mash (with as much grain as I could possibly handle). Plus I used a dose of Special B to help boost the red color in the mix. I suspect it may end up being a more pronounced red when I brew it the next time around as I’ll be doing it as all grain this time around.
Interestingly enough, the one American Amber ale I did turned out to be almost the same color as my Irish Red. Different recipe, but surprisingly close when done as a partial mash. I recently did the American Amber ale as an all-grain and this time around it appears to be a lighter color, more amber in appearance than decidedly red.
I’ve done the exact same recipe at different times and gotten slightly different colors.Variables probably include the crush of the grains, the length of time of the mash, the length of time of the boil, the volume in the fermenter, and whether or not there was a cold crash +/or gelatin to settle fine particles. Maybe there are other variables as well.
One cautionary note: one time(at band camp), when I didn’t think my IR was red enough, I bottled it with pomegranate juice. I did get a nice color, but that stuff is nasty, at least at bottling. She was drinkable, but just barely. Ok, another caution, I also added some red food coloring. Don’t do that either. Learn from my mistakes…
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