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Redish Hue

Northern Brewer General
#1

I’m looking to brew a reddish hued ~8% beer that’s no darker than 12 SRM. I tried earlier this year to make a reddish ale, but it ended up more brown than red. I’m planning to go with a simple grain bill, which I’ve been doing lately with pretty nice results.

My question is, how much C120 would it take to with 12 lbs of base malt to achieve redness? Roasted barley and chocolate are out, because of my SRM limit.

My grain bill looks like this currently:

12 lbs Pale Ale Malt, Northwestern (Great Western) (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 86.7 %
12.0 oz Crystal 120, 2-Row, (Great Western) (120.0 SRM) Grain 3 5.4 %
4.5 oz Carapils (Briess) (1.5 SRM) Grain 4 2.0 %
13.0 oz Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM) Sugar 5 5.9 %

I also have some C75 on hand.

#2

The best red I have gotten is with a combination of C120 and Special B. Special B is dark and really red. I use base malt along with 8 ounces of C120 and 8 ounces of Special B to get to about 13 or 14 SRM. If you don’t want it to be that dark, you could go with 6 ounces of each or maybe 4 ounces of C120 and 8 ounces of Special B. I guarantee you that you’ll get the color you want. Check out my Home Run Red Ale…

#3

Thanks Ken. I’ll give the Special B a try. I’ll cut back on the C120 and maybe bump up my target SRM a little. It’s not like 12 is a magic number.

#4

[quote=“Ken Lenard”]The best red I have gotten is with a combination of C120 and Special B. Special B is dark and really red. I use base malt along with 8 ounces of C120 and 8 ounces of Special B to get to about 13 or 14 SRM. If you don’t want it to be that dark, you could go with 6 ounces of each or maybe 4 ounces of C120 and 8 ounces of Special B. I guarantee you that you’ll get the color you want. Check out my Home Run Red Ale…

[/quote]

Damm, that’s pretty. :cheers:

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