Home of the BrewNosers

Thinking of doing bigger Irish Red this week. Not a Left-Coast Red, but just a slightly bigger, hoppier version of an Irish Red. Why I dunno. Just messing around. 6.5% and +/- 45 IBU

86% MO
4% C60
4% Caravienne
4% Torrified Wheat
2% roasted barley

I have some Nottingham dry yeast, or S-05. Am I missing anything?

What are you using for hops?

Probably northern brewer and some fuggles near the end. Even though I'm breaking style, I'd still like to maintain trajectory. So if BJCP says "generally no hop flavour/medium-low bitterness", I'm going to try for some hop flavour with medium bitterness.

Warrior @ 60
Fuggles @ 10

Now.... to oak, or not to oak?

Personally, I'd try the recipe once without oak. If you are planning to add oak, I'd go pretty light on it. Not sure how a 6.5% beer will standup to much oak.

If I add oak, it would be a light touch for sure. Didn't consider how the higher alcohol % might affect that though. I must read up on it.

Not sure why I'm feeling so unconventional with this batch. Just rolling with it. But that's the beauty of 1 gallon batches. Only really costs me time.

I think Jeff was meaning 6.5% was on the low side for oaking and would quickly become overpowered which can come off as sour.

You can always throw caution to the wind, do 2 gallons and oak 1.

akr71 wrote:I think Jeff was meaning 6.5% was on the low side for oaking and would quickly become overpowered which can come off as sour.

You can always throw caution to the wind, do 2 gallons and oak 1.

Far too late to adjust volumes. Fuggles are now funking up the kitchen. Still TBD with the oak anyway. I may lose the courage by then.

The best way to find out if you'll like oak aged beer is to try it. Maybe just a few grams or quarter ounce for about 5 days after fermentation is mostly done.

akr71 wrote:You can always throw caution to the wind, do 2 gallons and oak 1.

That way you'll be able to get a taste for the recipe without the oak as well.

jeffsmith wrote:

akr71 wrote:You can always throw caution to the wind, do 2 gallons and oak 1.

That way you'll be able to get a taste for the recipe without the oak as well.

To borrow a theme from the music thread: too late, too late

Overcooked again. Going to dub this my Big Irish Bastard: The Lynott. Recipe calculator was shooting for OG 1.069 with FG of +/-1.019. End up as OG 1.074 and FG 1.011. Didn't get the roast I wanted either. I was worried too much about the SRM given the Lovibond of my roast barley. Oh well, it's only a gallon's worth but we'll see how it does once it carbs up.

1.074 with an fg of 1.011 = deadly

And all my bottles are 500ml