red ale

[chachi1000]

Is there any malt out there, or malt combinations, that are commonly used to produce ruby red tints in a red ale? Getting in the amber range won't be too difficult, but a hint of rouge seems to be elusive..... any info would be great. Cheers

[BMOOR]

re:red ale

Special B and CaraMunich are a good place to start. Castle and Weyerman are two good makers of this malt. MAybe 5-10% of each. The deeper red color, the more you'll need. They work well for me anyway.

[crassbrauer]

Cara-Red

See Cara-Red here:

http://www.weyermann.de/eng/produkte.asp?idkat=18&umenue=yes&idmenue=37&sprache=2

Special B is good for that raisin-like Belgian flavor. If you don't want that in your beer, then use something else to achieve a reddish tint.

[rafters_brewer]

Depending on the style, ~1% of de-bittered black malt will provide a nice red hue with no additional flavors...

[gitchegumee]

I'm pretty much with rafters. Briess Black Malt will do the trick. I would use only 1/2% for a fine red hue--it's pretty potent stuff. Especially because I would imagine you are planning on using some dark caramel, or a touch of chocolate or both. Good luck!

As a side; anybody have suggestions for hops to go with a red ale?

[crassbrauer]

American, i.e. anything from the Northwest; even German and English varieties taste different from there. I guess, red ale is ultimately an American style. When I get one I don't really expect it to be hopped like a fine German pils. But on the other hand, why play by the rules, since American styles aren't very narrowly defined, anyway?

[chachi1000]

red ale

cheers everyone, all is very helpful and much appreciatied

[Michael Murphy]

weyermanns caraaromma is excelent color and a great carmel flavor, add in a small amount of chocolate or roasted B, it will deepen the red, you may taste the RB, but its not bad I use it in all my red ale recipes.

[RobZamites]

WRT to hopping a red ale, I'm sticking with tried and true EKG's, I used 1.5% roasted barley in my red recipe, it's pretty close in color to Smithwick's™, I may tinker with some other malts, as I too, search for a true 'red' in a red ale

[Cargill Malt]

Red Beers

Using Caramel malts that have been produced in a kiln rather than a roaster will definitely give more red hue. It is intuitive that a malt dried over a very long period at significantly lower temperatures will have less dark hues than a malt that is roasted in a very short period of time at very high temperatures. Think pure red rather than burgundy.

When the color of wort produced from kilned vs. roasted caramel malt is measured at multiple wavelengths to determine the hue in addition to the intensity, this intuitive theory proves to be the case.

Agree with other posters that small amounts of Roasted Barley gives a very nice color, much like garnet. Flavor is of course the issue if it is overdone.