Irish Red Ale Question

Recipe calls for the following:

7lbs of pale malt extract
1/4 lb roasted barley
1 lb 20L crystal malt
1/2 lb munich malt
1oz Northern Brewer (60 mins) boiling
1oz Norther Brewer (30 mins) boiling
1oz Fuggle (2 mins) aromatic
1 tspoon Irish Moss (15 mins)
1 tspoon Gelatin
3/4 cup bottling sugar

The recipe calls for a secondary fermenter, which I'm assuming is once the yeast is done "throwing up", siphoning the wort out into another carboy adding the gelatin and letting it settle. Please clarify

Additionally, after 3-5 days of the gelatin in the secondary, it says to rack again into a third fermenter. Is this necessary? Won't some of the yeast be lost throughout these multiple racking processes which would cause low alcohol content?

I don't see any yeast in your recipe, but if it is ale yeast, I would brew it and put it in the primary for two weeks and then bottle it.
The only time I use a secondary is when I'm dry hopping an IPA.

I never have used gelatin.

If there is sugar left in the wort then the yeast will be in there eating it and will transfer with the wort to the secondary.
Even when fermentation is done there will be yeast floating in the beer. When you add the bottling sugar right before bottling, the yeast will eat that and carbonate your bottles.
If you let the yeast have enough time and the right temperature it likes, you will get all the alcohol the yeast can make.

Yeast are not alcohol. Dropping out yeast by cold-crashing or waiting time before transfers does not drop the alcohol content of your beer. You will need sufficient yeast to bottle carbonate, but that won't be a problem unless you are doing months of cold conditioning.

I'm using a dry ale yeast w/ gelatin. I researched gelatin a little further and it just makes the beer more clear. The recipe calls for a fermenter in 65-75 degrees F so I should be able to keep the yeast happy during fermentation. So the point of racking to a secondary fermenter is to prevent sediment? Or I'm not quite sure the benefits of racking to a secondary fermenter, yet the recipe is calling for three racks?

Some people say that leaving the beer on the dead yeast that falls to the bottom causes bad flavors in your beer.
Others feel that is only for large volumes of brew because of the weight from all the liquid pressing down.

Personally I don't use a secondary and I think my beer is darn tasty

When you rack the beer out of the fermenter just hold the racking cane above the sediment and you wont pick much up.
I tilt mine slowly when it's half empty so I can get more of the "good stuff" without picking up the sediment.

Feel free to try a secondary one time and one time without, deiced what you like best.
That's the best part of brewing your own!

I rack to secondary and add gelatin to get my beer to clear faster, I like my beer clear for most styles. I have also racked directly to keg with no gelatin and the beer was just fine but took much longer to drop clear. Just a personal preference, either way will produce fine beer.

An Irish Red doesn't really need a secondary in my opinion. However the longer you cold condition your bottles the clearer your beer will be. I haven't used gelatin. Usually just a whirlfloc or Irish moss in the brew process and I go a couple weeks (in the fermenter) then straight to keg. After the keg sits a few more weeks the beer is nice and clear. Very tasty.

To answer the OP's question, no, don't rack twice. The third vessel is totally unecessary, and even the second is probably not necessary. You're risking oxidizing or contaminating your beer.

Also, I would not recommend bottling it after only 2 weeks.

I've made reds before, and I would advise you to leave it alone for 3 weeks. Then move it into a fridge. 2 days later, add the gelatin solution (see other threads for how to use gelatin). 3 or 4 days later, bottle it. If you don't have the ability to cold-crash the carboy (that is, you don't have fridge space for it), then don't bother with the gelatin. It is most effective on already-cold beer. It is much less effective on warm beer, because the whole point of it is to precipitate out the chill haze. If the beer isn't exhibiting chill haze, then the gelatin will simply fall right to the bottom, and when you do chill the beer, you'll still get the chill haze.

Agree with Kombat above. Cold crash in primary after 3 weeks and bottle -OR- Rack to secondary after 2.5-3 weeks and allow to clear for a few days. Then bottle. I don't think gelatin is necessary for this recipe unless your specific yeast has low flocculation characteristics.

Also I will give some comments on the recipe. It looks far too bitter for an Irish Red in my mind. I'm coming up with 52 IBU which is a hoppy pale ale or a weaker IPA. I would dial it back to 20-28 IBU's. Cutting your Northern Brewer hop additions to 0.5 oz each at 30 and 60 minutes would give you 27 IBU. This would be good if you are targeting the upper end of gravity, which it looks like you are (~1.062 SG if your pale malt extract is Dry). You are also on the dark side of color. You could dial back the Roasted Barley to 2-3 oz if you wanted it to hit center for color target.

Cheers!

I agree solbes, 3oz of hops caught my attention.
specialp, i just made an Irish Red and here is what i did:

pitched Nottingham yeast at 72° and then in primary for 12 days at 67°,
then JUST to clarify the beer, i racked to secondary, i took it up to 71 degrees for a week, then cold crashed at 33/34 for 3 days (that is to say, after a week no changes to hydrometer results). i have not noticed that cold crashing requires much extra carb time, but it surely results in a cleaner looking beer, less bottle sediment.
total time from pitch to bottle was 22 days.

I am trying this recipe as my first mash project and yet I am also still a bit of a "Newb" when it comes to terminology in beer making...what exactly does it mean in the part of the recipe when it calls for Northern Brewer hops twice at 30 and 60 mins? Do I need to add at two different times or do I add the first oz. for 60min and the second in a second pot for 30min? And could someone also explain what aromatic means?...at what point do I need to add this?

Your full boil time is 60 minutes (everything in one pot), so when the wort starts to boil add the 60 minutes hops (the 60 min. time is how long you will boil it)
When 30 minutes is remaining in your boil put in the second hops.

Thanks a ton Klutz!...I am really enjoying breaking out into the beer making world...who knew? My wife even supports it!!! LOL

Has anyone ever tried Brewer's Yeast by the brand name of "now"? I bought it from a natural food store while visiting family in San Diego and was curious if anyone had tried it and had any good results?

I think that is yeast you take as a diet supplement, not a yeast for brewing.
It has probably dead yeast cells.
You could try and make a starter and see what happens, who knows what the flavor would be like.

I would stick to yeast from your LHBS

its almost certain dead yeast intended as a health supplement, and sanitation would be suspect. Cheap dry yeast is cheap, why waste a batch of beer using that stuff?

Wow, you mean my bottle conditioned beer with yeast is healthy. I'll drink to that

Agree with others to stick to dry or liquid yeasts from brew shop. If you want to save some money, run off a succession of 2-4 brews using the same yeast. But use the good stuff.

Did the recipe with a few of my own "tweaks"...and by FAR this is the BEST beer I've EVER made so far!....thanks for ALL the help and PATIENCE with my "ignorance" and answering my questions...cracked the first bottle last night after 7 days of carbonation process and I felt a HUGE relief as I tasted the first drop of GOODNESS! I can't believe that I MADE THIS!!! Lol. So I guess I could say I'm a bit proud of the fact that MY very OWN rendition/version of this recipe turned out SO great! Thanks again ALL!

congrats, now give it two more weeks in the bottle to properly carb and condition. I tend to age my red ales about 3-4 months, they tend to peak around the 4-6 month period.

Yep...it will workout GREAT for me on the two weeks in the condition stage!...cause I work a two week on two week off schedule!

Btw do you condition cold or do you leave it at room temp for those weeks? The last batch I made was a but brown and I conditioned at room temp for three weeks...it was awesome as well but I found it had TOO much foam...does conditioning cold have ANY affect on how much it carbonates? I know without a doubt I was correct on my priming sugar amounts but it still was WAY foamy...for real it took like 5min to pour...as long as I poured and let it sit for a bit then the foam would go down but it still was a pain in the ass! Lol

Lmao....just realized the typo...."NUT BROWN" is what I meant to say!...and thanks again for the encouragement!

A butt brown is something you get from drinking way too much nut brown. I tend to condition at the coolest unrefrigerated temps I can. I'm in California, land of no basements, so my options are limited to a downstairs closet that keeps stable temps at around 65 through the winter and up to about 75 during the summer. If you can possibly cold condition after its fully carbed (3 weeks) then definitely do it, that would for sure improve the quality of the beer. The reason it has too much foam is probably because you are opening them too early. They need the full 3 weeks for the CO2 to properly absorb into the beer. Just be patient with it and give it the proper conditioning time and I'm sure it'll pour smoothly.

907brewing said:

Did the recipe with a few of my own "tweaks"...and by FAR this is the BEST beer I've EVER made so far!....thanks for ALL the help and PATIENCE with my "ignorance" and answering my questions...cracked the first bottle last night after 7 days of carbonation process and I felt a HUGE relief as I tasted the first drop of GOODNESS! I can't believe that I MADE THIS!!! Lol. So I guess I could say I'm a bit proud of the fact that MY very OWN rendition/version of this recipe turned out SO great! Thanks again ALL!

Click to expand...

great feeling, isn't it?

pdx_t said:

great feeling, isn't it?

Click to expand...

yes!!!

Well I had my first bottle explosion ever...a whole frickin 1/2 gal growler exploded...don't know why but the wife told me she just went ahead and put them into the beer fridge to keep from getting beer all over the carpet in our house LOL...no other bottles have exploded so I don't know why this one did but oh well I guess you live and learn

Some pics from the process of this batch

And the final product! Mmmmm simply the best beer I've ever had!...no going back to Killian's Irish red for this fella!!!

Congrats! Red ale is probably my favorite, looks great. Sorry that you learned that growlers are a no no for bottling the hard way.

Perfect color, congrats!

Growlers are perfect for storing already carbonated beer (from keg). They are not good for bottle conditioning carbonation, as the pressures created from that are much higher. Some do get away with it, but I am not gonna do it.

Lmao yes I definitely learned a lesson!...the other growler came out of it fine but I definitely won't be making that mistake again! And I think I actually might be looking into getting a kegerator and keg for this in the future so I won't run into this problem anyways...thanks again guys this thread was and I'm sure will continue to be a GREAT help!

"Here's to a long life and a merry one.
A quick death and an easy one.
A pretty girl and an honest one.
A cold pint-- and another one!"

So I did this recipe again yesterday EXACTLY like the first time but had a LIL bit of an issue getting it to "cold crash" after boiling wart...one would think that "WOULDNT" be a problem living in Alaska but we haven't had a winter!...anyways I let the Carboy sit overnight and pitched the yeast this morning at about 7am...am I or did I MISS something? I remember the yeast going CRAZY almost immediately the first time I did this! I don't recall adding sugar the first time i did this either...the vent on top isn't telling me ANYTHING that it's doing its job...do any of you suggest I add a yeast nutrient? I have "yeast nutrient" but don't have a CLUE on how much to add if I need to