Experimenting with Red Ale

[darrenbrews]

Hey all,

I'm brewing my first red ale this weekend and like other newbies I'm anxious to experiment a little. I'm interested in splitting the batch and doing something a bit different with a portion of the brew. I just saw a post from someone who was adding oak chips or cubes to his red ale. I think this sounds interesting but what might this taste like and how would I do it? Would I just add the chips to secondary for a time?

Are there any other suggestions for a good red ale experiment.

-Darren

 

[emmdubb23]

Hey all,

I'm brewing my first red ale this weekend and like other newbies I'm anxious to experiment a little. I'm interested in splitting the batch and doing something a bit different with a portion of the brew. I just saw a post from someone who was adding oak chips or cubes to his red ale. I think this sounds interesting but what might this taste like and how would I do it? Would I just add the chips to secondary for a time?

Are there any other suggestions for a good red ale experiment.

-Darren

You would add the oak in the secondary. I usually save the experiments for after I have brewed something a couple of times. It will give you a baseline for what the raw finished product should taste like. Also if you want to tweak the recipe a bit, it gives you a good opportunity to do just that.

 

[darrenbrews]

I usually save the experiments for after I have brewed something a couple of times.

Thanks emmdubb23, that is good advice and I may end up waiting for another brew to do the experiment but no harm in asking ahead of time to find something I really want to do.

-DZ