Irish Red Ale

[irish_goat]

Gonna try to do this today. Have my HLT set up with water, have the grains and mill out and ready to go so the plan is to go home at lunch (live 5 mins from home) and get the mash on, then come back 4 hours later, sparge and boil. If it works out well I might do it every brew day.

3kg. Maris Otter
750g. Munich Malt
500g. Crystal Malt
100g Torrified Wheat
50g  Special B
30g. Roasted Barley

20 g. Cascade boiled 60 min.
10 g. EKG boiled 10 min.
10 g. EKG boiled 2 min.
Yeast : WLP007, pitched from pale ale fermenter

Will whack it all into Beersmith while the HLT is heating and maybe readjust a little then.

[DEMPSEY]

4 hour mash should be interesting, I approve

[irish_goat]

4 hour mash should be interesting, I approve

I've read a bit about people doing overnight mashes with no problem so I'm guessing it should be ok. 4 hours will be the max, I'm gonna try to be done starting the mash as close as possible to 2pm (when I need to be back in) and then home for about half 4.

[DEMPSEY]

How many litres are you planning.

[irish_goat]

Aiming for about 21 litres in the fermenter, will let Beersmith figure out the measurements. 

[DEMPSEY]

Ye have around 68% as your base malt maybe adjust that up a bit and pull back on some of the other malts.

[irish_goat]

Ye have around 68% as your base malt maybe adjust that up a bit and pull back on some of the other malts.

I was going off this post which sounds like solid advice but only uses 58% base malt.

Is torrified wheat counted as base?

[DEMPSEY]

Given that Thornbridge beers are on my favourite beers list I would not argue with what is advised however he did suggest no chocolate malt and no roast malts

[irish_goat]

Given that Thornbridge beers are on my favourite beers list I would not argue with what is advised however he did suggest no chocolate malt and no roast malts

He did but I want some nice roasty flavour in to make it more along the lines of an Irish red than an American one.

[irish_goat]

Took a total of 50 mins to get there and back, think I might do this from now on.

I'm getting 18 IBUs for those hops, style guidelines are 17 – 28 so I might bump it up to 22 IBUs.

[nigel_c]

I do that sometimes as well. Can really speed up a brewday when you can get half of it done at lunch time. What i o is leave my lunch break till as late as possible. Back to work for an hour and home and get the rest done.
If your really sneaky you could get one of those timer plugs and have it set to come on about 20 mins before you get home so your sparge water is coming up to temp just as you get in the door.