Carared?

Beersmith puts that grain profile at 10.4 SRM.

I'm brewing an Imperial Red next weekend with 12.3% carared and 1.5% carafa III special with a 15.5 SRM. I'll let everybody know if it results in a red beer or not. I'm still leery that it willl, but we shall see. Might even increase the carared to 15.4% (16.1 SRM beer) since people seem to report that it doesn't add much sweetness. Perhaps I'll also add a pound of caramunich I and crank it up to 17.4 SRM. tbd

 

Same happened to me. I added a small amount of carafa with mine as well as melanoidin. I think next time I may drop the carafa. Good news is it still tastes great. I used citra, Columbus and Amarillo in a rye ipa. Ended up only being technically red and more amber.

 

I always assumed colors went from yellow to orange to red to brown to black. Wouldn't droppng the carafa make the color go in the wrong direction? Isn't amber lighter than red? I thought amber was between yellow and orange and red was darker than orange. Or is amber darker than orange and closer to brown?

I could see how adding too much carafa, being a black malt, would muddy up a red color though. It would also muddy up an orange as well. So I guess the question is was your amber a muddy orange or a muddy red?

 

Correction: I always though amber was between orange and red.

 

It was too dark to let the red shine. I guess that's the same as muddy?

 

Using carared does give a red tint/colour to your beer however you need to get the SRM right. If you're doing a porter you're gonna need to tweak the carared. Depending on the colour of the beer without carared depends on how much you use. Too much and it will go a brown colour. Here is a photo of my Juniper Rye IPA with cara red which brought it up to 14.1 SRM in total: http://i.imgur.com/Y0WphQ1.jpg for 40liter batch I used 500grams. Will be experimenting and moving it up to 600grams next batch.

 

Thanks for the pic and ratios, thatll help me out a bunch. Check it out @rainerschuhsler

 

If it helps anymore it was 3.7/3.8% grain ratio and beersmith2 tells me carared is 24 SRM by its self. But will increase it, I don't know if it shows up sowell but its a light red. Will increase it slightly but its always best to start low and increase it next brew abit more. Otherwise it will be too much carared and give it a brown colour.

 

That's been my experience. The last time I had half a pound of melanoidin and carares I may dial it down a little ore the next go around. The first beer I made had a higher ratio and came out pretty brown.