This will only be my third batch so am looking for some critique. I got some ideas from looking for a Hop Head Red Clone, but also really like Simcoe so please let me know! Only partial mash right now, still want to get down the extract brew before I jump into all grain. 2 lbs Carared (20.0 SRM) 8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) 1 lbs Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) 6 lbs 9.6 oz Amber Liquid Extract (12.5 SRM) 1.00 oz Amarillo [9.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min 1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min 1.00 oz Falconer's Flight [11.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min 1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min 1.00 oz Amarillo [9.20 %] - Boil 5.0 min 1.00 oz Amarillo [9.20 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 30.0 min 1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 30.0 min 1.00 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 14.0 Days 1.00 oz Admiral [14.75 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days 1.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 ml] Thanks alot.
The only thing I see is that all your hops are high alpha. If your goal is to have an IPA like bitterness keep your recipe as is. If your looking to make more of a standard Red Ale you will want to tone your hops down. You are going to have a lot of hop flavor. Good luck.
if you like Simcoe taste, add at the 30 and 20 minute mark. U do have some in the aroma area. I have been using a lot of Simcoe lately to try to use up my supply and am just learning how it works in with recipes and this seems to be a great time to add them for taste. I think your aroma additions are spot on! It's gonna smell awesome, I would imagine. If you really like Simcoe, skip the admiral. If you want Simcoe, use Simcoe for the majority of your recipe.That's what I take out of what you write.
By my way of thinking, 2lbs carared and 8 oz of Crystal 60 is about 2-2.5 lbs too much cara-type malts for an extract batch. Amber DME usually has some sort of crystal malt already in it, too. With this much of this type of malt this beer will be heavy and sweet in a way that I think most people would find undesirable. Additionally, the sweetness this adds could really obscure what you are trying to accomplish with all the hops. If you don't have the ingredients yet, I would recommend using a light malt extract as your base. These usually are just base malt, or base malt and perhaps a bit of carapils. They can be used as a blank slate for building an extract recipe, so that you know all the ingredients you are adding. If you already have the ingredients, I suggest steeping only half a pound of those crystal/cara malts. I know there is a desire to augment extract so you feel like you are making your own thing, but that gets tricky if using amber or dark extracts because you don't know what is already there and in what amounts. If your purpose for using all the specialty malts is to augment color, try a couple ounces of a roasted barley, black malt, or chocolate malt. In such small quantities, you can get some red color without a lot of roasty flavors.
