UPDATE: How the Red Ale (HB#2) is stacking up after three weeks in bottles

It was hard to get a good picture of
the color. The flash made it look like
a stout and no flash was too dark at
night. I ended up shining my iPhone
light from the back which lit it up a bit.

It has been just over three and half weeks since I bottled the Red Ale (HB#2) and over the past week or so, the flavors have really developed, though I'm still not sure if it is where I would like it to be yet...

At exactly two weeks, I opened a bottle and was really having high hopes of tasting a bready, malty, and sweet Irish Red, but that wasn't really the case at all. There was a lot of subtle malty flavor, but it was all over powered by a harshness that was pretty unpleasant. Since it wasn't even that great, I decided I wouldn't write about it until it started to taste okay.

At exactly three weeks I opened one and poured it into a glass. It had a really great red color and much more of a sweet malty aroma than at the two week point, though still very subtle. I was relieved when I tasted it because the dominant harsh flavor had mellowed out a lot. Now their is a prevalent sweet maltiness with some very subtle fruit flavors. The finish is full, though I am hoping it will develop more of a breadiness. All in all though, I am really happy with where the red is right now, especially with how "ungood" (I won't say the b-- word) it tasted just a week ago. I ended up drinking a few more and it really is a half decent beer, especially with food.

It is still possible that the flavors will develop more in the coming weeks, but I would assume it is getting clsoe to the point of being stable. I really don't know though.... We will have to wait and see.

UPDATE: Red Ale (HB#2) now in bottles

Bottling day set up

I realized very late last night that today was bottling day for the Red Ale (HB#2). In a hurry, I filled my plastic tub with water and Oxyclean, and I soaked as many bottles as I could find, which happened to be just enough. Today was a long day that started with de-labeling and scrubbing the bottles and ended with transferring and bottling. The process was more or less the same as the Foreign Extra Stout (HB#1), so I will not go into too much detail on the bottling process.

Cracked bottle

Great amber red color

We did have a few bottles break on us when being capped. The broken bottles, on top of only having 4.5 gallons of beer (instead of the usual 5 gallons), produced only thirty-six 12 oz bottles and three 22 oz bottles. It is a little under the typical forty-eight 12 oz-ers, but like I said, the volume was a half gallon less than usual (because some was lost on brew day when transferring from the kettle to the carboy), so it was expected.

The gravity reading was spot on the target at 1.013, so everything seemed to have gone as planned. In two weeks, this beer should be ready to drink....but I will probably crack one open in a week just to see how it is coming along.

Homebrew #2: Red Ale

*I am new to this blogging thing and am trying to figure out the best way to record all this information in an interesting and concise way. So, I'm going to try out different formats and things to see what works best*

I really love red ales. It started with Sam Adams Irish Red and evolved from there into a infatuation of searching for new and interesting reds to try. For this second homebrew I really wanted to make something along the lines of my favorite reds (Pursuit of Hoppiness, Hop Head Red, Jamaican Red), which tend to be a little hoppier then traditional dry, Irish reds. That being said, I still decided to go to Hop To It! and use one of their recipes, since I am still learning and don't feel ready to make my own recipes yet (but I did use about 1/2 lb more malt, since that is supposed to help increase ABV). So I spent another ~$40 and came out with ingridients for what was described to me as, more or less, a traditional Irish red.

Ingredients:
-6.5 lbs Light liquid malt extract (I used 7 lbs)

-Specialty Grains
        -6 oz CaraRed Malt
        -6 oz Medium Crystal 
        -4 oz Extra Dark Crystal Malt
        -2 oz Roasted Barley

-2 oz U.S. Kent Goldings hops

-Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale

Again, I followed the procedure fairly closely, but I tweaked the water volumes because the closer to 5 gallons your boil is, the better it will turn out (from what I've been reading online and in recipe books). Also, I only started  with 1.5 gallons on the Homebrew #1 (Foreign Extra Stout) and it was not enough water to cover the whole steeping bag, so I wanted to make sure I had at least enough to submerge the specialty grains.

Procedure:
-Heat 3.5 gallons to 160 degrees
-At 160 degrees, remove from heat and steep specialty grains

We tied the steeping bag to the spoon with fishing line so the bag wasn't
 sitting on the bottom of the pot. I'm not sure how necessary this is, but I didn't
want the speciality grains to be burning against the bottom of the hot pot

-After 30 minutes, remove speciality grains and let drip dry
-Add extract

-Once extract is dissolved, bring volume to about 4.5 gallons
-Return to heat and bring to boil
-Add 1 1/2 oz U.S. Kent Golding hops and boil for 50 minutes
-Add 1 1/2 oz U.S Kent Golding hops and boil for 10 minutes
     *five minutes into the boil, I added the SuperMoss

Total Boil Time = 60 minutes

Post Boil:
-Cool wort down below 80 degrees

Wort being chilled via wort chiller

-Aerate
-Take gravity reading

The glass instrument sticking out of the top is the
hydrometer, which is used to measure gravity. We  were right on
the money with the target starting gravity of 1.051

-Pitch yeast (Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale)

Quick Notes:
Brew Date: 10/20/2011
Starting Gravity: 1.051 (which was what the recipe set the target at)
Target Final Gravity: 1.013
Target ABV: 5% (but I'm hoping a little higher since I used a bit more extract)

And that is it. I don't feel like I need to add every little detail of brewing since each post would be more or less the same, but if their are questions or confusions, just post comments and next time I will address them.

Oh! And I wanted to point out a near disaster Chris and I had. We use a propane burner while brewing since our electric range isn't strong enough, and I assumed 1 tank could do 2 brews, but boy was I wrong. When trying to bring the wort to a boil (at 4.5 gallons), it plateaued at 199-201 degrees for about an hour and half and showed no signs of going up. I thought it was the burner messing up, but Chris was smart enough to realize that we didn't have enough propane. So I ran out to a gas station I knew sold propane at 11pm and bought a tank right before they closed. Had I not been able to get more propane, this whole batch would have been a throwaway. (I'm not sure what effect a super long and slow rise to boil has on beer. Hopefully nothing negative!) Lesson Learned: Make sure your propane tank is full, and maybe even have an extra one on hand!