Inspired by Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale.
The original uses Flaked Barley and Red Rice according to their website. It's not entirely clear to me what "red rice" really means here. Could be red rice koji, a.k.a. red yeast rice, which might be what brings the beer it's pink hue. Could also be just a minor addition of koji, with the bulk being regular red rice.
I decided to go with red rice, since that was very easy to find on Amazon in a large enough volume. I don't think it'll add any color to the beer, but who knows. Red yeast rice should be easy to find in chinatown, but with Covid-19 I'd rather not leave Brooklyn.
Boiled red rice and malts
Volume: 2.5 gal
Fermentables:
- 4.8 lbs Pilsner malt
- 1 lbs Red Rice
- 0.5 lbs Flaked Barley
- 4 oz Carapils 1.8 L
Hops:
- 9 grams Chinook 13 AA
Schedule:
- 60 min: 3g Chinook
- 20 min: 3g Chinook
- 5 min: 3g Chinook
Yeast: US-05
Predictions:
- OG: 1.068
- FG: 1.013
- ABV: 7.2%
- IBU 17.95
- SRM 3.79
Boil the rice for 30 minutes to gelatinize, then mash w grains.
Brewing with C, who originally suggested we try to clone this beer.
Washed the rice and then boiled in 0.5 gal water for 30 minutes. While the rice lost some of its red color in the boil, the water itself turned a dark red. Strained it off into the main kettle and got about 1/4 gal.
Added water to reach 1.5 gal total, heated to perhaps 155, added grains and rice in bag. Temp dropped to 135-140. Tried pulling up bag and heating, but the grain to water ratio made this difficult. Ended up heating and adding an additional 0.5 gal water instead.
Mashed for 60 minutes at roughly 150F, although it definitely spent some time below that. Perhaps 145.
After squeezing the grain bag and topping off with water to 2.5 gal, my hydrometer reading, adjusted for temperature, came in at 1.053. That's not at all what we want.
So what went wrong? Not sure. Perhaps I should've boiled the rice longer, and tried to crush it up a bit before mashing it?
Anyway, we need 14 additional gravity points. With 2.5 gal, that means 35 points from extract. 1 lbs of DME is 44 ppg, so 35/44=0.8 lbs of DME should put us at 1.068. I guess it won't be as much of a "red rice" beer as intended, but it'll be beer!
Had 9 oz Briess golden light DME in a zip lock bag, so I added that, and an additional 3 oz table sugar to hit ~0.8 oz. Good enough.
Boil went fine. Add fermcap before, and also whirlfloc at 10 minutes. Cooled and transferred 2 gal to fermentor. Lots of cloudy trub that didn't settle in spite of leaving it for 1 hour. Guessing that's due to the flaked barley? Pitched yeast, aerated, tossed in the Tilt and off we go.
But then the first Tilt reading back in at 1.076. Wth? That's 8 points too high. Took a hydrometer sample and that came in at 1.074. Volume in kettle was 2.5 gal. When I took it off the burner. No clue what's going on.
Whatever. It'll be beer.
- OG: 1.076 (Tilt)
- OG: 1.074 (Hydrometer)
A thick cake of yeast on the bottom. Got 1 bottle and 1 1.5 gal keg before I started seeing a bit more trub than I'd like.
Long day of cleaning afterwards, as I decided to also clean my brand new Anvil Foundry 6.5 gal.
Specific gravity and temperature, as reported by Tilt
- FG: 1.010 (Tilt)
- ABV: 8.7%
I finished the keg a month ago or so. Opened the bottle today, and while it's mellowed out a bit, it's not much better.
Poured with very little foam. Color is not red, but a medium to dark amber.
Flavor is ok at first. Dry. A little bit spicy, or something like that. Presumably from the flaked barley. There'a lingering, slightly sour note. Almost metallic. Not pleasing.
Have to say while I finished the keg, I did so a bit reluctantly. The beer was drinkable, but not great.
What went wrong? Not sure. Fermentation temp wasn't too bad. Perhaps the red rice was a bad idea? Perhaps flaked barley just isn't my cup of tea. Either way, I don't think I'll brew this again anytime soon.