American red help

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Hi guys!

I was wondering if any of you had experience brewing American red ales. I have a brew day planned tomorrow and I'll give a go at this. Never used 10-15% of a grist of crystal malt apart from when making milds, so it seems a bit daunting. Original plan is to have a mash of pale malt with around a pound and a bit of a mix of light, medium and dark crystal (2/5, 2/5, 1/5, roughly) and then colour correct with up to 50g of roast barley (or chocolate malt). Aiming at an OG of 1.055 and something in the order of 40-55 IBU. An alternative would be to reduce the amount of crystal malts and introduce half a pound of Munich malt, which would still be ok with the style but give a drier beer.

Any recommendations on hops welcome. I have waiting in the fridge the following: amarillo, cluster, nugget, chinook, cascade, brewer's gold, apollo, liberty, ekg, northdown. These are all bits and bobs so of most of them I don't have more than 50g (I was thinking about some bittering with BG and then a hop burst of amarillo, cascade and cluster, with the odd addition of liberty). I'll be also adding late a big bunch of fresh brewer's gold from the garden.
 
Hops. Considering 15g Nugget for bittering, then 10g of both Cascade and Cluster in a couple of additions (30, 15 or 20, 10). Finishing with fresh Brewer's Gold from the vine and Amarillo.
 
Not a style I'm familiar with I'm afraid but I'm liking the sound of what you have there.

I'm using caramunich for the first time today, it smells amazing, really caramelly-malty, like old fahsioned sweeties almost...
 
Ended up with 22l of 1.055 wort. 300g crystal, 150g caramalt, 200g dark crystal, 8g roast barley, 100g carapils. 10g each of Cascade, Cluster and Liberty at 20, 10 and 0, plus 50g of fresh Brewer's Gold to steep. 20g of Nugget for bittering.
 
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