What happens if you go nuts with debittered black malt?

[Bosh]

Got a black saison fermenting away in which I used a pound of Black Prinz dehusked malt in a five gallon batch. Usually this sort of malt seems to be used sparingly and more for color than for flavor.

However a full pound seems to be more than is usually used for beers like black saisons so the roast flavor is coming through clearly in the hydrometer sample I just took. Tastes wonderful, actually. Rich without a touch of the charcoal flavor that drives me nuts in some stouts.

So anyone tried using this stuff (i.e. Black Prinz, debittered carafa, midnight wheat etc.) in the really high quantities that`d be needed to get a really strong roast flavor out of this fairly subtle malt?

My brain is telling me to experiment with two pounds of Black Prinz in a black ale, maybe with some Munich malt... Would like to hear others` experiences.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

I have a used high RATIOS of debittered black in in my dark mild/low alcohol stout but the total weight was only 1# for a 10 gallon batch. I also had a 1/2# of chocolate.

So that pound of debittered was only about 5.5% of the grain bill and is balance by an equal amount of Special B. total ABV was about 4% with a FG of 1.013.

Very tasty, dark as night and loved by almost everyone. It is a fall/winter house beer at my place.

 

[Sir-Hops-A-Lot]

I have a used high RATIOS of debittered black in in my dark mild/low alcohol stout but the total weight was only 1# for a 10 gallon batch. I also had a 1/2# of chocolate.

So that pound of debittered was only about 5.5% of the grain bill and is balance by an equal amount of Special B. total ABV was about 4% with a FG of 1.013.

Very tasty, dark as night and loved by almost everyone. It is a fall/winter house beer at my place.

Care to share the recipe?

I used de-bittered roasted malt for a dry stout and it is not a dry stout as a result. It tastes like a dark bitter. I used one pound.
I've used 1.5# of regular black malt in a stout but I don't find regular black malt to be very bitter.
I would venture a guess that after 1# of de-bittered black malt you probably won't notice any difference from adding more.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

Care to share the recipe?

I used de-bittered roasted malt for a dry stout and it is not a dry stout as a result. It tastes like a dark bitter. I used one pound.
I've used 1.5# of regular black malt in a stout but I don't find regular black malt to be very bitter.
I would venture a guess that after 1# of de-bittered black malt you probably won't notice any difference from adding more.

I have never figured out how to successfully export from my software so when I am at work tomorrow will transcribe the most recent iteration.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

Mild about you...or is it a stout

10 gallon batch

9.0 lb American 2-Row Rahr
4.0 lb Munich - Light 10L (US)
1.0 lb De-Bittered Black (BE)
1.0 lb Chocolate (US)
1.0 lb Caramel/Crystal 20L (US) (dropped this the last two times and just upped the Munich)
1.0 lb Special B® MD™ Dingemans

Mash at 150 f

1.0 oz Magnum (US) at start of 60 minute boil
Random aroma hops at 5 minutes

S-04 fermented at about 63 f

Very smooth, slight malty, "raisin" and coffee flavors balance each other nicely. VERY drinkable in about two weeks (keg, force carb) and really does not get much better with time.

You would never know this is a low alcohol beer without seeing the grain bill. I used to use a lot of Mild malt in place of some of the two-row but all it seemed to add was excessive head retention.

 

[m00ps]

Im not sure why youd want to experiment with large amounts of de-bittered black malts. They are tailor made for stuff like swartzbiers, black ipas, black saisons, etc where you want the color without the roast. IME at 1lb per 5gal, you do get some roast, but not as much as a tradtitional stout. By doubling that, the end beer wont be any more black colored, just much more roasty

Ive found teh best way to use them is adding most of it at mashout to keep roast character to an absolute minimum

 

[andrewmaixner]

Care to share the recipe?

I used de-bittered roasted malt for a dry stout and it is not a dry stout as a result. It tastes like a dark bitter. I used one pound.
I've used 1.5# of regular black malt in a stout but I don't find regular black malt to be very bitter.
I would venture a guess that after 1# of de-bittered black malt you probably won't notice any difference from adding more.

Doesn't stout traditionally call for black barley, which is not malted?

 

[Bosh]

Im not sure why youd want to experiment with large amounts of de-bittered black malts. They are tailor made for stuff like swartzbiers, black ipas, black saisons, etc where you want the color without the roast. IME at 1lb per 5gal, you do get some roast, but not as much as a tradtitional stout. By doubling that, the end beer wont be any more black colored, just much more roasty

Ive found teh best way to use them is adding most of it at mashout to keep roast character to an absolute minimum

To make an analogy to hops, imagine International Roastiness Units existed that measured how much roast flavor a given amount of malt imparts to beer. Black Prinz would have few IRUs while chocolate malt would have more and black patent malt would have much much more, meaning black patent malt is the most efficient way to get roast flavor into beer.

But home brewers often don`t do things the most efficient way or we`d have a lot more beers only hopped with Magnum.

Getting a beer with stout-level roastiness (instead of dunkel just-barely-there roastiness) would require a **** ton of debittered malt, just like making an IPA with noble hops requires a **** ton of hops and is expensive. But people still make EKG IPAs. Just wondering if anyone had tried putting enough debittered malt in a beer to get a strong roast flavor as I`m wondering if the character of that flavor would be different enough from just using a smaller amount of traditional dark malts to be worth experimenting with.

 

[chickypad]

Doesn't stout traditionally call for black barley, which is not malted?

Commonly yes, but not necessarily an absolute. Good read on it here by the mad fermentationist, including the link to Ron Pattinson's blog pointing out that some of the earliest stouts, like porters, included only brown malt for the roasted component.

 

[Sir-Hops-A-Lot]

Doesn't stout traditionally call for black barley, which is not malted?

yeah yeah... You can use black malt for stouts but when you say Roasted it's the raw barley that's been roasted.
We've officially hijacked this thread.

My basic point was that I think that after 1# of debittered black malt you won't notice anything by adding more. It's not roasty or bitter, just inky black with a little flavour added.

 

[Bosh]

yeah yeah... You can use black malt for stouts but when you say Roasted it's the raw barley that's been roasted.
We've officially hijacked this thread.

My basic point was that I think that after 1# of debittered black malt you won't notice anything by adding more. It's not roasty or bitter, just inky black with a little flavour added.

Think that calls for an experiment Maybe I`ll run the same recipe again with another pound of Black Prinz and compare them.