Darkening during primary

[19been85]

Started a vanilla porter but its no where near as dark as I had hoped it would be.

It was a dark ale coopers kit beer with a kg of dark spray malt.

Is there any way of adding colour now or is it too late?

[hommebru]

steep some roasted barley (50g) or some chocolate malt (100g-200g) (or a bit of both) for 30mins, boil in for another 30mins and add that.

shouldn't be much of a problem as long as you pour it in very slowly to avoid oxygenating the wort and be very clean about how you do things. don't skimp on the boil either.

that should darken it a bit, if you're just after colour though, and not any additional flavours, use black patent malt (15-25g) and that will give you enough colour i think without contributing much (if any) flavour to your brew.

[hommebru]

forgot to mention, you'll be steeping these grains in 2-ish ltrs of water and therefore you'll be increasing the brewlength and reducing the abv in doing so.

to counter this you could add some sugar or maybe a jar of H&B malt extract, although make sure these are added to the boil after the steeped grains have been removed. boil vigorously to kill any nasties.

if you're leaving it late, then you might have to rouse the yeast when adding these adjuncts to make sure they ferment out. take hydrometer readings before and after as well.

[19been85]

Thanks for the advice, will go an get some malt tomorrow. Could I open the tap and decant out 2L of the beer and boil the malts up in that, obviously letting it cool to room temperature before pouring back in?

[hommebru]

hmmm not sure tbh, probably

however i'm not sure about how boiling that liquor with yeast in it will affect the taste if at all, it will certainly kill all the yeast but in doing so might cause some off flavours. google it for a definitive answer.

but yes, aside from that you should be fine.