Roasted Malts in stouts/porters

[weiht]

Hi guys, how much roasted malts do you guys add to your stouts and porters? general rule seems to suggest 10% in a stout, but it does get a little harsh and astringent at times. I prefer to go on a weight based on 5 gallons instead of percentage of the grains, ie 600 or whatever grams is the max for a 5 gallon regardless of whether the og of the beer is 1045 or 1060.

How much do you guys use?

Also, I'm beginning to think that the malts used are very important too. My lhbs carries only briess chocolate 350L, roasted barley 300L and black patent malt 500L. The chocolate malt well doesnt have a very pronounce chocolate taste, and the roasted barley is too light for me liking. It's definitely not a case of using more to get a strong taste since its the kilning, ie using 50% of C40 and C80 will not give u a C60 effect... In fact alot of my favourite dark beers even from the US seem to use UK maltster for their roasted malts, with fawcetts being the no1 choice.

What I would like is a darker chocolate like 450L and a black barley 500L instead of black malt.

Feel free to discuss on % of chocolate to roasted barley or black patent or black barley, or what are your favourite maltsters.

[Bailey]

the brewing network has a dedicated show for different beer styles with Jamil Zainachef (spelling??) theyve been agreat help to me so far. Answer can be few and far between on here for some reason

[Skittlebrau]

Carafa Special III should help you get the colour with less astringency.

[Spud395]

Some of the figure you quote seem strange, surley roast barley is darker than black malt?
Mine is according to the numbers on the bags anyway.
I love choclate malt in dark ales, but not to much say 200g in a 23L brew brings a lot of flavour and nice colour too.
Wouldnt call it choclate tasting at all though.
For Irish stout I do use 10% roast barley, it does give an astringent, bitter taste, but very much to style IMO. I think thats what makes Irish stout.
For my porters I've been using a mix of choc and amber malts which I like also done one with amber and brown which worked out very well.

[orlando]

Hi guys, how much roasted malts do you guys add to your stouts and porters? general rule seems to suggest 10% in a stout, but it does get a little harsh and astringent at times.

Instead of worrying about % and weight you might consider the approach of Gordon Strong. He advocates steeping non-diastatic grains as he thinks mashing them with diastatic malts pulls more of the astringency and bitterness out of the roasts. The analogy he draws is between that of a freshly brewed pot of coffee and one that has sat on the hot plate for an hour to 90 minutes. He suggests mashing as usual then adding the roast grains at the end, steeping for 15 minutes or so then sparging (batch or fly) in the usual way. I haven't done this yet so can't say from experience it works ,but he has won the Ninkasi award 3 times so I will be trying this in the future as I too do not like harshness in my beer whether malt or hop based.

He talks about the idea HERE

[weiht]

Yeah I have that book. I have tried that as well and it works to a certain degree altho the flavour is not as intense. I stopped doing it cuz of my mash ph practice for dark beers. I do add sodium bicarbonate which is supposed to mitigate it.

Most commercial breweries add it at the start of mash tho.