# Chocolate Malt: Chocolate Versus Coffee



## bum (18/4/10)

I've never really been a big fan of the proper dark beers. I've tried but as someone who detests coffee (sorry, beanheads) I just can't get past more than a tiny hint of that acrid coffee flavour essential to many examples of stouts and porters. 

As I say, I do try to get into them and I've recently found a few porters that have grabbed my attention. Most of them have more of a chocolate background rather than a coffee one (not a full on, girly chocolate - just leaning that way more than coffee). As I understand it these flavours usually come from the same malt so my question is: how do I manipulate chocolate malt in my recipes to favour the chocolate rather than the coffee? Is it just percentage of grist? Is it mash temp - the residual sweetness of a higher mash temp? Can I pair it with another grain to mute the coffee or push the chocolate? I've heard that choc chit would be an easy answer to this question but since it has been discontinued I've decided that in the long run I'll be better off if I learn how to do it with chocolate malt. 

I'm thinking that TF chocolate pale malt will get me closer than Bairds chocolate malt but coffee is usually one of the first descriptors both grains so I guess my question remains. 

Suggestions on how to use other adjuncts to get some chocolate in a porter are welcome but my focus does remain on how to alter the balance with this grain.

[EDIT: removed bizarre capitalisation]


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## Sammus (18/4/10)

I've always thought the same thing, and a friend recently told me that using brown malt is the secret. All I get from chocolate malt is bitter cocoa falvours or other kinds of burnt bitterness...no tasty coffee flavours 

Not really a hijack, but I'm interested and have little experience with Brown Malt...any experience with it in this manner would be welcome reading.


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## bum (18/4/10)

So is the brown malt in combination with or in place of?

Never used it but I thought it was sort of like a deeper Biscuit?

I won't argue the coffee flavour thing but I guess I get enough of a similarity for the comparison to hold for me.


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## woodmac66 (18/4/10)

Although I haven't done this myself as i like the coffee , My understanding is using Pale Chocolate will also assist in muting the roast coffe flavours.


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## Keith the Beer Guy (18/4/10)

bum said:


> I've never really been a big fan of the proper dark beers. I've tried but as someone who detests coffee (sorry, beanheads) I just can't get past more than a tiny hint of that acrid coffee flavour essential to many examples of stouts and porters.
> 
> As I say, I do try to get into them and I've recently found a few porters that have grabbed my attention. Most of them have more of a chocolate background rather than a coffee one (not a full on, girly chocolate - just leaning that way more than coffee). As I understand it these flavours usually come from the same malt so my question is: how do I manipulate chocolate malt in my recipes to favour the chocolate rather than the coffee? Is it just percentage of grist? Is it mash temp - the residual sweetness of a higher mash temp? Can I pair it with another grain to mute the coffee or push the chocolate? I've heard that choc chit would be an easy answer to this question but since it has been discontinued I've decided that in the long run I'll be better off if I learn how to do it with chocolate malt.
> 
> ...



Hi Bum,

try brewing with pale chocolate. I have a personal preference for Thomas Fawcett but Bairds will work fine. Don't get too carried away (% grist) or you will find some coffee coming through. I usually brew this with a little bit of medium crystal (Bairds) and a rich malty English base malt (GP is the one I like but there is nothing wrong with MO).

Cheers,

Keith


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## bum (18/4/10)

Thanks, Keith. What do we think might be something good to aim for percentage wise? Off the top of my head I think this grain is recommended as up to 5% so would I be looking at something like 2 or 3%? I already thought it made sense to go English with my base malt but was leaning towards MO - only because I hadn't used it before but I will take the GP under advisement. Do you think the medium crystal effects the coffee/chocolate balance or it is just a nice paring? I didn't have any crystal in my recipe as the one I am playing with doesn't call for it but I'll consider substituting some for a portion of its carafa spec 2 and/or caraaroma.

[EDIT: oh yeah, caraaroma is basically a really dark crystal, isn't it? Would I sub all that out for medium or leave as is? I am playing with the original pretty savagely but I don't want to make it completely unrelated either.]


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## manticle (18/4/10)

I find if you push the sweetness, you get more choc out of choc malt (I mainly use JW). With my cream stout I use a lot of lactose and it comes out quite chocolatey (also a bit coffee like but I use half a kg of roast barley in there too). Maybe upping the quantities of crystal might work too.

I've just started playing around with carafa special to see how different that is from choc.


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## bum (18/4/10)

Ok, I'm not aiming for a Holgate Temptress or anything like that (though I do like that beer) so if I'm reading you correctly the dryer I make the beer the more heavily it will lean towards the coffee? Would it come down to mash temp too or just grist composition?


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## barls (18/4/10)

use choc chit if you can find it.


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## Ducatiboy stu (18/4/10)

some Carraroma will also go with pale choc malt


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## Sammus (18/4/10)

bum said:


> So is the brown malt in combination with or in place of?
> 
> Never used it but I thought it was sort of like a deeper Biscuit?
> 
> I won't argue the coffee flavour thing but I guess I get enough of a similarity for the comparison to hold for me.



dunno, was just a passing comment... may well be wrong, though I'd hazard a guess at it being along side the choc malt.


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## manticle (18/4/10)

bum said:


> Ok, I'm not aiming for a Holgate Temptress or anything like that (though I do like that beer) so if I'm reading you correctly the dryer I make the beer the more heavily it will lean towards the coffee? Would it come down to mash temp too or just grist composition?



This is not absolute - this is just how I perceive the flavours in my own beers and what I would do in your position.

First I would concentrate on the grist. Play around with the malts suggested above - choc chit, pale choc, carafa special etc. Add in some sweet crystal and mash higher (66 and above). When mashing any higher than 67, I've recently been mashing longer (towards 90 minutes) which I believe gets a nice malty result that still attenuates ok.

As I said - just playing around with these ideas and some of the malts at the moment so they are suggestions and ideas rather than an absolute solution.


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## Fourstar (18/4/10)

A good way to get a nice balance of bittersweet whcih it seems like you are after (and not really coffee related) is ti use carafa special. Beautiful malt for this. say 5-6% in your grist, along with an equal addition of crystal/s of your choosing. Add around 5% of a highly kilned malt such as munich up to brown malt and you are good to go for a chocolatly bittersweet style porter that you are looking for.

Also, look into brown porter recipes. i think they will be up your alley.


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## brando (18/4/10)

bum said:


> I've heard that choc chit would be an easy answer to this question *but since it has been discontinued* I've decided that in the long run I'll be better off if I learn how to do it with chocolate malt.
> 
> Is this true? Damn, I just started using it in my recipes!


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## mje1980 (18/4/10)

Try adding your dark malts at the last 15 mins of the mash. Smooths the flavours right out, and no sharpness at all. I do it with all my dark beers, and i now brew a lot more dark beers because of the difference.


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## bum (18/4/10)

Don't stress, manticle, your observations are very happily received (as are everyone else's) but no one's will be taken as Gospel. It's all fuel for the fire. And I'll definitely take your technical advice on board.

Fourstar, I was considering pulling the carafa special II back a little - in fact I already did in my beersmith file. I'll put it all back back in and see how I travel.

Sorry, Brando, seen it confirmed by Ross twice now. I'm confident I'd get close to what I'm after with a little of that in the grist but I don't want to rely on a grain I can't rely on, you know?

Interesting idea, mje1980. I'll definitely file that one away for when I'm confident enough in my process to start playing around with it.


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## aaronpetersen (22/4/10)

bum said:


> I've never really been a big fan of the proper dark beers. I've tried but as someone who detests coffee (sorry, beanheads) I just can't get past more than a tiny hint of that acrid coffee flavour essential to many examples of stouts and porters.
> 
> As I say, I do try to get into them and I've recently found a few porters that have grabbed my attention. Most of them have more of a chocolate background rather than a coffee one (not a full on, girly chocolate - just leaning that way more than coffee). As I understand it these flavours usually come from the same malt so my question is: how do I manipulate chocolate malt in my recipes to favour the chocolate rather than the coffee? Is it just percentage of grist? Is it mash temp - the residual sweetness of a higher mash temp? Can I pair it with another grain to mute the coffee or push the chocolate? I've heard that choc chit would be an easy answer to this question but since it has been discontinued I've decided that in the long run I'll be better off if I learn how to do it with chocolate malt.
> 
> ...



Bum,
It seems we have similar tastes in dark beers. I'm also after a non-coffee tasting porter recipe. Have you come up with one yet?


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## Nick JD (22/4/10)

Here's a cheat for acrid-free dark beer: E150c 

...Coca Cola would be clear without it. :icon_cheers:


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## RobB (23/4/10)

Once you're happy with the grains, have a look at your water if you haven't done so already. When I started adding chalk to my dark ales, I noticed that it knocked the edges off the roasted flavours.


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## bum (18/5/10)

No, Aaron, not yet. Well, I have but I haven't made it so no clue at all if it'll be a success or not.

Thanks for the tip, Malty. Very much an AG noob but I will file that away for if/when I can't get what I'm after with grain selection.

Further to some of my original post, been getting into a few big stouts lately too. Perhaps a RIS might add something that masks/dominates the flavours I'm not enjoying in some other stouts? Looks like more research (drinking) is required on this one.


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## Swinging Beef (18/5/10)

bum said:


> So is the brown malt in combination with or in place of?
> 
> Never used it but I thought it was sort of like a deeper Biscuit?
> 
> I won't argue the coffee flavour thing but I guess I get enough of a similarity for the comparison to hold for me.


Brown malt IS the flavour of awesome porter.
All the rest err towards light stouts.
Up to 15% brown malt in porter.
Colour the beer dark with a smaller quantity of roast and give it some high (80-160) crystal for sweeter flavours.

Have you tried a descent Schwartzbier?
Black as stout but no acrid flavours and coffee flavours that you normally associate with stout.
75% munich or pale
10% cara 40
10% chocolate 
2.5% craffa
2.5% roast
30IBU


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## bum (18/5/10)

Hmmm...might have to consider changing my grist and sub in some brown.

I've only had one schwartzbier - Brewdog's Zietgiest. Dunno if it is a good example of the style though. I did enjoy it but it was much thinner than the beer I'm imagining here.

Cheers.


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## Fourstar (18/5/10)

bum said:


> I've only had one schwartzbier - Brewdog's Zietgiest. Dunno if it is a good example of the style though. I did enjoy it but it was much thinner than the beer I'm imagining here.
> 
> Cheers.




Think of brewing a Munich Dunkel and then add enough carafa special just to get the colour up there. The same principal as brewing a black(brown IPA) h34r: 

I'd go for 3% at most of Carafa special (or atleast enough to get the colour past 20-25 SRM/ 50EBC~)


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## drsmurto (18/5/10)

I make a brown porter/dark ale a few times a year, am due for another.

It's not roasty or coffee flavoured at all, I think of it at as an english special bitter just over the colour range. The last one was 43 EBC (an ESB tops out at 36 according to BJCP)

85% ale malt (MO is my preference)
4% amber or brown malt
4% pale chocolate malt
4% wheat malt or torrified wheat
2% dark crystal

Fuggles at 60, 20 and 0.

WY1187 Ringwood or any other english ale yeast that produces plenty of lovely esters.

OG 1.054
IBU 35


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## benno1973 (18/5/10)

I use brown malt a lot, but I wouldn't say it heads towards chocolate at all. More along the lines of darkly cooked toast, or overcooked biscuits. It's one of my fave malts and I put it in almost everything - Bitters, APA's, IPA's. I think it rounds out large amounts of crystal nicely - tastes something like marmalade on burnt toast.

I recently brewed an Oatmeal Stout which I was hoping for some real chocolate flavours to come through. I used regular choc malt and it tasted great for the first week of fermentation. Then after about a week it started tasting like coffee again, kinda like a creamy espresso. Great beer but not what I was after. I have a feeling that the problems were:

I used regular choc - next time I'll try pale choc
Once a certain amount of sweetness was fermented out, it changed to being more like unsweetened cocoa rather than sugary chocolate


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## bum (18/5/10)

Fourstar, I've already got around 2% Carafa Spec II in my recipe - what benefit might I see in dropping down to Spec I but upping the amount to 3%?

DrSmurto, I've already got a recipe I'm working from but thanks for posting yours up - the comparison does help me see if I'm heading the the right direction percentage wise. I tend not to directly make anyone else's recipes any more - every time I have it has ended in disappointment. Not to say they have been flat out shit beers just not exactly to my tastes, I guess. Now I just read a bunch of recipes, taste a bunch of commercial examples and research ingredients and come up with my own recipe tailored to what I'm after (or at least what I think I am after).

Kaiser Soze, thanks for your impressions. I think I'll leave the brown malt for another beer so I can compare the difference. You've confirmed my decision to go with pale choc malt. Your point about the sweetness seems to underline my current assumptions on how I can direct my choc flavours. Very helpful.


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## sid (18/5/10)

I've used 5% brown malt in a brew.................made a good beer, but I'm with Kaiser Soze on his taste description, it wasn't a chocolate taste..........more the toast/biscuit tatse.


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## Fourstar (18/5/10)

bum said:


> Fourstar, I've already got around 2% Carafa Spec II in my recipe - what benefit might I see in dropping down to Spec I but upping the amount to 3%?



Probabaly nothing, the colour will be close to the same, if anything you might get more of a milder roast quality but an increased amount so it might balance out. Carafa Special II is a good medium :icon_cheers: but i woudl stay away from roast barley or Black malt/patent if you dont want any ashy or acrid notes.


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## bum (18/5/10)

Yeah, I'm already all over that one. Thanks for the tip though.


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