Chocolate Malt: Chocolate Versus Coffee

[Swinging Beef]

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

 

[bum]

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.

 

[Fourstar]

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~)

 

[drsmurto]

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

 

[benno1973]

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:

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

 

[bum]

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.

 

[sid]

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.

 

[Fourstar]

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.

 

[bum]

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