Black Malt - is it what you think?

[Sadfield]

There appears to be a repeated idea that the darker the malt the harsher the flavour, with the mention of Black Malt eliciting warnings about astringency and harsh, acrid flavours. Stands to reason, right? The more you burn something the worst it tastes. This thinking doesn't tally with what the maltsters know. Looking at the chart below, we can see the harsh zone for malting is in between crystal and roast malt, with roast malt getting smoother as it darkens.

This comes through to descriptions of black malt.

Briess describe it.

"Black Malt
Dry roasted, sharp to neutral
This malt is often used to provide color without overpowering flavor that is characteristic of European-style dark beers. It may be used with or without Roasted Barley to brew a Stout with more color and less intense Roasted Barley flavor notes, and it may be used with Chocolate Malt to produce a Porter with less pronounced chocolate flavor notes.
"

Simpsons go with.

"Our Black Malt is excellent for darkening beer colour without imparting too much astringency or roast characteristics. The flavour is surprisingly neutral, with a clean dryness that makes it an incredibly versatile product."

Crisp....

"The darkest of our roasted malts. When you need an intensely dark colour for stouts and porters this is an excellent malt to use. Despite its reputation as a highly astringent malt, nothing could be further from the truth. This malt brings with it a roasted character with some bitterness and astringency, but also flavours of currants and berries."

 

[hoppyscotty]

Nice. One thing that surprised me was just how tiny amount of black malt you need to make a stout/porter. I have a nice Stout recipe and take away the black malt and it also makes a very nice Hazy IPA, the addition of <10% or so of black malt completely transforms the beer to something completely different.

Recently saw a short from Rockstar Brewing suggesting that astringency and 'harshness' from dark beers and beers containing highly roasted malts comes not from the malt but from PH and PH control (or lack of it I assume).

 

[Sadfield]

Along with pH, I think choice of bittering hops, too. With adding more bitterness from the malt to a raspy tasting bittering hop.

 

[samale]

Some brewers cold steep the dark grain, others add at mash out to avoid any harshness.

 

[Sadfield]

Pointless, if you don't get harshness, astringency from mashing normally with good pH and mineral content.

Or, instead of mashing separately, they could swap a portion of Chocolate or Roasted Barley for smoother Black Malt.

 

[hoppyscotty]

Can't link the YouTube short, but basically Its not temperature thats causing the astringency and harshness so tactics like cold steeping or adding at sparge is not tackling the root cause which is PH and mineral content...just good water chemistry I guess.

 

[Sadfield]

 

[jambop]

Here is a nice recipe for a Dark Mild it is based on a Lees best Mild but has a slightly higher gravity and uses slightly different ingredients and is not quite as dark. Plenty of dark roasted malts in it and when finished it is great and only 4.1 % ABV sort of exemplifies how dark roast grains can be used and a great tasting beer produced ... well I like it anyway

I follow the liquor profile for mild Ca 150 ppm , Mg 10 ppm, Na 50 ppm , Alkalinity 40 ppm ,SO4 150 ppm, Cl 230ppm but I would say a Porter profile would maybe be better suited.
25L batch for Brewzilla Gen4
Marris Otter 5 EBC Simpsons 3 kg
Dark Muskavado sugar EBC ~ 100 500g
Special W 300 EBC Weyermann 500g
Carafa Special III 1300 EBC Weyermann 200g
Chocolate 1000 EBC bestmalz 200g
Caramunich III 140 EBC Weyermann 200g
Caramel colour 4500 EBC 50g

Challenger 25g 60mins
Fuggles 25g 5 mins
Styrian C 25 g 5 mins
yeast Windsor
Mash 65C 90 mins Eff 86%
Boil 90 min
IBU 29
EBC 75
4.1 % ABV
OG 1.049
FG 1.018

 

[Brew_DD2]

Pointless, if you don't get harshness, astringency from mashing normally with good pH and mineral content.

Or, instead of mashing separately, they could swap a portion of Chocolate or Roasted Barley for smoother Black Malt.

I used to be an exponent of cold steeping until I actually started putting roasted/darker grain in the mash. It's purely anecdotal, but the last few I've brewed in this way have tasted far richer and foam seems far more stable too.

 

[RichardM]

There appears to be a repeated idea that the darker the malt the harsher the flavour, with the mention of Black Malt eliciting warnings about astringency and harsh, acrid flavours. Stands to reason, right? The more you burn something the worst it tastes. This thinking doesn't tally with what the maltsters know. Looking at the chart below, we can see the harsh zone for malting is in between crystal and roast malt, with roast malt getting smoother as it darkens.

View attachment 105943

This comes through to descriptions of black malt.

Briess describe it.

"Black Malt
Dry roasted, sharp to neutral
This malt is often used to provide color without overpowering flavor that is characteristic of European-style dark beers. It may be used with or without Roasted Barley to brew a Stout with more color and less intense Roasted Barley flavor notes, and it may be used with Chocolate Malt to produce a Porter with less pronounced chocolate flavor notes.
"

Simpsons go with.

"Our Black Malt is excellent for darkening beer colour without imparting too much astringency or roast characteristics. The flavour is surprisingly neutral, with a clean dryness that makes it an incredibly versatile product."

Crisp....

"The darkest of our roasted malts. When you need an intensely dark colour for stouts and porters this is an excellent malt to use. Despite its reputation as a highly astringent malt, nothing could be further from the truth. This malt brings with it a roasted character with some bitterness and astringency, but also flavours of currants and berries."

I'm planning a user up Porter at the moment. Most recipes I have found don't mention Black malt, but I have some to use up and wondered about adding some. Like you, I looked at various maltsters' websites and found they said it can be used in Porters and that it won't add astringency. There was one website, not a maltster, that said use quite high percentages in stouts and porters, one of the maltsters recommended much lower percentages, so that's what I will be doing.

 

[samale]

Pointless, if you don't get harshness, astringency from mashing normally with good pH and mineral content.

Or, instead of mashing separately, they could swap a portion of Chocolate or Roasted Barley for smoother Black Malt.

I mash My dark grains but some brewer's don't. Some like to add all non fermentable malt at mash out, this includes crystal malt. I think @foxy brews like this, it allows him to treat the mash with just base malts and adjust accordingly for the style.

 

[samale]

I have a porter fermenting, this included 500g each of chocolate. brown and dark crystal plus 200g of black malt. All malts added with base malt at the start.

 

[Sadfield]

I mash My dark grains but some brewer's don't. Some like to add all non fermentable malt at mash out, this includes crystal malt. I think @foxy brews like this, it allows him to treat the mash with just base malts and adjust accordingly for the style.

True, but this brings the issue raised by @hoppyscotty and the youtube video. You still end up low ph dark wort, that may still result in a harsher flavour. Guinness work this way and get acrid, roasty flavours. If you want smooth, dark beers then it's counterproductive.

 

[Sadfield]

From Bru'n'water.

"A second method for preserving and aiding body in your dark beers is to remove the dark grains from the main portion of the mash and add them late in the mash so that they won’t have the time to chop up your wort’s valuable long and medium chain proteins and preserve their body building power. One problem with this method is that the wort pH still falls pretty low and that can leave the roast flavors more acrid and sharp."


https://www.brunwater.com/articles/adding-body-to-your-stout#:~:text=Ideally, you want to keep,that aren't as pleasant.

 

[jambop]

I did a small volume high'ish gravity 1.083 Winter Christmas porter and I mashed the pale malt on its own for 30 mins then added the roasted and crystal malts and mashed for another 60 mins before the mash out. The only reason for this was to have more sparge liquor to try to maximise the efficiency. I don't know if it made any difference to be honest but I did have a good 87% mashing eff.

With respect to the low pH thing would that not be more indicative that the alkalinity of the brewing liquor being used is too low? I personally never take pH readings anymore I just monitor my alkalinity. The pH meters most homebrewers use are absolutely shoite and totally unreliable to make a good and accurate pH reading knowing the alkalinity of the brewing liquor makes much more sense to me.

 

[Sadfield]

As an aside, this is pretty interesting.

 

[RichardM]

I have a porter fermenting, this included 500g each of chocolate. brown and dark crystal plus 200g of black malt. All malts added with base malt at the start.

What percentage of black mnalt is that?
https://homebrewanswers.com/black-malt/ says "Typically up to 10% in Porters. Stouts and other dark beer."
https://crispmalt.com/malts/black-malt/ says "Beer StylesPorters, stouts Usage Up to 3%"

The recipe I am working on has 6.6% Crystal, 6.6% Munich*, 5.3% Chocolate and 2.6% Black. If it had any more black it would be too dark, as it is the predicted colour is 58EBC

This is a using it up recipe which is why the Munich is there. Designing Great Beers says people have used in the National Homebrew Competition (presumably USA) so I thought "why not".

 

[samale]

What percentage of black mnalt is that?
https://homebrewanswers.com/black-malt/ says "Typically up to 10% in Porters. Stouts and other dark beer."
https://crispmalt.com/malts/black-malt/ says "Beer StylesPorters, stouts Usage Up to 3%"

The recipe I am working on has 6.6% Crystal, 6.6% Munich*, 5.3% Chocolate and 2.6% Black. If it had any more black it would be too dark, as it is the predicted colour is 58EBC

This is a using it up recipe which is why the Munich is there. Designing Great Beers says people have used in the National Homebrew Competition (presumably USA) so I thought "why not".

6kg Minch malt
500g chocolate malt
500g dark crystal
500g brown malt
200g black malt

25g Magnum@30,mins
20g brambling cross @10mins
20g brambling cross @flameout

Og1.068

This is loosely based on the kernel porter. They brew it with different hops

 

[RichardM]

6kg Minch malt
500g chocolate malt
500g dark crystal
500g brown malt
200g black malt

25g Magnum@30,mins
20g brambling cross @10mins
20g brambling cross @flameout

Og1.068

This is loosely based on the kernel porter. They brew it with different hops

That's very similar proportions to mine

 

[clib]

I really don't understand why anyone would fear black malt or roast barley. Lots of great beers are made with them!