Seeking the Dark Brew

[user 3929]

Hey all,
I'm a newbie when it comes to home brewing, but have been doing OK so far.
Looking for a little help and advice, but please bear in mind I know little of the terminology and have only been kit brewing so far.
Basically I want a Dark brew. Dark and strong. Before I started home brewing I was always buying stuff like Hobgoblin, Brewdog's Tokyo (18.5%!!!), some speciality stuff and my favourite Bombardier Satanic Mills (epic stuff, but was limited edition!), and I would like to be able to achieve something similar to these ales.

So far I have brewed Coopers English Bitter and Coopers Dark Ale (which got kind of nuked as I added too much sugar to my keg to prime it!).
My current brew is a Coopers Dark Ale with Muntons Dark spraymalt and Crushed Chocolate Malt (500g of each) to try and darken it up.

So any suggestions/comments/criticisms/witty banter is more than welcome.

 

[graysalchemy]

Welcome to the forum Terminal

Not a kit brewer so i couldn't recommend one but by the looks of things you have obviously seen the joy of making additions to a kit. I would sugest perhaps that 500g of Chocolate malt may be a tad to much but it depends on what you have done with it. Did you steep it in water at 66c?

:thumb:

 

[critty]

My friend swears by the coopers kits. I have never used one, I like wheats so I am currently using brewferm, but looking at them they tend to get good write ups. If your looking for something a little different maybe try one of the dark wheats like Ambiorix (6.5%) or Abby (8.0%) as they are really something a little special and well worth the effort. There is conflicting things though about the wheats on whether to use candied sugar or regular dextrose. I am using candied sugar in my brewferm kits and it tastes great. I have also tried the brewferm my friend makes with regular dextrose and they taste just as good.

 

[user 3929]

Welcome to the forum Terminal

I would sugest perhaps that 500g of Chocolate malt may be a tad to much but it depends on what you have done with it. Did you steep it in water at 66c?

:thumb:

Uh, crap, ok. I read that they are used as fermentables, as a direct replacement for sugar in the brew, so I threw the pack straight into my mix.
All I found was a loosely written article on using different fermentables to change the characteristics of your ale, but with nothing more specific than "direct replacement for sugar", I just had to assume to threw them in and that was it.

If I were to use these again, how should I use them properly?

Before I kegged this brew I did sample a little and I must say it was tasting quite good, nice amount of bitterness and with a good chocolaty finish, so without steeping the chocolate malt it does seem to have helped, but would be nice to do things properly.

Can anyone recommend a good site/book/wiki for things like these?

 

[pittsy]

hi and welcome , there is a how to guide you should read through , using malts you should get a large pan and heat up to 66c and pop grains in (a muslin bag) and remove from heat and leave for 30 mins , wrap a towel round pan to maintain heat then remove grains and add liquid to fermenting vessel job done

 

[user 3929]

hi and welcome , there is a how to guide you should read through , using malts you should get a large pan and heat up to 66c and pop grains in (a muslin bag) and remove from heat and leave for 30 mins , wrap a towel round pan to maintain heat then remove grains and add liquid to fermenting vessel job done

OK cool, would you happen to have a link to this guide? And any others you can throw at me would be great too!

Cheers for everyone's help!

 

[graysalchemy]

Chocolate malt is not diastic which means it has no enzymes to convert the starch to a fermentable sugar It will extract flavour and colour but will not add to the fermentables. In order to do that then you would have to add chocolate malt and Pale malt and mash as prescribed by pittsy.

You would be better off adding dark spraymalt is this is fermentable and obviously dark.

 

[Muddydisco]

Can always try coffin dodger 9% stout from kits

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=3033&hilit=coffin+dodger

 

[user 3929]

Chocolate malt is not diastic which means it has no enzymes to convert the starch to a fermentable sugar It will extract flavour and colour but will not add to the fermentables. In order to do that then you would have to add chocolate malt and Pale malt and mash as prescribed by pittsy.

You would be better off adding dark spraymalt is this is fermentable and obviously dark.

Looks like I've got some reading to do then, any resources you can recommend?

 

[user 3929]

Can always try coffin dodger 9% stout from kits

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=3033&hilit=coffin+dodger

Read through the thread, that stuff sounds dangerous! Might have to give it a shot! Thanks for the link!

 

[pittsy]

here the link to how i learned its a great how to viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2672

 

[user 3929]

here the link to how i learned its a great how to viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2672

Great, thanks pittsy, hopefully I can apply those principles to kit brewing.