What contributes most to darkening a beer?

[moto748]

I am drinking one of my oatmeal stouts. It is OK, but frankly I feel it is a bit too pale, it's more a brown colour really. For reference, this the grain bill:

3817	Pale Malt
227	Rolled Oats
182	Crystal Medium
146	Chocolate malt
64	Roasted Barley

I'd like to make it a bit blacker, without drastically altering the taste. Should I up the chocolate, or the roasted barley? Or would a further small addition of black malt be better?

 

[Clint]

I've used Briess (?) Black Prinz a few times.

 

[Tanglefoot]

Maybe up the percentage of chocolate malt ?
I used 7.8% in my Oatmeal stout which gave me EBC of 61 ( scaled from a Jon Finch recipe ).

 

[Scrattajack]

If you're happy with the taste and don't want to tinker with the malt, there's brewer's caramel that can be added at any point.

 

[moto748]

Thanks, guys, some food for thought there. I use another stout recipe, without oats, that looks a better colour. I think I'll sit down tomorrow and see if I can make a proper comparison between them, that might also point me in the right direction.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

I've added a small amount of black before without affecting the taste noticeably

 

[The Baron]

Just add some black malt it only needs a little. Best to add it to the end of the mash so as to draw out the colour and less of the taste which can be astringent or make a steep with it and add that to the wort

 

[RichardM]

If you're happy with the taste and don't want to tinker with the malt, there's brewer's caramel that can be added at any point.

Or gravy browning

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Just add some black malt it only needs a little. Best to add it to the end of the mash so as to draw out the colour and less of the taste which can be astringent or make a steep with it and add that to the wort

Would you cold steep it?

 

[The Baron]

Would you cold steep it?

No I would warm/hot steep it but not for too long so as just to draw out the colour

 

[Dads_Ale]

I would go with adding some of the dark de-husked malts such as Cara 3, Midnight Wheat or Black Prinz.
They can be added to the mash but can also be used as a cold steep. I use these for my Black IPA where I need the colour but not the roastiness. I find a 30 minute steep works best.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I would also go with black malt (or roasted barley if you don’t have black). Either added at the end of the mash or cold steeped overnight. You don’t need much, 50g will give you something like 10 SRM in a standard 5l batch.

 

[moto748]

It's interesting that people talk about astringency with these dark malts. Just looking at my usual stout recipe, I have about 400 g of roasted barley in that for comparison, based on the same batch size. Which is a lot more. The other stout has a small amount of black malt too (20 g). Neither of the beers are anywhere near 'astringent' in ,my book, so I figure I can afford to up the dark malts, that I have some leeway. So I've not found it necessary previously to go for steeping the grains, or adding late in the mash.

I reckon I could double the amount of roasted barley (and it would still only be half of what's in the other beer) and add 50 g of black malt. After all, even my parsnip stout has 50 g of black malt (and 50 g of chocolate), and that's in a tiny 7 litre batch size.

Thanks again for your helpful comments, guys.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

It's interesting that people talk about astringency with these dark malts. Just looking at my usual stout recipe, I have about 400 g of roasted barley in that for comparison, based on the same batch size. Which is a lot more. The other stout has a small amount of black malt too (20 g). Neither of the beers are anywhere near 'astringent' in ,my book, so I figure I can afford to up the dark malts, that I have some leeway. So I've not found it necessary previously to go for steeping the grains, or adding late in the mash.

I reckon I could double the amount of roasted barley (and it would still only be half of what's in the other beer) and add 50 g of black malt. After all, even my parsnip stout has 50 g of black malt (and 50 g of chocolate), and that's in a tiny 7 litre batch size.

Thanks again for your helpful comments, guys.

To be fair you did ask for advice about darkening your beer without affecting the flavour. If you add dark roasted malts at the start of your mash you might very well add some roast/chocolate/fruity notes to the flavour depending on what/how much you use.

 

[moto748]

Absolutely, yes. I accept that if I add more dark malts, there is almost bound to be *some* change in flavour. If I really wanted to keep it exactly the same, perhaps I might as well go down the gravy-browning/caramel route, But I don't fancy doing that. But it seems that my amount of roasted barley is pretty modest, and no black malt at all thus far. So a fairly modest change shouldn't make a drastic difference.

As far as I'm concerned, it's all about trial and error, and a tweak here and a tweak there. Another factor I was considering is, I have a bag of 'naked' oats in the cupboard; I might try replacing some of the flaked oats with those.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I might as well go down the gravy-browning route

Yes please! I’ve never done that experiment and would love to hear about the results.

 

[moto748]

Yes please! I’ve never done that experiment and would love to hear about the results.

Ha! You first!

 

[The Baron]

Hi Moto astringency is just like bitterness, hop burn etc as it is different for everyone. I am less tolerant to astringency in some of the darker malts but some people do not find it too much of a issue and may even prefer that in their beers which it sounds if if you are quite tolerant of them so as long as only you are drinking it it does not matter so as you said do what you think will suit your taste