All dark grain brew?

I'm a big fan of heavy thick dark beers. Stouts and porters etc. All the recipes I see call for a base of pale malts supplemented with dark roasted, black or chocolate malts. Is there something wrong with using only these and foregoing the pale base?

This is going to be my second batch. The first was Black Rock Miners stout. I put the whole can in two gallon sized carboys and it worked out well enough. This time I bought a bunch of roasted malts and thought I would try doing it my own way.

Here is the recipe I have in mind but I'm afraid there is a reason I haven't seen any all roasted malt recipes.

Oatmeal Chocolate Milk Stout

Dehusked roasted malt
Black malt
Chocolate malt
Roasted barley
Dark crystal malt
Dark spray malt
Oats
Chocolate powder
Coffee
Vanilla bean
Lactose
Fuggles
Cascade

Not sure of the amounts of each yet. I only have two gallon sized glass jugs to use as carboys.

Any help, ideas, guidance would be appreciated.

First off, you're probably going to want to post this in "recipes" or at least general discussion rather than intro. Welcome, though!

What do you mean by you "put the whole can" in your carboys- what kind of kit did you use?

I'm sure someone more eloquent than me will explain the need for base malts.

What the heck is dark spray malt?

Is that some kind of dark DME?


OK I looked it up and that is what it appears to be. I would guess that it is something roughly equivalent to Amber LME here, which is totally fine to use as a base malt.

You really DO need a base malt IMO, or it won't taste much like beer. However, you seem to have one in that list of ingredients thanks to the dark spray malt.

I am not going to say you absolutely must have a base malt to make a dark, roasty alcoholic beverage, but I think you overestimate just how much roasted malt is in a typical stout compared to the amount of pale base malt just because the roast flavor can end up being completely overwhelming and horribly astringent if you push it too far.

All that said, there are some crazy historical recipes floating around, like George Washington's "Porter" recipe that uses primarily molasses for the fermentables (which I cannot imagine tasting good AT ALL), so it's not like it won't make something. You just may not enjoy the outcome.


EDIT:
I would highly suggest looking at other stout recipes, maybe clones of stouts you like, to see what kind of ingredients and ratios are used. Too much of ANY of those ingredients you list can end up tasting pretty awful. I already mentioned the roasted grains, but too much crystal can leave your beer sticky-sweet and with dark crystal it can taste overwhelmingly like prunes, raisins, etc.

What you'll wind up with is something far worse than this years' Fade to Black from Left Hand Brewing. It was very bitter & roasty,like burnt french roast coffee beer. Yuk. To much dark rasty toasty stuff just makes bitter burnt coffee beer. Use some light malts,like crisp pale malt (base malt from UK) that has a bit more color than reg 2-row from here.

Thanks for all the great advice. Sorry to post this in the wrong area. Might have had too much of that miner's stout before posting. But i will take the advice and add light DME instead of the the dark. Thanks again to all.

@hillhousesawdust

I used a can of Black Rock Miner's stout hopped malt extract. It just looked so good every time I saw it in Tokyu Hands. It is meant to make 5gallons but I only have two gallon-sized carboys so I just split it between those. It turned out really sweet, but not undrinkable. I've about finished it all off. Only one bottle left.

greybarrel said:

I'm a big fan of heavy thick dark beers. Stouts and porters etc. All the recipes I see call for a base of pale malts supplemented with dark roasted, black or chocolate malts. Is there something wrong with using only these and foregoing the pale base?

This is going to be my second batch. The first was Black Rock Miners stout. I put the whole can in two gallon sized carboys and it worked out well enough. This time I bought a bunch of roasted malts and thought I would try doing it my own way.

Here is the recipe I have in mind but I'm afraid there is a reason I haven't seen any all roasted malt recipes.

Oatmeal Chocolate Milk Stout

Dehusked roasted malt
Black malt
Chocolate malt
Roasted barley
Dark crystal malt
Dark spray malt
Oats
Chocolate powder
Coffee
Vanilla bean
Lactose
Fuggles
Cascade

Not sure of the amounts of each yet. I only have two gallon sized glass jugs to use as carboys.

Any help, ideas, guidance would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

You need some sort of base malt with diastatic power or your mash will just turn out to be burnt-grain-water with no sugar. Rule of thumb is that munich/vienna malt have enough diastatic power to convert their own sugars, but will not convert much else. The darker the roast from there, the farther downhill it goes because the darker kilning destroys the enzymes.

You need base malt to convert your sugars from the darker barley and the adjuncts (flaked oats, etc.) or you won't get much alcohol.

Try to find a recipe for a clone of your favorite dark beer. Get the process down with that brew. When you have that brew down, tweak it to get it where you want it.

Brewing can be like jazz. Like jazz, however, you have to have some expertise with the instrument before you depart from the main melody.

"Designing Great Beers" by Daniels is a great reference. The reference states that second round NHC stouts were 69% extract (for extract beers). Average was 8% roast, 8% crystal, 4% black and 4% chocolate.