Many moons ago, in the early years of the MontreAlers, we used to do group brewing sessions called “Big Brews” and in one instance, we all brewed the same recipe with the same ingredients (group orders), and I had made a large starter of yeast to share among all the participants. We had a tasting about 6 weeks later and all the beers tasted different.
Back then, I also had the recipes to various McAuslan beers including St Ambroise Pale ale and I still never managed to make an identical clone.
I know that we have a lot of specialty grains and that yeast character will probably be hidden, but I am the only one brewing « peach bombs » with US-05 at low temperature?
Ok good, so I’m not far off at all.
We added some extra grains, so it’s expected to be a little higher than the original gravity. If we’re all within 5-10 points of each other, it’ll be fine.
@Norm expertly noticed that we received Black Malt instead of Black Roasted Barley from Mout in the group buy (we’ve 5 brewers, contributing about 100L). Any thoughts on how this might affect our beers and the final beer given the following charts:
Seems like in equivalent volumes, the black malt will give less coffee and chocolate notes, leaving behind mostly roasty flavours. Not as complex a grain, i guess.
I have some roasted barley on hand, I can mix it with the black malt, maybe 1/3 RB, 2/3BM.
I brew it yesterday.
Pump block and all that… what a mess, I wasn’t carreful enough while mashing in.
End up having 19L at 1.102, finger cross that fermentation will go according to plan. I hope there is not to much unfermentable sugar since the mash was all over the place.
Considering that we’ll be blending ~12 batches and 7 of them will use roasted barley, I think using black malt on our side (5/12) will simply “add complexity” to the beer.
Roast barley — I’ve been careful to say roasted grain rather than roasted malt because roast barley is made from unmalted grain. It adds a strong roasty character, similar to coffee. Typically, it’s 300–400°L, adding a reddish hue as it darkens the beer, but there are darker versions available. It’s best to limit this to 2–10 percent of the grist, with the higher end reserved for stouts.
Black patent malt — Also known as black malt, this is significantly darker than most roast barley, weighing in at 450–600°L. While it also has a dry, roasty flavor, higher percentages are perceived as burnt or ashy. Keeping it at less than 3 percent of the grist will rein that in and still pick up plenty of color. On the other hand, in a milk stout, you can kick this up a bit higher, with the sweetness balancing the harsh bite. Black malt works well in combination with chocolate malt.
Just started heating my strike water. This is the first time I’ve brewed 41L of a imperial strength beer. Wish me luck!
Have you brewed yet? How’d it go?
I ended up doing a reiterated mash as well. I made cold brew with most of the black malt and put it in the last minute of the boil. I hit my numbers and got a partigyle stout. Any clue what style a partigyle of this recipe is at 1.040 OG?
This reminded me of the funny comments Lars Garshol recorded in his book about Norweigians saying things like “I can tell you live near a great lake” when the beer wasn’t strong enough.
