Darker beer

[Belto]

I am about to start my winter brewing session.
I have been brewing mainly IPA style ale's but would like to brew a darker beer.
I have tried using Black malt but find the bitterness not acceptable.
If I replaced this with chocolate malt would this solve my problems
Recipe suggestions would be most welcome. I like a hoppy beer

[adm]

You could try debittered black malt if you can find it. Or chocolate as you say, or roasted barley for that matter.

Why not take your base IPA recipe and just add more crystal, and/or a darker malt (or two)? Take it up a bit darker with each brew and see how you get on.....

[blackadder]

Check out the new recipe page from Jims home web page for a selection. Agree as above, just increasing the crystal by 250-500g per mash seems to make a huge difference to mine.

[andyp]

You could try cold steeping the dark stuff; steep overnight in a couple of liters of cold water, stir now and then, drain and add to mash or boiler.

It seems to be much less harsh. I recently did this with some roast barley and the cold extract tasted like a lovely smooth cold coffee. I didn't particularly like the harsh roastiness in a previous brew but this was luverlee

[Edwin Thrunge]

I used to use roast barley when brewing my Guinness clone, and tried it in an ale recipe to darken it up a bit. I found that it imparted more bitterness than I like, though that mellowed out with age. Even 50gm was noticeable in the flavour.

My brother brews more than I do these days, and he's experimented with roasting his own malt. He has a rayburn, which can get pretty hot - and is a dry heat. He has had some reasonable results with it, though the issue is reproducing what you've done.

I've tried smoked malts, too. Interesting flavour.

You could increase the quantity of crystal malt, though that will increase the sweetness of the brew.

My latest batch is using 4Kg Otter/500gm Crystal/250gm Torriefied Wheat, and it's pretty dark. I was aiming for something fairly "ruby", a bit like a Cameron's Strongarm in colour.

I'm not one for sitting down with the calculator & charts to work out what my brew will be like, I have a good idea what does what, and experiment with every brew - documenting each one, and if I like it, I may use it again.

[Matt]

Adding chocolate malt at 1% of grain bill will darken the colour without adding flavour.

Matt

[BarryNL]

Debittered (de-husked) chocolate or black should darken the beer without making any real change to the flavour.

[hoppingMad]

I am about to start my winter brewing session.
I have been brewing mainly IPA style ale's but would like to brew a darker beer.
I have tried using Black malt but find the bitterness not acceptable.
If I replaced this with chocolate malt would this solve my problems
Recipe suggestions would be most welcome. I like a hoppy beer

You can use chocolate malt in quite large amounts and it will be quite a lot milder than Roast or Black malt. But as to how much, well thats personal taste and has a lot to do with style guidelines as well.
Some recipies call for both choc and roast, but usually one will dominate the other.
Also, many darker beers are malt based as opposed to hoppy. There's no reason why you couldn't make a dark malty beer using more choc than roast ( or Black malt) and hop it up if thats what you like.

I did a Black Beer a while back like this:
26 litres

English Pale 4.5 kgs
Munich 0.5 kg
English Chocolate 280 gms
Crystal 60L 170 gms
Roast Barley 80 gms

NZ Green Bullet 60 mins
NZ Hallertau 30 mins
Irish moss 15 mins
NZ Hallertau 5 mins
NZ Hallertau 1 min

Saf S-23 x 3 sachets.

In retrospect I would use cara Munich next time instead of Munich and probably do a decoction mash as well, to boost the maltiness.

[clogwog]

I'm a fan of hoppy beers, but even more of malty complex beers.
For all my ESBs and APAs I'll add between 50 to 100gr of chocolate malt, and up to 200 gr of amber malt as well, and about 250 gr crystal malts.
They have a lovely dark colour, but not as deep as a Brown Ale, and hover around 20 EBC.

[macleanb]

This recipe has been admired by all that tried it:

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