Guinness Colour

[aceuass]

I recently brewed a guinness clone and went with the fact that it is not black, my SRM was about 23/34 which turned out to be too brown, it tastes OK but for appearance I would like it a bit darker, could I add black food colouring and how much would I use for 5 gallons
Cheers
Paul

[agentgonzo]

You could add black food colouring I suppose, but you should be able to get the black guinness colour with just the malts. Post your recipe. For a stout, you're looking at at least a pound of black malt for a 5/6 gallon batch.

[aceuass]

Brewed oct 4.
19 liters
boil 23 liters
8lbs 2 row UK malt
2lbs flaked barley
1lb roasted barley
mash in 3 gallons at 170F
mash at 154F - 60 mins
batch sparge (1st 8 liters at 168F, 2nd 8 liters at 168F)
pre-boil was 1.049
60 min boil with 1.5oz northern brewer
cool to 78F SG=1.056
add wyeast 1084
I know I could of added black patent but I read that Guinness is not totally black, but looking at what I have, it sure is not brown, so I would like to increase the blackness
Cheers
Paul

[steve_flack]

CAn you get hold of some Weyermann Sinamar? It's a coloring made from Carafa special malt.

[aceuass]

I found it
Sinamar. Sinamar is a coloring agent from Weyermann Malz. Because it is essentially a malt extract made from roasted grain (their proprietary Carafa), it is 100% in keeping with the Reinheitsgebot purity law and can be used to add color to dark beers without the bitterness of roasted malts — great for Schwarzbier! Add to the boil; 4 ounces in 5 gallons adds 16 SRM of color.

#3309 Sinamar 4 oz. $10.50 Each

But that seems a bit expensive for what I need
Cheers
Paul

[Garth]

aceuass, I've just ran that through my program and it comes out in the mid 90s for colour for a 19 litre batch, are you sure you added a lb of Roast Barley, what is the srm of the rb?

[aceuass]

It was a full pre crushed 1 lb bag from the LHBS, I didn`t take note of what the srm was, going by Beersmith it came out at
24.6 srm style calls for 25-40 srm
IBU 44.9
I`m going to transfer to keg today and add black food colouring, than leave til Paddy`s day
Cheers
Paul