Oops black malt?

[bottles]

Hi trying my first go at a break spear special from Graham wheelers book. But I mixed up the weights of black malt with crystal. Receipts called for 29 grams, put in 89 grams mixed in with the rest of the malt. I'm trying to make 19litres of beer.
I've dropped out the white sugar in the receipt to keep the og down. Any ideas of what this is likely to do. As looking at other receipts is about twice or more than any other.
Next time I'll put each malt into different bowls until I'm ready to combine them.
Andrew

[simple one]

It'll be darker. Slightly more bitter/acrid.

The missing sugar will keep the abv down. The sugar amounts are generally low and tend to not greatly effect mouth feel.

It'll still be beer.

[bottles]

Would adding a bit more hope equal out the extra bitterness? The bitterness should have been 46?
Or would increasing the water and adding some sugar even out the extra bitterness?
Andrew

[simple one]

What stage are you at? What's the recipe?

[BenB]

The black malt is that dark that it adds little fermentable sugar (they're burnt). Personally I'd add shit loads of extra malt to the mash or DME or LME to increase the OG so the FG is higher (whatever %age attenuation the yeast has) so the acrid bitterness of the black malt doesn't come through too strongly. Not adding the sugar is sensible as that'll just make it even more dry. But you want to add something with some residual sweetness I reckon. I'd consider turning it into a milk stout by adding a load of lactose.

[jaroporter]

i'd really not worry. be a touch more dark, obviously. black malt is pretty misunderstood, there's certainly no need to panic about having brewed a dry acrid bucket of ashtrayjuice.. in fact if anything i'd have just chucked another handful in and made a porter, but probably not bothered.
in the same way, a small amount of sugar doesn't immediately guarantee a beer with no body as you've still got exactly the same malt base. so that's up to you really on the OG you want. but it isn't going to be a direct clone :p

[AFewTooMany]

The black malt is that dark that it adds little fermentable sugar (they're burnt). Personally I'd add shit loads of extra malt to the mash or DME or LME to increase the OG so the FG is higher (whatever %age attenuation the yeast has) so the acrid bitterness of the black malt doesn't come through too strongly. Not adding the sugar is sensible as that'll just make it even more dry. But you want to add something with some residual sweetness I reckon. I'd consider turning it into a milk stout by adding a load of lactose.

+1 add more pale malt and either increase brew length or og to reduce the % of black malt

[bottles]

Well I've finished the brew. Tasted a bit at the end and it has a sweet burnt bitter taste. The sweetness should go with the ferment. Overall I'm not hating it to much. Couldn't taste much hops
I didn't want to increase the pale malt as it would nearly double the brew length to get the black malt back into balance.
I'll treat this as a learning example and pay more attention to recipe and what I'm doing.
Of hand are there any books like Graham wheelers that has receipts for larger or wheat beers? Having grown up in Australia drinking flat warm/cool ales isn't always my first choice. Though I've got about 20kg of marris otter to work my way through so larger may be some distance down the road.
Thanks for the advice. It helps to hear is not a complete f up from the start.
Andrew

[bottles]

. Double post
Andrew

[AFewTooMany]

As a rule of thumb the smaller the percentage of the total grain bill, the more careful you need to be. Weighing 6kg of pale doesn't need to be accurate, but weighing 60g of black patent needs to be exact. As for lager you can use marris otter. It is a variety of pale malt, slightly more bready and a slightly darker colour than extra pale but you could make a great helles, dortmunder export, dunkel etc. Would maybe slightly reduce the munich malt and increase the marris otter but the worst that will happen is you will get a marginally fuller beer. Pilsner malt is just pale malt in Germany, no need to use it. I started out with "brewing classic styles". Gives a recipe for each bjcp category and a definition & profile of the style and how to make it

[scuppeteer]

Dry hopping can dampen over exuberance on malt. When its nearly finished have a taste. If its not quite to palate then dry hop post bottling. As its a Breakspear clone you shouldn't need much. Maybe 1 or 1.5g/l for a couple of days. Goldings or similar would work.