What would Caraffa 3 do to this brew?

[OilyGreasyPig]

Hi all,
I'm planning an all grain brew tomorrow, it will be my fourth. I'm planning on making a bit of a mix. I have 3.5kg of uk plae 2row, some dark crystal, some light crystal and some Caraffa3. I'm really keen on adding some Caraffa as I've been too scared to use it up until now.

I'll be brewing a 3 gallon batch as that's all I can get out of my kettle at the end. I want to. Use up a load of cascade, centennial and chinook hops and I like the American hoppy IPA style but am equally keen on a good old porter. I will be using muntons English ale yeast as that's all my LHBS had in stock!

My question is, what would happen to the flavour if I add Caraffa and how much should I add? Any advice would be most welcome. I'd like it to add darker colour and a bit more of a roasted malt flavour. Cheers.

[Dads_Ale]

Not used it yet myself but got this info:

Carafa® Special 3
EBC: 1300, Maximum percentage 5% Approx
This unique de-husked barley malt adds aroma, color and body, with a milder, smoother flavor than achieved with whole grains, Use upto 1-5%, For use in Dark Beer, "Salvator Bockbier", Stout, Porter, Alt Beer, "Bockbier", "Schwarzbier"

[Rookie]

Hi all,
I'm planning an all grain brew tomorrow, it will be my fourth. I'm planning on making a bit of a mix. I have 3.5kg of uk plae 2row, some dark crystal, some light crystal and some Caraffa3. I'm really keen on adding some Caraffa as I've been too scared to use it up until now.

I'll be brewing a 3 gallon batch as that's all I can get out of my kettle at the end. I want to. Use up a load of cascade, centennial and chinook hops and I like the American hoppy IPA style but am equally keen on a good old porter. I will be using muntons English ale yeast as that's all my LHBS had in stock!

My question is, what would happen to the flavour if I add Caraffa and how much should I add? Any advice would be most welcome. I'd like it to add darker colour and a bit more of a roasted malt flavour. Cheers.

Caraffa is a good choice for darkening an IPA and adding a touch of roastiness. Start with four to six ounces in the mash. If that's not dark enough you can add some Sinimar or make your own and add (boil first) until you get the color you want.

[OilyGreasyPig]

Thanks guys, that's what I wanted to hear. I'll add 150g and see what happens. It's only a 3gallon batch so that should do it.

[simon12]

I added 50g to a 23l batch recently and you could really taste it was there despite the small quantity. Sorry have little other experience of it other than in a porter.

[Fuggled Mind]

Be careful, carafa III special is not the same as regular carafa III. Carafa III has been dehusked to reduce the tannins, roastiness (and flavour). Regular carafa still has it's husk and as far as I know (but cannot say for sure), is fairly interchangeable with regular black malt.

Cheers

Jason

[simon12]

In that case mine was just carafa 3 not special.

[Matt12398]

Carafa Special is debittered. Carafa is not. So if you want to make it black without adding much flavour you need Carafa Special.

[seymour]

Or, simply stir-it into your mash immediately before sparging. This reduces the roasty flavours to some extent even with regular Black Malt or Roasted Barley, like this: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=68531



Look at the difference in those colours! Vorlaufing before and after (just one minute later). Despite a 7% Black Malt addition, it doesn't taste very roasty at all.

[Barley Water]

I'm gonna try something new (for me anyway) with my next brew. My daughter wants a Milk Stout for the holidays so I told her I would make one. My plan is to cold extract all the dark grains. According to Gordon Strong (yeah, yeah, I know) what you do is grind the grain and let it sit for 24 hours at room temperature then run it through a filter (I'll give it a go with a coffee filter). He claims (and it makes sense to me) that using highly kilned grains is much like brewing coffee. If you want to avoid the harsh, astringent flavors cold extraction will work really well (and I know from experience it does for coffee). Anyhow, I did an ESB this last weekend so once that stuff ferments out I'll take the yeast and do the Milk Stout. By the way, I tried doing a ceral mash on about 1 pound of ground corn for that brew in a slow cooker; I looks like it worked but next time I do it I'm putting the damn thing on a timer so I don't cook the corn quite so long.

[seymour]

...By the way, I tried doing a ceral mash on about 1 pound of ground corn for that brew in a slow cooker; I looks like it worked but next time I do it I'm putting the damn thing on a timer so I don't cook the corn quite so long.

Just curious why you say that, were there problems due to overcooking?

[Barley Water]

Actually I think it worked out ok. I set up my cooker on low and effectively left it over night. It started to brown the corn (as expected) which will likely be a good thing in an ESB. If however I want to do something lighter; like say a CAP or preprohibition cream ale (as versus the modern stuff which in my opinion is bland) I'm looking to lighten up the color of the beer so I would rather avoid the browning as well as any melonodins produced. It's just a matter of me experiementing enough with my slow cooker to figure out where the sweet spot is. Kitchen smelled really good by the way and I ended up getting a really good extraction rate on the batch which may have been influenced by the long boil on the ground corn. If anybody tries this make sure you add what you think will be too much water as that corn can really suck it up and swell. By the way, I think it's great fun to screw around with stuff like this to devlop new/different flavors in your beer. Since I'll be competing with this stuff, I'm always looking for something novel to make my entries stand out just a little.

[Rookie]

The best grain for adding color and little roastiness is midnight wheat, cold steeped.