Landlord, definitive recipe

[Pigster]

Hi, has anyone brewed Landlord Dark (was RamTam)? Is it just a case of reducing the pale malt for more dark??

[Northern Brewer]

AIUI Ram Tam is just Landlord with some brewer's caramel in it to colour it up. It's an old British brewery technique, people always make the mistake of trying to add strongly-flavoured ingredients to hit a colour target when that just ruins an otherwise tasty beer.

[Pigster]

That’s interesting, what would you add then to say a 23litre brew?
I presume if it’s just an addition you don’t need to adjust hops or IBUs.
Cheers!

[Eric]

The caramel addition is made as the beer is casked, so you might determine the amount by trial in a small sample and upscale.

Timothy Taylor's Dark Mild is their Golden Best with brewer's caramel added in the same way. Both beers are brewed and fermented in their paler form.

[Pigster]

Ah now that’s interesting. So I could split my brew at bottling time, half landlord and half dark.
Can you add “too much” brewers caramel and if so what is the outcome?


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[Northern Brewer]

It'll just be very dark, and taste a bit...caramelly - but there are better ways to add that flavour if that's what you are after.

But to give you an idea, adding 5ml of 35,000 EBC caramel to 23 litres will add about 7.5EBC of colour.

[Pigster]

Thanks Northern Brewer!
What’s the best way of adding that slight caramel flavour and colour, is that going back and amending the malt?

I fancy doing a dark but slightly hoppy winter style beer, still circa 4-4.5%. Conwy Brewery’s black IPA is good even if a contradiction in terms!
Dunham Massey do a couple of nice darker beers (their dark mild is wonderful).

I did a Samuel Smiths clone where to get the pronounced toffee flavour I took a couple of pints of unhopped wort and vigorously boiled that in a pan to reduce it down and caramelise a little before adding back to the main boil - that’s fermenting away so I’ll find out in a couple of weeks I guess!


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[Northern Brewer]

Some oxidation and a bit of diacetyl will usually work....

So usually "caramel" (as opposed to toffee) tends to be associated with off-flavours, although a little bit can be good. You want to be looking at the lighter kinds of crystal in your grist otherwise.

[orlando]

Sinamar