A dark beer with a hint of rum...

[Daveye]

Hi everyone, first post here after 8 months of enjoying my own brew

I'm about to start my 5th AG brew and looking to do some a bit different. So far I've been trying to get a hoppy pale ale down, with in my opinon some success!

This time I'd like to try for a stout/porter, dark and chocolatey but a little bit different. I have in my mind a slight taste of rum might be nice, but short of putting rum in the fermenter I'm not sure how to achieve this!

I've considered raisins, after trying a Dogfish Head Raison D'etre, or some berries/cherries. Not sure about the hop selection yet.

I've got some Pale malt, Chocolate Malt, Rauchmalz (sounds nice:)), and Crystal Malt.
Hops, I have some Fuggles, Amarillo, Styrian Goldings, Saaz and Galena.

cheers for any suggestions! WIll post a beer engine recipie soon...

[196osh]

I am not sure about the rum bit. I would brew it with no rum, then dose a single pint with a couple of mls or rum, and add it till it was to your taste. Do this a couple of times with different pints and take an average. Then brew up another porter or stout and add the amount you need to post fermentation, at bottling for example,

As for hops, galena it will probably be the best bet.

[pokerswazi]

You could also try fermenting your stout with a Belgian strain yeast.

[Daveye]

hmm now thats an idea! Will it just give a slightly different character, or change it dramatically? Also is the fermentation any different from the usual ale yeast S-04 I've been using?

cheers the ideas for far

[196osh]

Do you have temperature control? If not you can't do it and have any sort of reproducible results.

I have also drank a load of belgian beers, the yeast needs to be used at high abv beer to get those sorts of esters off of it.

Also you wont be able to use that recpie. You will basically be brewing a Belgian Strong Dark Ale. Which may not taste exactly of rum. But if you brew it to 9% abv + it will taste like dark fruit. Its a more complicated beer to make and also you will need to give it a relitivly significant period of time to let it age.

If you want to give it a bash I would use the Rochefort Yeast. I get more rum-y flavours off of Rochefort strains than any other ones.


I think you would be better off initially if you want a rum flavour in your beer to try the thing I said before though. I would use dark rum too.

[Daveye]

Hmm that does sound like what I'm after actually, the dark fruitiness in a belgian ale. Is it more difficult to do though? I don't have any means of temperature control, being Scotland the ambient summer temp can be anything between 3 at night to 25 during the day...

I could maybe just go with using a more Belgian style of hops, and perhapps the touch of rum. Anyone have any experiences using black cherries or raisins?

[Barley Water]

I add raisins to my Dubbel, my last try came out pretty good. Just toss them in a blender, chop the hell out of them and chuck them into the boil. Generally speaking, you can also get sort of a dried fruit, raisin plumb thing going with Special B as well (that's why you always see it in formulations for Dubbel and Belgain Strong Dark beers). Additionally, I add that expensive Belgian candy sugar, the dark liquid stuff, not the rocks which are a waste of money. I also noted a little of the same effect in a Brown Porter I did recently. I used a little bit of dark British crystal along with some of the lighter crystal, made the beer more complex and interesting, I will do it again. If you don't have temperature control, some of the Belgian beers are problematic since the yeast is very temperature dependent but those yeasts produce some very interesting fruit notes.

[ølbart]

Molasses or dark treacle will give you rum flavour.

[196osh]

I am in Scotland too, yeah wouldnt trust a Belgian without temperature control if we had a hot spell... not likley but if we did and you couldnt chill the beer down you would get a big fusally alchol mess.

Belgian beers are not so big on their hops, most of their flavour is yeast derived.

[Daveye]

Thanks for the ideas again, I think I'll stick with an ale yeast for now, adding extra ingredients is a new step already. I think I'll try one of these dark sugar options, and maybe some raisins, some Saaz hops for a Belgian twist at the end. Mmmm getting thirsty now:) Will put a recipe up soon.

[critch]

boggart brewery do an excellent rum porter and they put a measured amount of rum in each cask.

[Daveye]

Hi, finally put a recipe together, decided to go with molasses instead of messing around with fruit, one experiment at a time! It's maybe less of a tradiational stout now and some dark ale type thing. Loved amarillo in my last brew and wouldn't mind a touch of them in it too. My only problem now is finding some molasses, do they exist in the UK or is it the same thing as treacle? Is chocolate malt quite bitter, like the roasty bitterness in Sierra Nevadas porter?

Pale Malt 5 EBC 4700 grams 91%
Crystal Malt 130 EBC 230 grams 4.5%
Flaked Maize 0 EBC 155 grams 3%
Chocolate Malt 1050 EBC 78 grams 1.5%


Fuggle Whole 4.9 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 1.1 oz 31 grams 50%
Amarillo Whole 9.5 % 15 mins 0 lbs. 0.7 oz 21 grams 30%
Fuggle Whole 4.9 % 15 mins 0 lbs. 0.5 oz 13 grams 10%
Amarillo Whole 9.5 % 0 mins 0 lbs. 0.3 oz 9 grams 10%
Molasses 400-500 ml 15 mins

Final Volume: 20 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.058
Final Gravity: 1.014
Alcohol Content: 5.7% ABV
Total Liquor: 30.2 Litres
Mash Liquor: 12.9 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 35 EBU
Colour: 51 EBC

[EportJake]

Molasses or dark treacle will give you rum flavour.

+1

I got mine from a health food shop.