Black Lager recipe?

[DC]

Hi all, after my recent success brewing a 10 gallon batch of Lager I am looking at brewing another batch but this time I am thinking of brewing a Black Lager for a change. I have looked on the net and seen a few different Black Lager / Schwarzbier beer recipes, but I am looking at creating my own recipe. I used Hallertau Hersbrucker Hops in my 10 gallon batch of lager and it came out great but I only have 42g’s left for this 5 gallon Black Lager. I do however have 39g’s of Saaz hops in the freezer. My brewing software says that the 240g of Carafa III malt will give the lager the black colour I am looking for, I am wondering how much bitterness that amount of Carafa III malt would impart into the Black Lager? As I have never used it before, I have read that it’s used more for adding colour than bitterness. Just wondering if any of you guys have ever brewed a Black Lager or used Carafa III malt and what your thoughts were on it?

Recipe so far

Golden Promise (pale malt) 5kg
Carafa III malt 240g

Hallertau Hersbrucker 21g @60 mins
Hallertau Hersbrucker 21g @40 mins
Sazz Hops 21g @20 mins

Saflager S-23 yeast (fermented between 9° to 12°C)

Cheers DC

[koomber]

I've not tried it, but a few people have cold steeped their dark malts (such as carafa) for this sort of thing. Apparently it gives you the colour without imparting any bitterness. That being said I think the Carafa malts are what are usually used for dark lagers, so it might be a non issue as the style has some bitterness from the grains. On the other hand, who cares about styles? Do YOU want any of the toasty bitterness from the dark grains? If not cold steeping would help.

The use of pale malt as opposed to lager malt should give you a nice malty-ness to the brew. I'm a big fan of munich malt (from Germany, not the UK stuff) so if it were me I'd use some in the brew. Well, I say some, I mean all. I LOVE munich malt and if it were cheaper I'd brew more or less everything with it.

Looks good though. I'm sure someone who has done steeping of malts will be along with some useful information for you.

[Morten]

I did a black IPA some time ago, using CARAFA II

It was nice, but if I was doing it again, I'd cold steep it like koomber sugests.

[kinnockthecat]

I use in my schwarzbier 30L batch

lager malt 3.79kg
munich 2.62kg
crystal 0.30kg
cara aroma 0.39kg
chocolate 0.28kg
roasted barley 0.19kg

Hallertau 76g 1st wort
Hallertau 46g at 30 mins
Hallertau 12g at 10 mins before end

[legion]

If you just want a normal lager thats black use brewers caramel. It wont add any flavour just colour.

[Barley Water]

I use carafa dehusked malt all the time to adjust the color in beers. It's a dosage dependent thing, at some point once you have added enough you are going to get some roast but not nearly to the extent you would with other colored malts. Over here there are two schools of thought when making a Swartzbier. Essentially one allows for a bit of roast and the other is essentially a pilsner that just happens to be black and has minimal roasted flavors. If you are going for the roast version I wouldn't worry about it, just add what you need to. On the other hand, if you go with the "black pilsner" version I think that steeping sounds like a good idea. They also make the liquid stuff which is made from carafa which I believe is called Similar or something like that; it may save you some trouble.

[schlafsack]

Can recommend Graham Coates' recipe, it won the national last year. Very nice indeed.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=53901#p567253

It's on the roasty side, similar to Köstritzer. I like the edge that the dark grains give, they very much add flavour as well as colour.

[Matt12398]

If you want the Carafa darkness without the roasty taste you want Carafa Special.

With a dark larger I think you need a subtle roastiness though otherwise it's just a lager that's black rather than a schwarzbier. I personally like a dark pilsner over a schwarzbier.

[Nofolkandchance]

If it's only colour you want and not roast flavour than dont piss about with grain and cold steeping, just bung half a bottle of Sinamar into the boil. Its produced using carafa malts . Youll get it from Rob.
http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... mit=%C2%A0

[coatesg]

Sinamar won't quite give the right result here for a Schwarzbier. Correct in that you don't want harsh roast flavours - if you get a stout/porter like roastiness then it's wrong. It should be a chocolate/coffee type flavour and should be smooth (which you get with the cold steeping - try it, it gives a fantastic flavour that works really well in Schwarzbier, Oatmeal Stout and Sweet Stouts - it's really not that hard, and I'm not sure can be that easily reproduced with mashed grains). It should never be burnt, but equally, you don't quite want a "pils with lots of colour".

However, if you want a Dark American lager type beer then Sinamar is might be a good choice - but a hint of coffee/choc wouldn't be out of place even there.

[Rookie]

Earlier this year I brewed an American IPA and a rosemary blonde ale. After primary fermentation was done I siphoned a gallon of each into seperate carboys.
My first thought was sinamar, but my LHBS doesn't stock it.
So I made my own. For the IPA I cold steeped eight ounces of midnight wheat in a quart of water; for the blonde I used four ounces of roast barley in a pint of water. The IPA came out nice and black with very little roastiness. The blonde ended up a very dark brown with a hint of roastiness. Next time I'll use more of the roast barley.
Oddly enough the IPA scored 34.3 in a compitition and the black IPA scored 40.3.

[Nofolkandchance]

Sinamar won't quite give the right result here for a Schwarzbier. Correct in that you don't want harsh roast flavours - if you get a stout/porter like roastiness then it's wrong. It should be a chocolate/coffee type flavour and should be smooth (which you get with the cold steeping - try it, it gives a fantastic flavour that works really well in Schwarzbier, Oatmeal Stout and Sweet Stouts - it's really not that hard, and I'm not sure can be that easily reproduced with mashed grains). It should never be burnt, but equally, you don't quite want a "pils with lots of colour".

However, if you want a Dark American lager type beer then Sinamar is might be a good choice - but a hint of coffee/choc wouldn't be out of place even there.

For clarity, Sinamar is not "exactly" tastless . At the end of the day its produced solely from roasted Carafa malt,

Ive used it in a couple of Black IPA's to 110 ebc which does gives a very gentle smooth coffee roastness to it. I picked up that the OP was concerned with too much roast flavour? Yes, theres no reason why he couldnt use a bit of Sinamar for colour if its an American Black Lager ie: Samuel Adams, but I would maybe add some munich in if this was the case.