Calichusetts

Recipes 

I'm pretty sure I remember reading about this in Radical Brewing...its a great way to get the color you want without the negative affects the malt can cause the taste

Stauffbier

Recipes 

I wonder if you could get the best of both worlds by adding the dark grains to the last 10 or 15 mins of the mash?!..

Brew-boy

Recipes 

Some people do it to get the dark color without the roast flavor.

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GarageBeerGarden

Recipes 

You still get the roast flavor, though albeit not as intense, but as one poster commented earlier, the idea is to avoid extracting the tannins and harsher flavors you get with prolonged exposure. When you dunk a tea bag into hot water, it still tastes like tea even if you remove it after only a short time, right? Yes it's weaker, but it won't be bitter and astringent like it is if you leave the bag in the whole time. The same concept applies here too.

bumstigedy

Recipes 

So if you are batch sparging, when do you add the dark grains?

Last weekend I brewed an American brown ale and added the chocolate malt and crystal 120 with 15 min left in the mash. This exposed the dark grains to hot water for about 30 min after doing a mash out and batch sparging.

Went with distiller water with minimal salt additions for the mash since I didn't have the dark grains to worry about.

pcollins

Recipes 

It shouldn't matter if you're batch sparging, fly sparging or any combination therein. You can add the grains at the end of the mash before vorlauf.

barrooze

Recipes 

I'd love to hear how this turned out for you. Did you stir the mash after adding the dark grains? I've been toying with this method as well, but wasn't sure how well it'd do with batch sparging (which I do). I think doing a mash out with this method is a really good idea too.

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BBL_Brewer

Recipes 

When I make stouts, I don't add dark grains to the mash at all. Instead, I steep them in the wort after I combine all the runnings in the BK. Makes a much smoother tasting beer. I imagine you would get similar results adding them to the mash right before lauter, in fact I've been meaning to try it that way, would cut some time off brewday. The first stout I made I mashed everything and it came out with a very harsh bitterness. And if you're not getting the roastiness you want using this method, use more grain.

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ResumeMan

Recipes 

I recently did this for an American stout. The main reason was to avoid pushing my mash pH too low, as I have very low alkalinity water.

I mixed in the roast grains after about 45 minutes, and let it sit for maybe 10 before starting the vorlauf. It took a good couple of quarts of vorlauf before the wort I drew from the bottom turned from brown to black, but it did.

Still in the fermenter. I tasted a hydrometer sample. It definitely had a roasty flavor, though that one sample seemed less-so than expected from all the dark grains. But I'll wait to reserve judgment till it's in the keg and carbed. If I remember I'll report back.

bumstigedy

Recipes 

I recirculate the mash because it is direct fired. After i collected first runnings, I added sparge water and stirred for several minutes.

I'll let you know how it turned out in a few weeks. I have another one brewed the normal way and will bottle some so I can try side by side.