oatmeal stout help !!

Planning a brew for next sunday and I'm lost about srm, lovibonds and ebc.
I bought all my grains and found out that I have a HUGE difference in srm between my grains and the default one used in beersmith.

On the bag of my roasted barley, it's written 637 L which is about 860 srm (beersmith = 300 srm)

Same thing for my chocolate malt at 490 L which is 660 srm. Again, beersmith default setting is 450 srm.

I did a search and came up on this thread :


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/650l-roast-barley-194260/


The op stated at the end of it that he ruined is batch by taking into account that his grains were more roasted than beersmith. What should I do now ?? I'm lost. According to beersmith, I should have 3% each of roasted barley and chocoloate malt for a 5.5 gallons brew to get into right color range of a stout. What do you think ?

I may be wrong but I thought Lovibond and SRM scales were pretty much the same. The higher scale is the EBC scale used in Europe.

From Wikipedia search on "beer measurement"... "Degrees Lovibond" or "°L" scale is a measure of the colour of a substance, usually beer, whiskey, or sugar solutions. The determination of the degrees lovibond takes place by comparing the colour of the substance to a series of amber to brown glass slides, usually by a colorimeter. The scale was devised by Joseph Williams Lovibond.[1] The Standard Reference Method (SRM) and European Brewery Convention (EBC) methods have largely replaced it, with the SRM giving results approximately equal to the °L."

SRM is usually used to for the color of the finished beer, while Lovibond is for the color of the malt, but they are as it says above, basically the same scale.

So based on my understanding your 490L chocolate malt is pretty close to 490 SRM, which is close enough to the 450 Beersmith base.

As for the roasted barley, 637L is a large difference from 300SRM! For the heck of it I went into a stout recipe I have in BeerSmith, with half pound of roasted barley in it (3.6% of total). Color was 41.9 SRM (just over the high end for stout). I changed the 300 SRM base color to 637 and my recipe SRM changed to 48.4 SRM. All I had to do was reduce the amount of roasted barley with the higher color an ounce at a time until I got to the recipe color...and with the recipe I was using, all I had to do was cut from 8 ounces of roasted barley down to 7 and it adjusted the beer's color right back to 41.9 SRM which is what it started at!

well on wikipedia they state that SRM = (Lovibond+0.6)/1.35.

srm and Lovi. are pretty much the same when using pale grains but when using values over 300L, the srm is not close at all ! Hence why my 637L barley is actually 860 SRM.

I know how to adjust my recipe with beersmith for the color but I'm just afraid that I'll lose a lot of flavor by reducing my grain bill of roasted and chocolate.

Keep the grain bill the same. The differences at that dark end of the L or SRM scale are not that significant. Don't risk changing your flavor profile to change between different shades of black.

If this were a pale or an amber beer, perhaps I would consider making adjustments, but once you hit a certain darkness on a stout, you're really splitting hairs.

Why is it important to get this color just right? I can't even tell the difference between, say, 40 and 70 SRM.

Where did you get the recipe, and does it mention maltsters or SRM/°L? FWIW I never pay much attention to the SRM of a finished beer, I'm more concerned with the flavor. That being said, there's a significant difference in flavor between Briess 350L chocolate malt and Simpsons 412L chocolate malt, and I'm sure even more so with a 490L chocolate malt (what maltster is that from BTW?). If you're trying to use highly roasted malts to match a recipe that uses much less roasted malts, you're going to need to reduce the amounts some, but even then the flavor won't match perfectly.

JuanMoore said:

Where did you get the recipe, and does it mention maltsters or SRM/°L? FWIW I never pay much attention to the SRM of a finished beer, I'm more concerned with the flavor. That being said, there's a significant difference in flavor between Briess 350L chocolate malt and Simpsons 412L chocolate malt, and I'm sure even more so with a 490L chocolate malt (what maltster is that from BTW?). If you're trying to use highly roasted malts to match a recipe that uses much less roasted malts, you're going to need to reduce the amounts some, but even then the flavor won't match perfectly.

Click to expand...

Yes this is not about color, it's all about taste. My question should have been : If using darker grains than specified, should I reduce the amount of grains to match the taste ? In other words, will a 600 L roasted be like 2 times "stronger" than a 300 L one ?

If there is one thing that I have learned from my small sample size of homebrewing it is this:

Don't sweat the petty...pet the sweaty.

Translation: Brew the Oatmeal Stout...and have a homebrew

The color might be a bit darker and you'll have a stronger flavor from the dark malts. But, ultimately, you'll be fine.

all right I'll do as planned and will not change a damn thing. Rock on

matc said:

Yes this is not about color, it's all about taste. My question should have been : If using darker grains than specified, should I reduce the amount of grains to match the taste ? In other words, will a 600 L roasted be like 2 times "stronger" than a 300 L one ?

Click to expand...

Ok, I understand what you're asking now. I'm sure someone out there has a very accurate scientific answer to this, but in lieu of that, I'll give you my opinion. I also searched the forum and found that most answers posted fell in line with that I think I know.

The consensus is that there will be a slight difference in flavor, but it definitely will not be 2 times "stronger." So, you would be fine going without making any adjustments, or you could alter the amount by a small percent (an ounce per pound ???).

Personnally, I would keep it the same. But brew your own way, brother! You're bound to learn something! -- if you end up altering it, let us know how it goes, then we'll know!

matc said:

Yes this is not about color, it's all about taste. My question should have been : If using darker grains than specified, should I reduce the amount of grains to match the taste ? In other words, will a 600 L roasted be like 2 times "stronger" than a 300 L one ?

Click to expand...

Not even close to 2 times stronger. Think of it more as a difference in the type of flavor than the amount of flavor. It's like coffee, you wouldn't use half the amount of Italian roasted beans to try making a coffee that tastes like a medium/American roast. You'll never match the taste exactly using grains that are significantly higher lovibond, but in your case slightly increasing your chocolate and slightly decreasing your roasted might get you a little closer. Maybe use 3.5 - 4% chocolate and ~2% roasted instead of 3% of each.