My stout is light brown..help!

hey everyone,

So a few days ago I brewed up the zymurgy recipe for Rogue's Chocolate stout. I steeped the following grains in 2.5gal water in a muslin bag at 155 for 30 min:

.5lb Crystal (135-165L)
.25lb Chocolate (350L)
.25lb British Chocolate (450L)
.2lb Roasted Barley (450L)
.5lb Rolled Oats
...then added 6lbs Light DME @ boil

I have never sparged my steeped specialty malts so I didn't this time, just pulled it out of the wort and held it above for a few minutes until it stopped dripping.

My worry now is that the stout looks like a light brown ale! I did a 90 min boil and i'm afraid I possibly boiled too much off (went from 2.5 gallons to around 1.5gal) and by that it got too diluted when I added it to 3.5 gallons of water. I've included a pic below and am just wonder what I should do!? I was think perhaps steeping a smaller version of the grain bill(.25 Crystal, .15 Chocolate, .15 Brit Chocolate, .1 Roasted Barley, possibly even throwing a little black patent in too?) in a couple quarts of water and racking on to it when I transfer to secondary to maybe get the color I want?

Anything helps!


This is at day 3..

Add some gravy master to it...That's what my family always does for gravy that is not dark enough. Joking aside...I would probably just leave it as is and accept that its not going to look (taste?) like a stout. If it ends up tasting good that's all that really matters.

Did you rinse the grains in the bag at all or just let them drip? Were they tightly packed in the bag or somewhat loose? Boiling for 90 minutes shouldn't have affected the color because it would have just made it more concentrated to then be watered back down.

I am sure some of the more experienced people out there will have more ideas for you.

A few thoughts:

First, the recipe calls for the addition of 1.5 oz. chocolate extract to the secondary. I don't know what effect that will have (is the extract clear, black, what?).

Second, "three days in" you see a lot of yeast, which lightens the color considerably. It will darken when the yeast drops.

Third, I don't know, how did you do the steep? Where did the grains come from? How was the crush? The stout in my sig was a little heavier on the roasted barley, not much though. It came out black black black.

Fourth, your boil is not the problem. You boil off water, not color. So you add more makeup water, it all evens out.

I would say, let it go and enjoy the beer when it's done. You'll have pleny of time to ponder, over a brew or three, what to do on your next batch.

It was tied rather tight in a muslin bag and not rinsed, which I am beginning to believe was the problem..

You really want it to be as loose as possible so that it is not pressing the grains together. That way you maximize warm water contact with the grains. Also from the one time I used a grain bag...a little rinsing goes a long ways.

RDWHAHB...I'm sure it will come out fine...Maybe just not what you expected/intended.

My guess is uncrushed grain caused this. Even if the grain was tightly packed as described you still should have a really dark brew, nothing close to the picture. Were the grains really dark? Where did you get them? Is it possible your grain bill got switched with somebody else?