Help! Is my beer (going to be) ruined?

Hello everyone

So the other day I ordered ingredients from Austin Homebrew to brew Douglas-O'Rourkes Quaffable Irish Red, which looks very tasty.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f65/quaffable-irish-red-extract-55441/

But as I was picking out the specialty grains I accidentally selected to add 1 lb 2 oz of Chocolate malt into the grain bill, rather than the 2 oz called for... The only other grains I have on hand are Carapils and some US and Belgian 2 row. The closest LHBS is about 40 min away.

So what do? I need the special roast and biscuit for the recipe. I can probably remove a good amount of the chocolate malt from the other grains, but there is a lot of black dust in the bag from the Chocolate malt which I think may really mess up the color/flavor especially if there is no way to accurately measure it. What do you think?

Looks like you're making a chocolate porter now. Either that or you've got some driving to do..

Just leave a pound out and store it for future use. It will be packed separately won't it?

Or am I missing something? Is the grain all in one pack? If that's the case then ignore my ignorance and go with previous poster's option.

BeerEagle said:

Just leave a pound out and store it for future use. It will be packed separately won't it?

Or am I missing something? Is the grain all in one pack? If that's the case then ignore my ignorance and go with previous poster's option.

Click to expand...

if you look at the pictures, all the grains are mixed in the same bag.

you could always try and hand pick the different grains out. probably just as time consuming as driving to your homebrew store.

I was supposed to order 2 oz of Chocolate malt, 4 oz special roast, and 2 oz biscuit, but instead, like an idiot, I ordered 1 lb 2 oz of Chocolate malt, which is now more or less mixed in with my biscuit and special roast. When I ordered the grain I asked Austin Homebrew to put my specialty grains for this recipe in a single bag.

Yeah I might as well go for it, I think I'll just open up the bag very carefully and pick out the lightly colored kernels, weigh it, and see what I get.

I'd just use it and call it a "chocolate porter".

The worst thing is it doesn't taste so good any you either call it second beers (the beer you drink after you've had a few) or you save it for the guys who want to come over and drink all your great (free) home brews.

Yep, you're going to have a porter with that ;-). If you still want a red, I would say to just use about 1/3 - 1/2 of that bag and save the rest for later. Though even with that, you're probably going to get a brown or amber beer, but it will be much closer in style to what you were originally after than if you add it all.

FWIW - from the pic, it looks like the lighter malt is mostly concentrated at the bottom of the bag. If you cut the bag open on the side, you may be able to scoop a lot of it out and add that directly, and then use part of the rest.

Play around with the color calculator here: http://www.brewersfriend.com/srm-calculator/ to see what kind of color you are going to get by using various proportions of the bag and decide what you like best.

Thanks for all of your guys' help! I cut the bag open as if I was performing surgery, and about 30 minutes of tedious work yielded me this. It's only about 2 oz total though, and the recipe calls for 2 oz biscuit and 4 oz special roast. I do have some 2 row on hand, have any of you had luck with home-toasting a malt to substitute for biscuit/special roast? I have not yet brewed with either.