When to add roasted malts to mash

I'll be making a stout this weekend in preparation for St. Patricks day and I have a question about mashing roasted malts.

I've seem to remember hearing at one time that it is best to not add heavily roasted malts (ie. roasted barley, chocolate malt, black patent) until the last 10-15 of the mash.

Is this correct? If so, what is the benefit to waiting?

Thanks!

Dark, highly roasted malts can make your mash more acidic, especially if your water is very soft. Some people counter this by adding chalk to the mash. Gordon Strong brings up the method of steeping these dark grains ahead of time and adding the resulting fluid to the boil. 2 qt water per pound of grain. You can either cold steep them for a day or steep like you would with an extract kit with specialty grains.

You can also put the dark grains into the mash as soon as you start your first vourlauf.

The advantage is you can keep your mash pH at optimum levels without adding chalk, which can have an impact on the taste of your beer

I agree with flabyboy. I always add the roasted malts at mash-out. If they contribute a considerable amount to the grain bill, I use the 2 qt./lb. cold steeping method and add to the kettle prior to boiling.

In the past, when I've used a large percentage of roasted malts in my beer such as in a stout, I've percieved a certain harsh bitterness to my final product.

Will cold steeping the roasted malts reduce this percieved bitterness? Or is this mainly for improving mash conversion?

That's the reason I started cold steeping. Everytime I would do a stout... it would have this harsh roasted taste to it (I guess you could call it bitter, but I use that term to describe hop characteristics, so I don't want to confuse anyone). After doing some research, I started using the cold steep method for high roasted malt grain bills. Never looked back. It definitely helps ease the harsh roasted flavor.

I should he more careful when I use the term bitter in these forums!

Anyway, thanks for the feedback, this is very helpful.

Planning my first AG in the near future, storing factoids for future reference.

At what point would you consider a malt "roasted" for the purposes of this thread; L40? L60?

Roasted Barley, Chocolate Malt, Black Patent... etc.

I wouldn't worry about any of the Crystal malts.

I have never worked at or heard of a single commercial brewery that added dark malt late in the mash, they are, in my experience, always mashed in with the rest of the grains

short steeping in the mash works well if you're not using a lot of black patent, but still want to avoid any harshness, especially in brown ales and porters.
I've even used a dash of chocolate malt for an irish red, added just before the vorlauf. Gets you good color, a little flavor and aroma, but doesn't get over-powering.

Even a quarter ounce can really alter the SRM on 5 gallons.

wailingguitar said:

I have never worked at or heard of a single commercial brewery that added dark malt late in the mash, they are, in my experience, always mashed in with the rest of the grains

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I bet those breweries went to great lengths to correct their pH in the mash. That's the beauty of home brewing. We can try things like this on a smaller scale than the breweries. Why homebrew if you can't try new things?

flabyboy said:

I bet those breweries went to great lengths to correct their pH in the mash. That's the beauty of home brewing. We can try things like this on a smaller scale than the breweries. Why homebrew if you can't try new things?

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No, not really... while there were occasionally some mineral additions to the mash water, pH was pretty much an after thought. To be honest, I never saw anyone check mash pH or even mention having done so.

Well, as far as my personal process... I noticed a huge difference in adding the roasted malts late and/or cold steeping versus mashing them along with the rest of the grain bill. I got all the color without an abundance of harsh roasted flavor. I've had about 6 stouts and a couple brown ales to experiment with and the beers I have made with high roasted malt content have unquestionably resulted in a better beer than those with the same malts mashed the entire time.

wailingguitar said:

No, not really... while there were occasionally some mineral additions to the mash water, pH was pretty much an after thought. To be honest, I never saw anyone check mash pH or even mention having done so.

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What breweries are we talking about here?

flabyboy said:

Dark, highly roasted malts can make your mash more acidic, especially if your water is very soft.

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Not soft, low alkalinity. Alkalinity is the thing to be concerned with regarding mash pH. The advice is otherwise good though. If you brew with low alkalinity (like RO or distilled water), then keeping the dark malts out of the main mash is a good idea. If you brew with alkaline water, then you WANT those dark grains in the mash to help bring the pH down.

Enjoy!

flabyboy said:

What breweries are we talking about here?

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The ones I would expect most people to recognize are Bell's, Rogue and Breckenridge (I have brewed at both Breck locations in Denver as well as two of the pubs they had in the South East in the 90s, head brewer at one)... Others you may not have heard of; Mad Monk/Little Star (brewmaster), City Breweries (Magic City, Port City, Lexington City- Company Brewmaster), contract brewed for Vulcan and I also did a very short stint at Bosco's in Memphis. Of the many other breweries I have visited, I can honestly say that I know of no one that was mashing dark grains separately from the bulk of the grain and do not recall anyone saying anything about messing with their mash pH.

mabrungard said:

Not soft, low alkalinity. Alkalinity is the thing to be concerned with regarding mash pH. The advice is otherwise good though. If you brew with low alkalinity (like RO or distilled water), then keeping the dark malts out of the main mash is a good idea. If you brew with alkaline water, then you WANT those dark grains in the mash to help bring the pH down.

Enjoy!

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thanks for clarifying that. I have a habit of confusing the two

wailingguitar said:

The ones I would expect most people to recognize are Bell's, Rogue and Breckenridge (I have brewed at both Breck locations in Denver as well as two of the pubs they had in the South East in the 90s, head brewer at one)... Others you may not have heard of; Mad Monk/Little Star (brewmaster), City Breweries (Magic City, Port City, Lexington City- Company Brewmaster), contract brewed for Vulcan and I also did a very short stint at Bosco's in Memphis. Of the many other breweries I have visited, I can honestly say that I know of no one that was mashing dark grains separately from the bulk of the grain and do not recall anyone saying anything about messing with their mash pH.

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All I can say is this advice came from Strong's book. He got the tip or advice from Mary Ann Gruber of Briess malting. Its hard to argue with the results this guy is getting.

maffewl said:

Roasted Barley, Chocolate Malt, Black Patent... etc.

I wouldn't worry about any of the Crystal malts.

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Generally I would agree with this, but not in the case of Muntons dark crystal malt (about 150L). I tried it a few times (in very small amounts) to add a bit of color to my English bitters. It did that, but also added a very noticeable roasted flavor, which I found very unpleasant in an English bitter.

-a.

flabyboy said:

All I can say is this advice came from Strong's book. He got the tip or advice from Mary Ann Gruber of Briess malting. Its hard to argue with the results this guy is getting.

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Gordon gave a lecture here in Seattle earlier this month, and the WAHA folks and myself had a good chance to talk with him over a pint after the VERY informative lecture.

His basic advice on these subjects are:

1. that if you're using RO water, add the necessary salts for the style of beer you're making to your HLT. If you don't then the chemistry will be fubar.

2. If you don't have to mash it for ensyme reaction - don't. Either cold steep and add to boil, or toss the grains in after conversion and beore you start your vorlauf/recirc and sparge.

mabrungard said:

Not soft, low alkalinity. Alkalinity is the thing to be concerned with regarding mash pH...If you brew with alkaline water, then you WANT those dark grains in the mash to help bring the pH down.

Enjoy!

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How low? My water is at 7.5, and I haven't really had any problems mashing the dark stuff. But...I'm always looking to improve and try new things. If it'll improve my stout, then hellsyeah!

prrriiide said:

How low? My water is at 7.5, and I haven't really had any problems mashing the dark stuff. But...I'm always looking to improve and try new things. If it'll improve my stout, then hellsyeah!

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It appears that this is a pH value that is quoted. That has little to do with alkalinity. You can have a pH of 7.5 and just as easily have high alkalinity or low alkalinity.

mabrungard said:

It appears that this is a pH value that is quoted. That has little to do with alkalinity. You can have a pH of 7.5 and just as easily have high alkalinity or low alkalinity.

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Umm...that's not how it works.

ShinyBuddha said:

Umm...that's not how it works.

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Yes it is. You want to consider the CaC03 and the HCO3, not the pH of the water. Alkalinity is what we're talking about here, not the pH.

Yooper said:

Yes it is. You want to consider the CaC03 and the HCO3, not the pH of the water. Alkalinity is what we're talking about here, not the pH.

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I thought pH was a function of alkalinity/acidity? And you're referring to calcium carbonate and...?

Yooper said:

Yes it is. You want to consider the CaC03 and the HCO3, not the pH of the water. Alkalinity is what we're talking about here, not the pH.

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The confusing part here is that Alkalinity is a term used for something that has a higher than normal pH. We use it all the time in the medical field when looking at patients lab results from blood

Yes, there is a difference between water's ability to reduce acidity, vs the level of basicity of the water. A high PH only measures the basicity, just as a low PH measures acidity. To know if you need to cold steep your grains or not you would need a water profile test to determine what solids are dissolved in it. So for some it could be beneficial, others not so much. We would also expect all commercial breweries to have completed a water profile test to know if they need to treat their water or not so that would explain why they never run into the problem or need to do that.

What would one be looking for in a water report to determine if cold steeping roasted malts would be a benefit?

From Ken Schwartz's "Quickie Water Chemistry Primer"

Quickie Water Chemistry Primer

"Hardness" and "Alkalinity" are of course not ions, but are secondary measures of water quality having to do with the presence of certain ions. Hardness comes from calcium and magnesium content, and alkalinity comes from carbonate and bicarbonate. Alkalinity is related to pH but is not a direct measure of it. However, it IS a direct measure of the "buffering" capacity of the solution, or its "resistance" to attempts to lower its pH. In other words, the higher the alkalinity, the more acid would be required to begin to change the pH. Two solutions with identical pH's but differing alkalinities will require different levels of acidification to lower the pH to a given number. Both Hardness and Alkalinity are often quoted to be "as CaCO3". This is a commonly-used reference method meant to identify the equivalent amount of CaCO3 (also known as "scale") which would generate the hardness and alkalinity figures, regardless of the actual source.

And, from "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Brewing Water"

Brewing Water Chemisty

Alkalinity of tap water is defined as the amount of acid required to bring a sample of water from its initial pH down to a pH of 4.3. The acid is added slowly, or titrated, and when the solution hits a pH of 4.3 the amount of acid is recorded and converted into the appropriate units of Alkalinity, which are ppm as CaCO3 .

For more detail, a few writeups from Kai's site:

An Overview of pH - German brewing and more

A simple Model for pH Buffers - German brewing and more

How pH affects brewing - German brewing and more

Mash pH control - German brewing and more

I haven't delved into adjusting water parameters yet, but my guess is that you would want to add just enough of the darker grains to hit the optimal mash pH. How much you would need based on your water report I couldn't tell you. Maybe some of the other folks can answer that. I will say though, I have extremely hard water and I stopped adding dark grains to the mash altogether becasue of the harshness mentioned above. I haven't tried the cold steeping (might on my next batch). I have been steeping the grains in the wort after the mash and before boiling. Made a huge improvement in my stouts. Moral of the story, unless you plan to start tinkering with water chemisty and mash pH, I wouldn't worry about it. Just leave them out of the mash and you'll get good results.

My water profile has the following:

pH - 7.5
Sodium (Na) - 7
Calcium (Ca) - 37
Magnesium (Mg) - 10
Chloride (Cl) - 13
Sulfate - 18
Carbonate - 134
Alkalinity - 110
Hardness - 134
Flouride - 1.08
Iron (Fe) - <0.01
Total Disolved Solids (TDS) - 209
Nitrate - 1.7

I'm interested in doing some cold steeping, since I only have a 10 gallon tun, and can't do much in the way of 10 g batch big beers in it. If I can steep the grains without crapping on my mash pH, I'd like to try it and see what happens. So far, I've had very good results with mashing everything and using straight tap water - no alterations. The stouts have been especially smooth, but even the kolsch's have been quite smooth, with a nice evenness and balance from start to finish. I don't want to fix that part of it, cuz it ain't broke.

The alkalinity number is a bit higher than the regional average of 99. Here is the link to the analyses for reference. I have First Utility water, the first column.

Will cold steeping benefit me or will it change the taste and evenness of the finished products?

prrriiide said:

I thought pH was a function of alkalinity/acidity? And you're referring to calcium carbonate and...?

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I'm with/was with prrriide on this one (thanks for the education DeafSmith). I've never heard of alkalinity described outside of its direct correlation to the pH scale. I do believe I owe mabrungard a homebrew.

At our monthly club meeting this week, I had the chance to talk to the other brewers that do lots of stouts and other styles that require these grains and their opinions were universal. Either cold steep them seperately, or toss them in at the end of the mash just before you vorlauf/sparge.