Black malt in light beer

I picked up a tidbit in Papazian's Brewer's Companion book that suggests to add 1oz of finely crushed black malt at the end of the mash to help clarify even the lightest of beers. I'm brewing a pils today and had some black malt lying around but now that I ran it through my coffee grinder, I am a bit skeptical. It looks like it has the power to raise my pils to about 10L putting it way out of range.

First, do any of you have this book, and read this part? He claims many big breweries do this.

I've done that, and it WILL change the color slightly. In a beer like a pils, I wouldn't bother. Use irish moss or whirlfloc to help clear it. If you are truly going to lager it, then the cold conditioning will help the gunk drop out.

Do you think it helped with clarity, though? I'm thinking this is something I could do on MITRB (since I want that to be reddish anyway).

the_bird said:

Do you think it helped with clarity, though? I'm thinking this is something I could do on MITRB (since I want that to be reddish anyway).

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I think it is negligible. I mean, why not use irish moss and just chill it quick and call it good? Why mess with the color at all?

Since I started using a CFC (now a plate chiller) my beers were clearer from the get go. Quick chilling is the best thing you can do for a clear beer.

2 oz in a pale ale will make it red. I dont know about clarity, whirfloc, hot/cold break and lagering should take care of that by itself.

I opted not to try it, not worth turning my Pils into something that looks like a brown.

Good choice. Best to use finings, have a good cold break, and some nice lagering time. The combination of those will give good clarity.

Papazian is the father of homebrewing but his methods in the books are a bit dated. I have two of his books and it really is like hearing a story from my grandpa. Don't get me wrong, who knows where this hobby would be without him! Good man!

I'll second the lagering for clarity. I pulled my carboy of Vienna Lager out of the fridge yesterday and the carboy is crystal clear.