Darkening Beer After Primary

Hi everyone,

I recently brewed a batch of Northern Brewer's St. Paul Porter. When purchasing ingredients from my LHBS, I mistakenly used American chocolate malt in place of the British variation, unknowing the substantially different lovibonds.

While transferring to the secondary, the beer tasted great but I am displeased with the unusual translucent brown colour of the beer.

My correction plan was to create a 1L minimash using black malt, cooling, and adding this to the secondary for a "secondary fermentation".

I was hoping the more experienced members might give me their input on this plan of action.

Many thanks,

Sounds to me that would work. But it is a bit of a guess as to how much it will change the color. It might also change the taste quite a bit.

If it were me I would leave it alone and correct it on the next brew. You can drink from an opaque glass/stein so you don't have to see the color.

Look for some sinamar. It's a black malt extract that you can use for color changes. Don't add back malt to the beer. Use the sinamar.

I think cold-steeping a pound or two of crushed Carafa III Special (the de-bittered kind), boiling the resulting liquid for 15 minutes or so, and then adding it to the fermenter would add the desired color without significantly changing the flavor profile.