Grains that will make my beer dark without too much flavor

I am looking to brew a dark IPA (partial mash) and was not sure what the best ingredients were to use to make the color very dark (close to black if possible) without too much of the burnt or sharp flavors you get from black patent and the like. I found Carafa I,II,III but is there anything else? Thanks!

You want Carafa Special, not the regular carafa. Debittered Black Malt, Black Malt extract (3500 lovibond!!!) and Sinamar are also good! Midnight wheat would probably also work well.

Perfect! Thanks

Yeah, that's exactly the purpose of the Carafe Special malts. You can use a good amount of the Carafe Special III (the darkest) and get basically a black beer with only a very subtle roastiness. They're a critical part of making a schwarzbier or an India Black Ale/Black IPA/Cascadian Dark Ale.

Actually, one other question. Some of the recipes I have seen using Carafa do not add it until close to the end of the boil. What is the reason behind that?

I don't think you add them at the boil at all.

Some people add them at the end of the mash, to get the color but minimize the flavor. I just threw mine in at the beginning of the mash, because I WANTED some roasty flavor. If you don't, it may be worth considering adding them at the end also.

the_bird said:

Yeah, that's exactly the purpose of the Carafe Special malts. You can use a good amount of the Carafe Special III (the darkest) and get basically a black beer with only a very subtle roastiness. They're a critical part of making a schwarzbier or an India Black Ale/Black IPA/Cascadian Dark Ale.

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That's interesting because terblack ipa's that I have really enjoyed have had a good roasty flavour. Sort of like a verry hoppy youngs dbl choc stout. Southern tier iniquity was great!

That was my thought, but I read a couple recipes on here that added them like 10 minutes before boil was over. Well, no matter. I will just partial mash them before the boil like normal

donjonson said:

That's interesting because terblack ipa's that I have really enjoyed have had a good roasty flavour. Sort of like a verry hoppy youngs dbl choc stout. Southern tier iniquity was great!

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There's a sliding scale. Most people want their IBAs/B-IPAs/CDAs to have a very subtle roast character, others want it to be a little more pronounced. The one I brewed this past weekend is 4% Carafe III Special and ~2.5% pale chocolate, to add a LITTLE bit more roastiness to it. At a certain point, though, you risk crossing over into "American Stout" territory, which isn't a bad thing necessarily but is a different beer style.

Schwarzbiers should be pretty subdued in the roast character, IMHO. Some roast, yes, but you shouldn't be reminded of a stout when you're drinking one. Restrained.

you should look into brew software/ as u add grains most of them tell u which part of the beer it will affect and how much as u add ur amounts.