Stout Recipe - Chocolate Malt vs Roasted Barley

I have made numerous stout recipes, and I have like most of them. Some of them I use a large proportion of roasted barley to get the color and flavor, others I use a large amount of chocolate malt. Sometimes I split it up evenly.....

I think my best stouts after reflecting, have gotten much of their color from chocolate malt and dark crystal malts like C120,C150 and Special B with additional flavor and color from smaller amounts of roasted barley.


I am just starting up a thread so that us fans of stout can discuss the various techniques and recipes we use to make the beer that we love!

I like the roasted barley flavor and that's what I use it for. I do not rely on roasted barley for color though.

I've used all of these in my stouts for color + flavor.

Chocolate
Crystal 40-60-80-120
Special B
Biscuit (for a little graininess)
Roasted barley
Black patent

My next one will likely have one or more of these:

Carafa II
Black Prinz
Coffee malt

M_C

Good thread! I love stouts and brew a lot of them. Here are some of the combinations I found that work for me.

Roasted barley and dark crystal goes better together at equal proportions than RB and Chocolate malt. Dark crystal and chocolate malt with some (< 5%) of roasted barley makes a good starting point for oatmeal/sweet stout. Darker crystal malts are not always better than 40L and 60L if you want caramel flavors. Chocolate malt and roasted barley are better together with a crystal in the mix (say 8% RB, 6% c120, and 4% chocolate). Small amounts of specialty malts (namely black malt and kiln coffee) can add a lot of complexity in a finished beer - I like using these at around 2.5-3%. Kiln coffee is superb for getting those rich espresso flavors. Mixing dark crystals (say c40, c60, and c120) in a very dark beer often just muddles the flavors.

In my eyes, this type of recipe (8% RB, 6% c120, 4% chocolate, 2.5% kiln coffee) is better than (5% RB, 5% Chcolate, 5% Munich, 5% C120).

As for malts like munich, biscuit, aromatic, carapils ect. I prefer to put them in my porters more so than stouts. Just my opinion.

I prefer Black Barley. In my FES I used 12oz Black Barley (not malted) and 4oz Chocolate Malt. Fantastic. I've tried 8oz of each and it wasn't as good. I don't use any crystal or other sweet grains.