Pale chocolate malt

At our last club meeting one of the brewers mentioned using pale chocolate malt as opposed to "regular" chocolate malt. I'm curious what people think of this grain. As I have read, it seems to give a lighter roastiness profile than traditional chocolate malt, perhaps smoothing out falvors a bit?
I'd appreciate any feedback,
Matt

I like regular chocolate malt in things like Porters and the like where you want a strong chocolate flavor. But the pale chocolate is really nice in things like brown ales where regular chocolate has too much distinct roastiness. It is a grain that is certainly worth working with.

Jamil calls it toasty rather than roasty. He goes into depth about that grain in the Cali Common podcast.

mpb4f said:

I'd appreciate any feedback,
Matt

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My feedback is that it's hard to find.

I find it more nutty or toasty than chocolately. It's very tasty in a brown ale with some briess special roast.

I've used it in four beers...an English Mild, an American Brown, a Strong Scotch Ale, and Jamil's Red Rocket Clone. I've never brewed those same recipes with regular chocolate though so I can't really say how much different they'd be. But to hear Jamil tell it there really is no substitute for the Pale Chocolate as it has a distinct character that can't be duplicated by say just using a smaller amout of regular chocolate.

I'm not sure why everyone says it's hard to find though. Seems to me I've been able to find it pretty easily at some of the larger online stores.

I know austinhomebrew.com has it- I've ordered it from them in the past.

I'm using regular chocolate malt today, but I wish I had the pale instead.

fratermus said:

My feedback is that it's hard to find.

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Fawcett Pale Chocolate Malt
Austin Homebrew Supply
NORTHERN BREWER: Grain Malts
Malt - Pale Chocolate | MoreBeer

PseudoChef said:

Fawcett Pale Chocolate Malt
Austin Homebrew Supply
NORTHERN BREWER: Grain Malts
Malt - Pale Chocolate | MoreBeer

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I have several pounds of it now. In the past it was not present in many stores, and if present it did not show the lovibond, or the lovibond was different than what JZ called for. So I waited and watched. When it showed up with the color specified I bought enough to hold me.

I'm thinking about using a larger amount of pale chocolate in an amber ale... or brown depending how the flavor turns out. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7-10%. If anybody has used higher amounts like this i'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how it tasted.

More beer has it also.

apl_seed said:

More beer has it also.

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Not sure I follow you. Can you elaborate?

Sorry, my bad. I got a 5 lb bag of pale chocolate online from MoreBeer for $8.79. I just used it this weekend for the first time in a coffee mocha I'm trying to get down. I used a lb in a 5 gal batch. Have to wait a few weeks to see what it does.

apl_seed said:

Sorry, my bad. I got a 5 lb bag of pale chocolate online from MoreBeer for $8.79. I just used it this weekend for the first time in a coffee mocha I'm trying to get down. I used a lb in a 5 gal batch. Have to wait a few weeks to see what it does.

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Okay cool. I'm interested to hear how that turns out.

A little over a year ago, I made a high-gravity brown porter with 2 lbs of what I thought was brown malt. But the LHBS ordered Simpson's brown coffee malt, which I think is the same as light chocolate. The beer was really good eventually (took almost a year to get there) even tho' it was not at all what I was shooting for. Very black, very roasty, but not burnt. Also it was kind of sweet.