Adding roasted barley to Irish Stout

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stevo4361

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Hello,
I'm planning on tinkering with Midwest's Irish Stout kit and adding some roasted barley to the steeping grains, anywhere from a quarter to a half pound more than in the original recipe to attempt and give it more "roasted flavor." 5 gallon recipe and extract kit, with ingredients listed below. Sound like it would work or would it give it "too much" roasted flavor? Realize that's a bit subjective, but would love to hear some input. Might also add some dark DME to give it a little more alcohol-body boost as well, was thinking one to two pounds more. Thanks,

Steve

6 lb. Dark liquid malt extract,
4 oz. Chocolate Malt,
4 oz. Caramel 10L,
4 oz. Roasted Barley,
4 oz. Flaked Barley specialty grain,
1 tsp. Gypsum,
1/2 oz. Nugget,
1 oz. Willamette pellet hop

EDIT-As a side note, as it is just steeping grains and not an all-grain mash will I get that much more flavor out of the roasted barley anyway?
 
Have you made this recipe yet? If not, why tinker?

That said, 4 ounces of roast barley is not a lot, you could bump it up if you want. Not 2 pounds though, that sounds like a lot.
 
The recipe is good as is (well, except for the gypsum- that's weird, take it out).

Roasted barley is intensely roasty, in a burnt way. Use in small amounts, to give a nice roasty flavor to beers.
 
Thank you Frazier and Yooper, I appreciate it! Will add just a little, if any, roasted barley.

Thanks,
Steve
 
Two to three ounces of black patent malt would kick up the dark color a bit without much affect on the overall profile of the beer. Otherwise, unless you've brewed it before and know what changes you're after then I would go with it as-is (minus the gypsum as yooper suggests).
 
Thanks everyone, appreciate it. And will definitely drop the gypsum.

Steve
 
The first time I messed with a recipe, it REALLY ruined the beer. So much so that when my college room mates and I were done drinking it, we were put off German Hefeweizens for life.

We had just got to the point where we had learned what each ingredient did to the flavor profile and since we liked crystal malts, we figured we would bump that up a little. Well..... we increased it by 30-40% and it came out cloyingly sweet and the style was already sweet.

What did I learn? I learned that beer recipes are MUCH more like baking than stir-fry. Small changes often net big results.

BrewOnBoard
 
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