Dark Beer Problems

[properbrew]

I am having issues with my dark beers. I have brewed around 15 all grain batches and my dark beers just don't impress me. The IPAs, pale ales, blondes, and ambers I make all taste great. But when it comes to brewing porters and stouts they end up falling short of my expectations. I have brewed EdWorts porter, a variation of EdWorts porter, and a stout and all of them have been kinda bland, low taste, little to no roastiness, just disappointing. And I don't know if this makes sense or not but it seems like the dark beers do not carbonate (force carbing in a keg) as well as the light beers. I can see carbonation bubbles but the beer tastes almost flat.

After doing some preliminary research, I think it may be my water. I use my tap water ran through a PUR water filter to brew all of my beers. I do not make any adjustments to my water currently. Any suggestions or tips for brewing darker styles?

Some more information, I batch sparge, do full boils and ferment in glass carboys in a temperature controlled environment. I normally wait at least a month to keg my darker beers. They do taste a little better as time goes on but still nowhere near where I would like them to be.

 

[properbrew]

I forgot to add this, this is a typical analysis for the water in my area:

Daily Typical Analysis
unit Measured Range
Level
pH pH 7.6 7.6-7.8
Alkalinity ppm 16 15-30
Hardness ppm 70 20-85
Conductivityumhos 245 200-300
Turbidity NTU 0.05 0.03-0.11
Chlorides ppm 41 35-75
Chlorine (total)ppm 2.4 1.6-2.5
Ammonia (free)ppm0.04 0.02-0.10
Iron ppm 0.01 0.0-0.1
Manganese ppm 0.01 0.0-0.1
Phosphate ppm 0.62 0.60-0.70

 

[JKaranka]

Can you post some recipe examples? I find dark ales easier: the roast malts adjust for the acidity of the malt. I have fairly soft water and a gram of gypsum per gallon helps to pop the hops a bit. I find the flavours develop a lot and are usually at their best about 3 months after bottling.

 

[properbrew]

This is one I brewed, EdWorts Robust Porter Recipe:

11# 2 Row
1# Chocolate Malt
1# Crystal 40
4 oz. Black Patent
1 oz. Roasted Barley
8 oz. Flaked Barley

Mash at 150 degrees for 60 minutes

Add 8 oz. of Malto Dextrin to boil at 20 minutes

Hops.

1 oz. Northern Brewer at 60 min.
0.5 oz Cascade at 60 min.

Hydrate a package of Nottingham.

Ferment for 2 weeks, then rack to keg or secondary.

 

[bbohanon]

You should look into your water for sure. I am betting this is the source of your problems.
If you can, try to brew a batch with all store bought spring or distilled (I would recommend spring to get a little water mineral content) water and see if this helps. I am on well water and I have to buy RO water from the store for my batches or they taste horrible...I also build out my water profile with the Bru'N water spreadsheet and add water additions to dial in my desired water profile. Beer has improved 1000 fold since then.

With the right water, your dark beers should look like the chocolate milk stout below and taste like heaven.
Reminds me I need to make another batch of that choc milk stout..it went WAY too quick.

:fro:

 

[JKaranka]

The only odd thing there I can see there from my point of view is the malto dextrin. There should be plenty of roast from that chocolate malt and the extras.

 

[bbohanon]

Can you post some recipe examples? I find dark ales easier: the roast malts adjust for the acidity of the malt. I have fairly soft water and a gram of gypsum per gallon helps to pop the hops a bit. I find the flavours develop a lot and are usually at their best about 3 months after bottling.

I think JK is on to something with this..your water profile seems to be a bit harder and is ideal for IPA's which is why yours are turning out so well with your water..Dark beers need a much softer water profile to allow that "smoothness" and "maltiness" to roll through.
Again..Try to brew up that batch using store bought spring water and see how it turns out. If you want to get real nerdy on this, buy distilled water and build a water profile for this type of beer using BruN water or one of the other water profile spreadsheets that can be found online.
You will find that some gypsum/CaChl and Espom Salts will be needed to bring the water profile of the distilled water into that "balanced" or "malty" profile these darker beers need to make them as great as your IPA's are.
Darker beers as mentioned take a little longer to "age" into themselves as well. They are not as quick to develop in the bottle/keg as an IPA is. Time is a darker beers best friend as well as the right water profile.
You do this and ferment at the right temp, and I bet you end up making alot more darker beers in the future. I have actually gone to the darkside myself after burnout on the IPAs.

 

[abrix]

Are your dark beers, too "sharp", thin or acidic? Then brewing water it is...

I will second the recommendation to use Bru'N Water or another mash pH prediction spreadsheet, but I will respectfully disagree with the suggestion to add calcium chloride or magnesium sulfate. The alkalinity of your water is awfully low to be brewing dark beers as is. Without running the numbers myself, I expect you'll be adding baking soda to balance the acidity of the dark malts and keep your pH in a reasonable place.

Also totally recommend the Water book, but be warned like everything else in brewing, it is a rabbit hole.

 

[BigJack]

I love British styles of beer, pale ales as well as stouts and porters. My satisfaction has gone up since I switched to distilled water plus burton salts. I use one tablespoon per 5 gallons of water.

 

[RM-MN]

I am having issues with my dark beers. I have brewed around 15 all grain batches and my dark beers just don't impress me. The IPAs, pale ales, blondes, and ambers I make all taste great. But when it comes to brewing porters and stouts they end up falling short of my expectations. I have brewed EdWorts porter, a variation of EdWorts porter, and a stout and all of them have been kinda bland, low taste, little to no roastiness, just disappointing. And I don't know if this makes sense or not but it seems like the dark beers do not carbonate (force carbing in a keg) as well as the light beers. I can see carbonation bubbles but the beer tastes almost flat.

After doing some preliminary research, I think it may be my water. I use my tap water ran through a PUR water filter to brew all of my beers. I do not make any adjustments to my water currently. Any suggestions or tips for brewing darker styles?

Some more information, I batch sparge, do full boils and ferment in glass carboys in a temperature controlled environment. I normally wait at least a month to keg my darker beers. They do taste a little better as time goes on but still nowhere near where I would like them to be.

Keg is the problem word. When you keg your beers you usually will be expecting to drink them as soon as they are carbonated. That's fine with your wheat beer, IPA, blonds, etc. Dark beers are different. They take more time for the flavors to meld or come through. You mention that they taste better as time goes on. That's because they are starting to mature but you are emptying the keg before the process completes. Try putting a porter in the keg and then leaving it for 4 months before you tap it. A strong stout might need 6 to 8 months to really hit its stride. The darker the beer and the higher the alcohol the longer it takes to mature.

 

[properbrew]

I understand I should be waiting a few weeks longer to drink my porters/stouts, but 4-8 months seems like a long time to wait to enjoy or have a drinkable beer... I hate to make this analogy/ask this question, but do commercial breweries wait this long to bottle or keg their porters/stouts? I guess my question is, is there a way to make a dark beer enjoyable without having to age it this long?

I do strongly believe my water profile has something to do with my dark beer issues and I will definitely experiment with my water next time I brew a dark beer. I appreciate everyone's help and suggestions, you guys are awesome.

 

[properbrew]

With the right water, your dark beers should look like the chocolate milk stout below and taste like heaven.
Reminds me I need to make another batch of that choc milk stout..it went WAY too quick.

bbohanon, are you willing to share your recipe for the chocolate milk stout... looks awesome

 

[bbohanon]

bbohanon, are you willing to share your recipe for the chocolate milk stout... looks awesome

Absolutely as it was shared here originally by finsfan who did all the hard work getting this recipe together!

Original thread w/recipe: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=459159

My changes to this recipe were that I modified the 0.75lb to 1lb of lactose.

On the cocoa nibs for dry hopping/flameout additions, if you are not a true choco-holic (The nibs can be overbearing chocolate wise if you are not careful), crank it down to 4-6oz for 5 gallons, 8-10oz for 10 gallons. I LOVE the chocolate taste so I ramp it up as per the original recipe.
I have also dropped in 4oz of nibs at flameout(on a 10 gallon batch) as well as dry hopping with the nibs in secondary with good chocolate taste success.

The 1lb of lactose seems to give it more creamy-ness than the 3/4 lb does.
This is a GREAT milk stout but let her age for a month in the bottle/keg before cracking one open. As with all darker beers, the last tap pull/bottle is always the best one sadly and this one goes Q U I C K L Y.

Cheers!

 

[bbohanon]

I understand I should be waiting a few weeks longer to drink my porters/stouts, but 4-8 months seems like a long time to wait to enjoy or have a drinkable beer... I hate to make this analogy/ask this question, but do commercial breweries wait this long to bottle or keg their porters/stouts? I guess my question is, is there a way to make a dark beer enjoyable without having to age it this long?

I do strongly believe my water profile has something to do with my dark beer issues and I will definitely experiment with my water next time I brew a dark beer. I appreciate everyone's help and suggestions, you guys are awesome.

I am not sure how commercial breweries do it, but with homebrewers and darker beers, good things truly come to those who wait. The darker malts just take more time in the bottle/keg to marry, get cozy and be all they can be. Its amazing how one bottle a month old will differ from another bottle from the same batch a month after you taste that first bottle. Its like the beer just evolves and gets more smoother/tastier.
I usually let my darker beers especially stouts sit a minimum of a month in the bottle/keg before touching it. I also am brewing dark beers regularly to keep the pipeline up so by the time I am out of a stout, another stout/porter batch I brewed is hitting its prime and it ready to be tapped/cracked open.
Its just means you get to brew more often! lol
Let us know when you try another dark batch with some store bought water or if you adjust your water and let us know how it works out!

:fro:

 

[RM-MN]

I understand I should be waiting a few weeks longer to drink my porters/stouts, but 4-8 months seems like a long time to wait to enjoy or have a drinkable beer... I hate to make this analogy/ask this question, but do commercial breweries wait this long to bottle or keg their porters/stouts? I guess my question is, is there a way to make a dark beer enjoyable without having to age it this long?

I do strongly believe my water profile has something to do with my dark beer issues and I will definitely experiment with my water next time I brew a dark beer. I appreciate everyone's help and suggestions, you guys are awesome.

I thought you were talking about good porters and stouts. Your dark beers will be quite drinkable before that long but good takes a bit longer.

 

[Yooper]

I understand I should be waiting a few weeks longer to drink my porters/stouts, but 4-8 months seems like a long time to wait to enjoy or have a drinkable beer... I hate to make this analogy/ask this question, but do commercial breweries wait this long to bottle or keg their porters/stouts? I guess my question is, is there a way to make a dark beer enjoyable without having to age it this long?

I do strongly believe my water profile has something to do with my dark beer issues and I will definitely experiment with my water next time I brew a dark beer. I appreciate everyone's help and suggestions, you guys are awesome.

No, you don't have to wait 4-8 months! Geez, that's a crazy long time. My oatmeal stouts and other stouts are ready in 4-6 weeks and gone by the time recommended there. If you're making a big huge high alcohol Russian imperial stout, that is probably better after 6 months, but not for the vast majority of beers. I would call my beers good, so I wouldn't say you needed to wait until the beer is stale and past its peak to call it "good".

What I see is that your water is low in alkalinity- great for lighter colored beers. But you may actually have a low mash pH with darker beers with roasted malts. It'd be a rare problem for most of us, but you may have some low mash pH. It wouldn't make a bad beer, but it wouldn't be at its best.

Carbonation is a different issue, and is not related to the ingredients (after all, you could carbonate water) so it could simply be the perception of carbonation lacking since the beer is bland.

I'd suggest looking into ways to adjust your brewing water/ mash pH to optimize the mash pH for the darker beers. Most stouts are great with a mash pH of 5.5-5.6.

 

[RM-MN]

As you may have noticed, Yooper and I have different tastes in our dark beers. She likes hers fresh, I like mine mellowed. Nothing wrong with either. I've drunk some of mine fresh and decided I like them better after they age a bit.