Oops, it pays to read malt sheets

[boist]

For the past couple of months I've been noticing a strange phenomenon: My beers are turning out dark.

I've lately been on an English kick, and brewed several English, Scotch, and Irish beers, and they're all suppose to be fairly dark. But I've been getting this nagging feeling that they're actually darker than they're suppose to be. This feeling was finally confirmed when my Irish Red turned out, well, black.

I was beginning to think it's my process, that I might be somehow burning the wort (though to have such a dramatic effect on the color, I expect the wort to actually catch on fire). And then, today, I looked up some of my malts at the LHBS. Turns out that "Roasted Barley", which is listed as having an SRM of 300 on Beersmith, actually has an SRM of 884 in the version my store sells. Likewise, chocolate malt (350) has an actual SRM of 541!. Ah HA! I updated the recipe in Beersmith with the correct SRM values and behold, my Irish Red turned black!. I've been brewing beer from the same general family, and thus using common ingredients, and the result was dark beer.

Moral of the story: Just because you think something is a certain way, doesn't mean it is. It's worth it to double check what you ask for against what you're actually getting.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got fifty bottles of Irish Ale to re-label... :cross:

 

[GuldTuborg]

It's amazing how much malts with the same name, made by different maltsters, can vary in color. Briess's Chocolate malt is 350L. Crisp's clocks in at a near unbelievable 630L. That's darker than most black (patent) malts. I learned pretty early on to always make sure I know who malted each one of my grains, for pretty similar reasons.

Out of curiosity, who makes the 883L roast? Fawcett? Are you sure that's not 883 EBC?

 

[boist]

Crisp Malting. They're also the ones that made the Chocolate malt that screwed me up.

 

[nebben]

I am glad you brought this up. I learned this same thing a few months back. I was trying to figure out what the difference between Cara 20, or Crystal 20-30L was, and found that while both malts are very similar, the fact that they come from different maltsters is what makes them stand apart. When I started reading about different malts that come from different maltsters in different countries, my mind exploded a little.

Luckily, beersmith users are still covered as they can download maltster specific stuff for many brands that their LHBS carries. There are many malt providers out there, who sometimes use the same names (chocolate malt, for instance) for wildly different products.

Your LHBS or any online retailer should be able to tell you exactly what you're getting, and where it comes from. I recommend asking them .