Papazian's 1447 Belgium Zwarte Rose Ale

[mojotele]

I've been reading Charlie Papazian's Microbrewed Adventures book, and I saw his recipe for "1447 Belgium Zwarte Rose Ale" and thought it might be an interesting one to make. Here's the actual recipe:

Volume: 5.0 gallons
Target Original Gravity: 1.057
Approximate Final Gravity: 1.016
IBU: About 28
Approximate Color: 26 SRM
Alcohol: 5.5% by volume

6 lbs. Munich malt
1 lb. wheat malt
1 lb. oat malt
1 lb. crystal malt (120-L)
8 oz. Belgian Caramunich malt
1 oz. Styrian Goldings hops 5% alpha - 60 minutes boiling
1 oz. Mt. Hood hops 6% alpha - 20 minutes boiling
0.25 oz grains of paradise
2 oz. fresh unsprayed rose petals
0.25 tsp. powdered Irish moss
American-type ale yeast

I put this recipe into Beersmith and deduced a couple things - one, he's using whole leaf hops. Two, at least given the default potential of the malt in Beersmith, his efficiency is around 82%.

My only problem is that my color comes out to 19.1 SRM which is quite a bit off from 26 SRM. That tells me that perhaps I'm using the wrong malt or something. My Munich malt is 9 SRM, oats are 1 SRM, wheat is 2 SRM, Caramunich is 56 SRM. The crystal is inescapably 120 SRM, but could he perhaps be using similar malts with different SRM ratings for any of the others? Thoughts? Anyone have experience with this recipe?

I appreciate any suggestions!

 

[mojotele]

Could the rose petals darken the beer? Seems unlikely. Rose water looks to be clear.

 

[craigd]

15.5L Munich is available at Northern Brewer as "Dark Munich." Might try plugging in that one...

 

[hal2814]

The recipe you posted above doesn't mention which Munich he's using. Munich is all over the place when it comes to color. Perhaps his was darker?

 

[mojotele]

15.5L Munich is available at Northern Brewer as "Dark Munich." Might try plugging in that one...

I thought of that, but because it is more highly kilned it doesn't have as much diastatic power. Given the malts used, it looks like the Munich at least needs enough power to convert itself. Normal Munich has just enough diastatic power to do that so a more kilned version of it won't have enough.

 

[mojotele]

He has an extract version as well, which goes like this (malts only):

4.5 lbs of amber LME or 3.6 lbs. of amber DME
2 lbs. wheat LME
1 lb. crystal malt (120-L)
10 oz. Belgian Caramunich

The SRM there comes out to 20. I'm thinking part of the problem may be that he put a value for the SRM based off his own observation of the beer rather than calculating it from the values given for each malt. A darker Munich alone can't account for all of it. The Munich would have to be 29 SRM or so.