The Taste of Chocolate Malt

I am enjoying my first Scottish 80/- right now, and am noticing something I didn't expect. My recipe is as follows:

Scottish 80/-

12 lbs. British Pale
1 lbs. Munich (10L)
.5 lbs. Crystal 20
.5 lbs. Crystal 60
1 lbs. Crystal 40
.25 lbs. Chocolate
Efficiency 62%
8 gallons pre-boil (probably post-boil 7 gallons)
Wyeast scottish ale yeast
1 oz. EKG 5%- 60 minutes

OG- 1.048
FG- 1.012

I am enjoying it very much, however I am surprised by the flavor. I am tasting a fairly strong roast flavor. It is almost as though I used a small portion of roast barley. Can a quarter pound of chocolate really toss in substantial roast? I've never used it without other roasted grains. I would love to know what the lovibond was on it, but it wasn't marked. Thoughts?

 

I wouldn't expect a whole lot of roastiness from only a quarter pound, but chocolate is a roasted malt, usually 350L. Ya never know....

 

no, it shouldn't be roasty from 4 oz of chocolate. i've used it MANY times in that quantity in my dunkelweizens and all it does is round out the beer and add a slight dark chocolately flavor.

i used to add 4 oz of chocolate to all my recipes to give it that nice smooth flavorful character.

 

That's what I assumed. Strange. Perhaps it was notable just because I didn't expect more than a touch of roast. I can't think of any other explaination other than a complete taste bud failure.

 

perhaps your measurements were off? that seems like a LOT of crystal to me, but it's not a high lovibond, so that shouldn't do it.

 

My measurements shouldn't be off. I did weigh each portion carefully. The crystal may seem like alot, but the beer is not overly sweet. In fact, I wouldn't say it ended up unbalanced at all (though I like my beer a touch on the sweet side). Although it may be two pounds of crystal, it was seven gallons or so post-boil. It ended up at 75% apparent attenuation.

 

Maybe I'll just try it in a few days and see whether I'm still getting the same flavor. I do have the palate of a 70 year-old habenero addict. If someone says a beer has a "hint" of [fill-in-the-blank] I won't taste it.

 

For the record, my wife just said it tastes of dark molasses as opposed to roasty. It makes sense.