Black forest stout tastes too roasty

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cpirius

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I recently brewed the Black Forest Stout recipe from Brewing Classic Styles. Lots of great stuff in that book, so I'm not blaming the recipe. A few weeks after kegging and carbonating though it started tasting very roasty, like there was to much dark roasted malt in it. The recipe calls for 0.75 pounds of black roasted barley. The weird thing is that back a few days after I first kegged it the roasted flavor was much lower. I actually bottled a few bottles off the keg a few days after kegging it, and just compared those bottles with the keg as it is now. The keg is much much more roasty flavored. The bottles are much more like how I expected it to taste. I'm not sure why this happened, any ideas?

It's distractingly roasty and is really ruining the beer :(
 
I have no idea why the bottles would be different from your keg, but I've had similar problems with too much roast flavor in my stouts before. This 4th of July I'm going to brew a stout with all of the dark grains being steeped in cold water for 24 hours instead of being put in the mash. I hear this cuts down on the harsh flavors that can come out of dark grains while still maintaining the proper color and flavor profile...
 
I have no idea why the bottles would be different from your keg, but I've had similar problems with too much roast flavor in my stouts before. This 4th of July I'm going to brew a stout with all of the dark grains being steeped in cold water for 24 hours instead of being put in the mash. I hear this cuts down on the harsh flavors that can come out of dark grains while still maintaining the proper color and flavor profile...

That's a really interesting idea, like cold brewing coffee. I may have to try that sometime. Thanks :)
 
That's a really interesting idea, like cold brewing coffee. I may have to try that sometime. Thanks :)

Exactly! I thought the same thing the first time I was told about it. I've heard that you can use the liquid from the steep to sparge with, or you can add it to the boil.

I also did another experiment last week for the same reason. I added the dark grains to the mash during the last 10 minutes instead of the entire 60 minutes. The jury is still out on that one since it's still fermenting, but the color was right. The taste of the wort was also very good..
 
I also did another experiment last week for the same reason. I added the dark grains to the mash during the last 10 minutes instead of the entire 60 minutes. The jury is still out on that one since it's still fermenting, but the color was right. The taste of the wort was also very good..

I do a similar process for all my Black German beers with dehusked/debittered grains.

German black Weizenbier

SchwarzerWeizen.jpg
 
ClaudiusB, that cant be your personal brewery, right? That setup is amazing! Looks like a nanobrewery.
 
Nice rig, Claudius!

Cold steeping knocks out roasty flavors, mostly just adds color.

Vorlauf/late mash adding keeps tannins out.

Done both and are very effective at their respective tasks.

Why the flavor amped up is weird.

Did you try it at serving temp?

This is Saranac's Black Forest, correct? If so, I remember it being pretty roasty. But their brewery has gone through some changes over the past few years so it could just be from variation.
 
Isn't the black forest Stout from BCS from the Fruit beer section? I think it might be better balanced with the fruit addition, I dont have the book in front of me.....
 
forstmeister said:
It makes my second hand igloo cooler and hand me down aluminum pot look like crap!

Funny thing about homebrewing is that the two of you are capable of producing identical beers. Process can trump equipment in any application.

The perceived flavor differences could be from different carbonation levels and/or serving temps.
 
duckredbeard said:
Funny thing about homebrewing is that the two of you are capable of producing identical beers. Process can trump equipment in any application.

The perceived flavor differences could be from different carbonation levels and/or serving temps.

I agree that process and attention to detail is far more important than equipment. I love the fact that people can't differentiate my beers from purchased craft beers on most occasions.
 
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