Boiling black malt

[ndrice]

Every year during the holidays I make a different Imperial Stout that's usually ready to drink by the holidays of the follwing year. This year I found a recipe for an Imperial Brown stout that calls for, among other things, 12oz of Black Patent malt. 6oz goes in the mash, and the other 6oz is boiled for 120 minutes with the rest of the wort.

This sounds highly suspect to me. I've never boiled grains before (except in decoction mashes) and boiling Black Patent especially seems like it would extract a lot of astringency and weird bitterness.

Has anyone ever boiled black patent or any other grains in their brews? Experiences?

 

[adrock430]

I've heard of people doing that, but with powdered black malt, not crushed. Maybe ask the guy at shut up about barclay perkins blog (barclayperkins.blogspot.com/?m=1). He does a lot of historical beers and I think I heard it there, or at themadfermentationist.com. But it is done. Please report back results!

 

[patto1ro]

Barclay Perkins used to always boil some of the black malt in the copper when brewing their Stouts. But it was nothing like 50% of the total - more like 5%.

 

[ndrice]

Well, this is the recipe. I'm going to go ahead and brew it up Thanksgiving weekend. It seems like it should be pretty good.

14.0 lb. Golden Promise
3.0 lb. brown malt
2.0 lb. amber malt
2.0 lb. Piloncillo sugar
0.75 lb. black malt
4 oz. Challenger hops (120 mins)
4 oz. East Kent Goldings hops (30 mins)
1 oz. East Kent Goldings hops (dry hops)
WLP 0013 London Ale yeast

Mash at 158 °F for 120 minutes at 1.32 qt./lb.
Boil for 120 minutes. Half of black malt is added to the boil (in a hop bag). Ferment at 65 °F

I'm going to ferment the whole batch clean, then transfer half to secondary where I'll add Brett c.

 

[adrock430]

Patto, do you mean 5% of the total black malt to be added? So if there was 1# of black, then add 1 oz to boil?

Ndrice, please let us know your initial thoughts after the primary...very interested!

 

[LexusChris]

Personally, I've had issues with astringency in the past, and boiling grain husk is a sure-fire way to get astringency. I wonder if you can use a dehusked variant of black malt, then it may be worth an experiment.... or would boiling grain be just as bad?

I've never tried it (intentionally), and would avoid boiling grain/husk. Just my 2 cents...
--LexusChris

 

[patto1ro]

Patto, do you mean 5% of the total black malt to be added? So if there was 1# of black, then add 1 oz to boil?

Ndrice, please let us know your initial thoughts after the primary...very interested!

Just checked the records. It's about 10% of the black malt that was boiled - 2 bushels out of a total of 22.

 

[ndrice]

I'm glad to know there's a precedent for boiling black malt. I think I'll keep the ratio as is since that's how it was listed in the recipe. I plan on letting this one age for a long long time, so if it's all wonky initially maybe it will mellow out. And I always love going against convention when it comes to brewing.

One thing I've been having a hard time trying to pin down though is whether there's a difference between black patent malt and black malt. Some people say it's the same thing and others claim there's a difference. Any insights there?

 

[patto1ro]

I'm glad to know there's a precedent for boiling black malt. I think I'll keep the ratio as is since that's how it was listed in the recipe. I plan on letting this one age for a long long time, so if it's all wonky initially maybe it will mellow out. And I always love going against convention when it comes to brewing.

One thing I've been having a hard time trying to pin down though is whether there's a difference between black patent malt and black malt. Some people say it's the same thing and others claim there's a difference. Any insights there?

Same thing. Roasted malt is another name for it.

 

[CadillacAndy]

Same thing. Roasted malt is another name for it.

There's a difference between roasted barley and black malt though. Just wanted to make sure there was clarification in case people weren't reading carefully and just saw "roasted". Roasted barley has not been malted while black malt has been malted.

 

[ndrice]

Finally got a chance to brew this up yesterday. My smoothest big beer brew day so far. The OG on this thing was 1.116 so I'm going to have to do some careful yeast babysitting, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I tasted the hydrometer sample and it was surprisingly not acrid. I'm hoping that carries through to the final beer but this is definitely going to be a beer that ages for a long long time. I don't know if t was from the boiled black malt or not, but there was a lot of dark fruit, almost Belgian quad character. Way to much to try to judge from a hydrometer sample of fresh wort, but I've got hopes for this beer.

The black malt was boiled in the hop sock here in the picture for the full 120 minute boil.

 

[Stauffbier]

I've often noticed that a lot of my favorite commercial imperial stouts have quite a bit of bitter astringency. I've tried to duplicate it in my homebrews, but I never seem to nail it just right. I have a feeling that this idea of boiling some black malt might be the missing link. I'll have to give this a try.

 

[adrock430]

Looking forward to hearing about the post-fermentation hydro sample, thanks for following up!

 

[ndrice]

So, an update. Good news and bad news. Good news is that I am now a pretty firm advocate of boiling black malt. Primary fermentation is "done" (more on that later) and the beer isn't even remotely acrid or astringent. It has a depth of flavor I've not really encountered before, but I'm not sure if I can chalk that up to the boiled black malt or the large amount of roasted grain in the recipe.

Bad news is that this has been my first straight-up no-holds-barred stuck fermentation. The OG on the wort ended up at 1.116. I made a 3L starter and shook the heck out of the wort after I pitched. I don't have an O2 system so I was trying to make due.

I had a fantastic vigorous fermentation for 3 days, then nothing. I checked the gravity for 3 days in a row and it was solid at 1.051. I raised the temperature, roused the yeast, did a little dance to the beer gods and got nothing. Bupkiss. I pitched 4 packets of rehydrated US-05 and left it for another 4 days. Gravity is still at 1.051.

My plan was to ferment the whole 5 gallons clean and then transfer half to a new carboy where I'd pitch Brett. c. I think at this point I'm going to pitch Brett. c. into the whole 5 gallons and let it just sit for many many months.

I do however like this recipe a lot and I think I'm going to try it again with some distinct changes.

First, I think mashing at 158 was way to high for a beer this big. I'm probably going to knock that down to 150-152 for the next batch.

Second, I'm not sure the London Ale yeast would have been up to the job even if I'd treated it perfectly. 12% abv seems like a big ask for that strain. Next time I'm going to use either Dry English, or just straight up US-05. I've always been happy with that yeast in my RISs.

Finally, I don't think I'll tackle this one again until I get a proper O2 system. More than anything this beer has illustrated for me the need for proper yeast treatment.

The beer as it stands now tastes great, if a little sweet, and I'm hoping the Brett will just chew away at it slowly and give it a nice level of funk.

Many lessons learned, but boiling black malt seems like a really nice option for adding some depth of flavor to dark beers.

 

[TwoGunz]

Something with that stuck fermentation really doesn't seem right. I've never mashed quite that high but that gravity seems awfully high to get stuck at and not be able to rouse up again with healthy yeast like you've pitched. What temperature are you at?

Another trick I've heard about and used is to pitch active yeast. Create a starter and pitch it at 24-48 hrs and warm things up a bit.

 

[CadillacAndy]

I'd also probably recommend calibrating your hydrometer with distilled water at 60F.

 

[adrock430]

Too bad about the FG, 158 with 1.11+ may do that to you. Of course you can do the brett c. or l. add, but realize that dark lord and others have a really high FG, guess bittering is your only concern there.

This may be good reading for you:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2007/11/courage-russian-imperial-stout.html

He's been tracking a brett'd RIS that he killed with campden, reyeasted, and bottled, which has held stable carb in the bottles for a few years now.