did anybody try adding specialty malts after fermentation?

[ohad]

Hi,

I had a thought lately, while building an ESB and a brown porter recipes.
Basically, some of the recipes for these two styles are very similar (mainly pale/MO + some medium/dark caramel), except , of course , the dark malt.
I thought about making 6 gal of ESB. then I'll move to bottling bucket, add priming sugar, and bottle 3 gal. Then I'll add about 1 pint of "wort" that was made by steeping 1/2# carafa (or similar), and a short boil. I think these malts have low fermentable sugar, so it shouldn't affect the carbonation.

another advantage could be sampling while adding portions of this extract , until you get roast character and color right.

any reason why this is wrong?
did anybody try something similar ?

 

[Scimmia]

You will get some fermentable sugars out of them, so unless you account for that, you're looking at bottle bombs.

 

[kanzimonson]

1) I don't think the difference between an ESB and a porter is as simple as a tiny amount of dark grains.

2) There's gotta be something to be said about the entirety of a beer fermenting at the same time. I don't have any reference or evidence here, but I'm pretty convinced that to develop the flavor of a whole, complete porter you need to build and create the beer all at the same time.

 

[MacBruver]

1) I don't think the difference between an ESB and a porter is as simple as a tiny amount of dark grains.

Au contraire...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f64/common-room-esb-83878/
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.014
IBU: 35.3
UK Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (1.4 SRM) Grain 90.91 %
UK Medium Crystal 50-65L (56.5 SRM) Grain 6.82 %
UK Dark Crystal 135-165L (150.0 SRM) Grain 2.27 %
Hops: EKG, Fuggles

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f126/brown-porter-ag-uk-us-38282/
OG: 1.042 SG
FG: 1.010 SG
IBU: 36.3

Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 84.21 %
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 10.53 %
Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 5.26 %
Hops: Fuggles


Differences:

EKG vs fuggles for bittering
No 120L in the porter
More 60L, chocolate malt in the porter

That's pretty close, IMHO.

2) There's gotta be something to be said about the entirety of a beer fermenting at the same time. I don't have any reference or evidence here, but I'm pretty convinced that to develop the flavor of a whole, complete porter you need to build and create the beer all at the same time.

I'm not sure why people think this. It seems like more superstition than anything. There's no real basis for it, that I can find. The yeast will either eat the sugars and make alcohol, or they won't.

All that said- you will need to leave it for a while if you're going to add more fermentables, which you will do with the specialty malts. Personally, I'd just buy an extra primary fermenter bucket, and do your extra small specialty grain boil on the same brew day, and ferment them both at the same time.

 

[ohad]

Au contraire...

.
.
.

That's pretty close, IMHO.



I'm not sure why people think this. It seems like more superstition than anything. There's no real basis for it, that I can find. The yeast will either eat the sugars and make alcohol, or they won't.

All that said- you will need to leave it for a while if you're going to add more fermentables, which you will do with the specialty malts. Personally, I'd just buy an extra primary fermenter bucket, and do your extra small specialty grain boil on the same brew day, and ferment them both at the same time.

I'm glad you agree with me. I think I could rack the 3 gal into another vessel and add the dark wort to it too.
BTW, in Germany it is a common practice to carbonate beer using fresh wort. If it works for them...

 

[ohad]

oh , another idea... how about racking the beer into secondary and using about one teaspoon from the cake to ferment the mini-wort in a small vessel, then mixing the two?

 

[david_42]

I haven't done this, but I have split worts and added specialty grains steepage before fermenting. I would rack the ESB half to your bottling bucket, then add the fresh wort to the fermenter and give it a couple days before bottling.

I've talked to pros who have made post-ferment adjustments in trial beers.

 

[Bokonon]

Since your talking about carafa there is a product out there that will do basically what you want without adding fermentables. Its sinamar and works really well.

I've added various quantities of drops to individual bottles to darken up a beer

 

[MacBruver]

I'm glad you agree with me. I think I could rack the 3 gal into another vessel and add the dark wort to it too.
BTW, in Germany it is a common practice to carbonate beer using fresh wort. If it works for them...

The problem is that you won't know how much of the sugars in your "dark wort" are fermentable. If you get a hydrometer reading and assume they all are, you won't end up with any "bottle bombs"... but you'll get undercarbed beer. If you try to guess how much sugar you'll need to make up for that... it could be disastrous.

oh , another idea... how about racking the beer into secondary and using about one teaspoon from the cake to ferment the mini-wort in a small vessel, then mixing the two?

I think this would be the best idea. That way when you are blending the two, and tasting it, you will be blending 100% fermented product, and it will give you a better idea of what the final product will be like.

 

[ohad]

Since your talking about carafa there is a product out there that will do basically what you want without adding fermentables. Its sinamar and works really well.

I've added various quantities of drops to individual bottles to darken up a beer

I've talked to an importer of Weyermann about this extract.
It is recommended for what you used it for - color adjustments.
However, this is treated carafa extract. It doesn't have the roasted character (especially bitterness) that using the malt would yield.
It is a good idea to use this if, for example, your Irish Red isn't dark enough.

Furthermore, 14g Sinamar contributes 1 EBC per 1hl of beer.
this means that if we'll want to color a beer from ~10EBC to ~30EBC, we'll need almost 2oz. A 4oz bottle costs $10.50 at northern brewer.

*note: I never used Sinamar, just read and talked about it

 

[MacBruver]

Furthermore, 14g Sinamar contributes 1 EBC per 1hl of beer.
this means that if we'll want to color a beer from ~10EBC to ~30EBC, we'll need almost 2oz. A 4oz bottle costs $10.50 at northern brewer.

Well- that is for 100 litres. If you make a 5 gallon batch, you'll need 1/5th of that much, or 1/10th of a bottle, or about $1 per batch.

 

[ohad]

Well- that is for 100 litres. If you make a 5 gallon batch, you'll need 1/5th of that much, or 1/10th of a bottle, or about $1 per batch.

To add 20EBC to 1hl of beer you'll need 14g*20 = 280g ~10oz
divided by about 5 ---> ~2oz

 

[Nostrildamus]

I would not only suggest fermenting your mini batch separately and simultaneously but also adding a small amount of EKG or Fuggle to the ESB secondary to get a little more hoppiness and distinction between two very similar recipes (if you are using the two listed above). Don't be afraid to throw a shot or two of espresso in that porter as well to give it a little extra BA-ZANG!