Grain Color: Get rid of the color, but keep the flavor?

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barrooze

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Hey all, I have an interesting question. I'm trying to keep some color out of my beers, but want the toasty/roasty/bitter flavors of some of the darker grains. Does anyone know of a method that would allow me to mash my specialty grains and get their flavors but not all their colors?

Someone mentioned cold-steeping the grains to remove the color but then reusing the grains. I was doubting one run of this would remove enough of the color, but if i did it a couple times and added 2-3 times the specialty grains, would enough of the flavors come through? (btw, I'm trying to make a pale stout!) :cross:
 
I can't think of any way to use specialty grains for their flavor without getting the color.

Are the beers too dark if you follow the recipe? Have you tried using extra-light DME for the base?
 
Iteresting, it's evidently not as silly, or original as it might seem.

1843 Pale Stout
.

It's even mentioned here in this article.

http://www.beerconnoisseur.com/porter-versus-stout

Strong porter was called "brown stout" because it was still possible to find pale stout: "stout," when applied to beer, originally just meant "strong" (and the opposite word, for weak beer, was, at least occasionally, "slender"). Barclay Perkins of the Anchor brewery in Southwark, one of London's biggest porter brewers, was still brewing pale stout in 1805, made from 100 per cent pale malt, at a strength of around 7.9 per cent alcohol by volume. A brewer’s manual published around 1840 called "Every Man His Own Brewer," still referred to “stout ales” meaning strong ales in general. In 1843, Beamish and Crawford of the Cork Porter Brewery in Ireland began advertising "Bavarian Pale Stout", manufactured "under principles personally explained by Professor Liebig [a German scientist famous, at the time, for his studies of fermentation] to the manufacturers."
 
Iteresting, it's evidently not as silly, or original as it might seem.

1843 Pale Stout
.

It's even mentioned here in this article.

http://www.beerconnoisseur.com/porter-versus-stout

Great find Rev. In the mid-to-late 1800s they did have the Pale Stout, but back then "stout" meant that the beer was "strong", so a "pale stout" would just be a strong pale. :)

In this case, I want the stout flavor and characteristics but with a lighter color. I just think it'd be cool. I have no issues with making traditional stouts and do, but I think it'd be fun to surprise friends with this one.
 
The only thing I could think of would be to use some kind of very concentrated coffee extract. That seems like it would add some roastier flavors to your beer without affecting the color too much. Then again, it would also make it taste like coffee.

I have a hard time believing that you can get flavor and no color, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. I would say try it and report back. I might actually try it too and see if it's possible because I have 4 oz of roasted barley that I don't need.

I'm thinking of doing 2 oz of barley to 4 oz of water cold steeped for 24 hours, and maybe doing the same thing with some vodka to see if there's a difference. If there's a chance of this working, I would say that you would have to make it VERY concentrated and that way even if it was dark you could add it and it wouldn't change the color of the larger batch too much.
 
Great find Rev. In the mid-to-late 1800s they did have the Pale Stout, but back then "stout" meant that the beer was "strong", so a "pale stout" would just be a strong pale. :)

Yes, the word "stout" in referring to beer was originally an adjective. The very old Guinness product was StoutPorter and as the product gained popularity it eventually became known by the shortened name, Stout.

In this case, I want the stout flavor and characteristics but with a lighter color. I just think it'd be cool. I have no issues with making traditional stouts and do, but I think it'd be fun to surprise friends with this one.

Best of luck with your venture but I think most of the compounds that are responsible for the color also provide many of the flavors to the beer. :mug:
 
You could try to filter the wort through activated carbon... you'd probably lose flavor as well though.

A small bit of victory malt could give you what your looking for.
 
You could try to filter the wort through activated carbon... you'd probably lose flavor as well though.

I want to know how to do this so I can make Zima. Becuase we all like Zima, right? RIGHT??
 
You could try experimenting with roasting your own grains, maybe you could get a nice toasted flavor that way without getting them too dark. Maybe even do it over charcoal for some extra flavor
 
Technically it wouldn't be a stout. Since in order to be a stout the SRM range would be from 22-40 SRM depending on the type of stout you are making. In essence you would have to classify it as a specialty beer if you were to turn it in to a competition.
 
This is just one example of beer racism........ lol

Why can't the pale beers just get along with the dark beers damnit!!!!!
 
Technically it wouldn't be a stout. Since in order to be a stout the SRM range would be from 22-40 SRM depending on the type of stout you are making. In essence you would have to classify it as a specialty beer if you were to turn it in to a competition.

Obviously it's not a stout, but is a Black IPA an IPA? Sure. It's just experimenting with what's possible with the materials and techniques available to us. I wanted to try something that I'd never had before not ever seen before. I don't know when I'll get a chance to do some tests, but I'll definitely report back with what I find. Thanks for the great advice and suggestions!
 
You'll have to let me know how it turns out. I've never even thought of trying to remove color from a beer..... I'm curious if it will taste the same or not.
 
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