I brewed a RIS and it didn't have much flavor

[urg8rb8]

It's almost two months old and has been aging in a keg. I also had it sitting on French oak and Jim Bean.

I poured a bit of it to take a sip and it seems like it doesn't have much flavor to me. Maybe I didn't put enough dark roasted malt? This is a 1.100 OG beer, so I can taste some alcohol.

I was thinking about making a tiny mash of a small amount of just roasted malt to give it more flavor. I know it's young, but I would think it would have more flavor. Do you think I should just let it age months longer and try it out then to determine if I should add more roasted malt?

 

[kh54s10]

Recipe? Mine, that was also oaked with Jim Beam, was very flavorful, especially the oak.

 

[urg8rb8]

Recipe? Mine, that was also oaked with Jim Beam, was very flavorful, especially the oak.

17# pale malt
12oz flaked barely
8oz black malt
8oz C80
8oz roasted barely
4oz chocolate malt

I can taste a bit of the bourbon and oak. I just don't taste the maltiness or roastiness of the beer

 

[urg8rb8]

Anyone have feedback on recipe I brewed? Should I mash some more roasted malt and pour it into the keg to add more roast flavor?

 

[C-Rider]

Anyone have feedback on recipe I brewed? Should I mash some more roasted malt and pour it into the keg to add more roast flavor?

I used more Roasted Barley than you and mine was only a 2 gallon batch. See attached.

 

[Smellyglove]

How did you fill the keg? Technique used? It might be oxidation. The more taste you have in a beer, the more can be ruined. A 1.100 beer should have tonnes of flavor if you used only malt.

 

[urg8rb8]

I used more Roasted Barley than you and mine was only a 2 gallon batch. See attached.

Hmm, I might have to just add more.

 

[urg8rb8]

How did you fill the keg? Technique used? It might be oxidation. The more taste you have in a beer, the more can be ruined. A 1.100 beer should have tonnes of flavor if you used only malt.

I filled it by siphoning as normal, sealing it up, then purging out the oxygen.

I also added bourbon and oak. Is it possible that the little roast I have in there got masked out by the bourbon and oak flavor?

 

[Smellyglove]

Sounds like you're after the roast flavor? That's it?

 

[urg8rb8]

Sounds like you're after the roast flavor? That's it?

Yes, more roast flavor would be good. I started out with little because I like my stouts slightly roasty and on the sweet side. But I think the bourbon and oak got rid of all the roast flavors.

 

[Smellyglove]

check out the "kate the great" thread. That recipe should give you a ****load of flavor.

 

[urg8rb8]

check out the "kate the great" thread. That recipe should give you a ****load of flavor.

Thanks for the suggestion but I'm confused about something. It looks like the recipe I used has a higher percentage of roasted malts than the Kate the Great has. They are both approx 1.100 OG beers.

 

[Transamguy77]

I would think a beer that big and with the addition of oak and bourbon that half a pound of roasted barley is just getting lost.

I make a stout that is 1.075 and in 10 gallons I use 2 lbs of roasted barley and 3 lbs of chocolate malt. And it has a good roast note, I don't think you used enough.

 

[urg8rb8]

I would think a beer that big and with the addition of oak and bourbon that half a pound of roasted barley is just getting lost.

I make a stout that is 1.075 and in 10 gallons I use 2 lbs of roasted barley and 3 lbs of chocolate malt. And it has a good roast note, I don't think you used enough.

I don't think so either. I will make a mash of additional roasted malts, them boil it down a lot then just pour it in the beer.

Do you think I should add more of the crystal malt?

 

[Transamguy77]

I would use some of the beer to steep your grains in, I don't know about the crystal, is the beer sweet enough for you? If not than add some.

 

[urg8rb8]

I would use some of the beer to steep your grains in, I don't know about the crystal, is the beer sweet enough for you? If not than add some.

See, the issue with this recipe was I scaled the entire grain bill down from the original recipe to adjust for my higher mash efficentcy. But I think I'm learning the hard way that I should have probably only adjusted the base malts... In this case the pale 2-row.

So what I will do is mash in all the additional specialty grains to bring it up to the original recipe.

Why mash with some of the original beer?

 

[Dcpcooks]

I'm not sure adding extra "roasty" wort will be effective. You should look at the volumes your dealing with. To increase the roastly flavor at this point you'd need a super roasted malt flavor in your small batch and I'm not sure you'll be able to get past the fact that your going to dilute it. You may have better luck making another batch and blending them.

Think about it this way if you added 1/2 a gallon of 100 ibu wort to a five gallon batch you'd see the ibu's dilute a bit more than 10/1. So you'd only be getting about 10 ibu's more to the overall batch. I'm using ibu's for easy math as an example. So you would need to figure out a way to quantify the bitterness you'd get from roasted malts and then scale it to the new batch size. I'm not sure it's worth the time, expense and risk. You may be better off just making more.

 

[urg8rb8]

I'm not sure adding extra "roasty" wort will be effective. You should look at the volumes your dealing with. To increase the roastly flavor at this point you'd need a super roasted malt flavor in your small batch and I'm not sure you'll be able to get past the fact that your going to dilute it. You may have better luck making another batch and blending them.

Think about it this way if you added 1/2 a gallon of 100 ibu wort to a five gallon batch you'd see the ibu's dilute a bit more than 10/1. So you'd only be getting about 10 ibu's more to the overall batch. I'm using ibu's for easy math as an example. So you would need to figure out a way to quantify the bitterness you'd get from roasted malts and then scale it to the new batch size. I'm not sure it's worth the time, expense and risk. You may be better off just making more.

I was planning to boil down the new wort to significantly limit this effect.

 

[Transamguy77]

See, the issue with this recipe was I scaled the entire grain bill down from the original recipe to adjust for my higher mash efficentcy. But I think I'm learning the hard way that I should have probably only adjusted the base malts... In this case the pale 2-row.

So what I will do is mash in all the additional specialty grains to bring it up to the original recipe.

Why mash with some of the original beer?

Yes if your talking about a higher mash efficiency then yes just scale back (or not) your base malt. Most special malts add very little if any fermentable sugars so keeping them the same is fine.

If you use some of the beer now it has the flavor and aroma of the beer which is more than what you'd get from just water.

 

[urg8rb8]

Update: last week I mashed/steeped the extra roasted grains in like a gallon of water then significantly boiled it down before it turned I to a syrup. Cooled it down and then syphioned it into the keg. I just took a taste and it has turned out really well so far!

Hopefully I didn't oxyidize it too much.

 

[RevKev]

I would've added coffee

 

[urg8rb8]

I just pulled half a pint of this to taste and it now tastes like I expected it to taste like.

Moral of the story, when scaling for mash effeciency, only scale the base malts and leave all the specialty grains alone.

 

[Billy-Klubb]

It's almost two months old and has been aging in a keg. I also had it sitting on French oak and Jim Bean.

I poured a bit of it to take a sip and it seems like it doesn't have much flavor to me. Maybe I didn't put enough dark roasted malt? This is a 1.100 OG beer, so I can taste some alcohol.

I was thinking about making a tiny mash of a small amount of just roasted malt to give it more flavor. I know it's young, but I would think it would have more flavor. Do you think I should just let it age months longer and try it out then to determine if I should add more roasted malt?

next time sing praises to Billy Klubb while you brew. that can turn a Light Lager into an Export Stout.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I just pulled half a pint of this to taste and it now tastes like I expected it to taste like.

Moral of the story, when scaling for mash effeciency, only scale the base malts and leave all the specialty grains alone.

I did the exact opposite. I was using a recipe for 75% efficiency and I tyically get around 60%, so I scaled everything. It's way too roasty for my taste. It wasn't until after I brewed this that I read an article about scaling recipes that mentioned that you don't typically want to follow the same percentages with respect to black patent, roast barley, chocolate malt etc.

Oh well, lesson learned.

 

[urg8rb8]

I did the exact opposite. I was using a recipe for 75% efficiency and I tyically get around 60%, so I scaled everything. It's way too roasty for my taste. It wasn't until after I brewed this that I read an article about scaling recipes that mentioned that you don't typically want to follow the same percentages with respect to black patent, roast barley, chocolate malt etc.

Oh well, lesson learned.

But so many people on this board will swear that you should always scale the roasted grains as well.

Sorry about your stout. What did you end up doing with it?