My Dark Brown Stout

[phobosd]

We recently brewed an oatmeal stout which ended up not being very dark at all -- in fact, it's a dark brownish color. We tried a different mash method by adding in the chocolate and dark grains in with 30 minutes left in the mash, which is probably the culprit, but we also boiled way down from 6 to 4 gallons. FG looks about right, the beer tastes like an oatmeal stout but lacks the color.

How would I go about fixing this? I'm thinking we can do a sort of muslin sack + 1 gal boil for a half hour and add it into the fermentation bucket to add that color, but i'm not sure which type of grain to use, and how much. From what I've read you want 1 - 1.25 quarter of water for every pound of grain, but that works out to 4lbs of grain for 1 gallon of water. Is that right?

Any help or guidance is appreciated

 

[mcaple1]

just leave it alone

 

[phobosd]

Here's what it looks like

at first glance it looks like a stout, but notice how "clear" it is along the top there. i just think it lacks some mouthfeel.

still think i should just leave it alone?

 

[indigi]

I agree with "just leave it alone" as it probably tastes fine, but if you really can't get over it coming in a bit paler than you want, pick up some Maltoferm, boil some of it in a cup of water, and add it to the batch. That'll darken it right up.

 

[bigbeergeek]

30 minutes of mashing is more than enough time to extract color from dark grains. I recently brewed an India Black Ale in which I added 1 lb of carafa II just before I recirculated and it is jet black. I suspect your grain bill is the culprit here. I too agree with "don't worry about it/leave it alone."

What was your recipe?

 

[phobosd]

Here's the recipe: http://i.imgur.com/kss5H.jpg

You'll notice that we used the no-sparge technique. first time doing it but i'm not sure how we could have messed it up -- it's a pretty easy technique to handle

also, here's what it looked like yesterday:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...AAAAAKUY/BI1y4HpKjZI/s912/20111126_131510.jpg

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

I vote for "leave it alone" as well. The first time I brewed a dry stout with 1 lb of roasted barley, it was black as night. The next year, I brewed the same recipe and it came out a dark brown, like you describe. My guess is that your dark grains were lighter than you anticipated. If you redo the recipe, then you could keep the same grain bill but add a few ounces of debittered black malt, dehusked carafa, midnight wheat, or something similar. Those grains tend to give you lots of color with minimal flavor.

If you really want to darken your current batch, you could look for Sinamar and add that directly to your carboy.

 

[phobosd]

Thanks for the help all. I'm going to just let it roll. I tried posting pictures but they appear to still be under moderation. I'm going to be racking it tonight with some vanilla beans. Wish me luck!