Not black enough!

[Flipadelphia]

Hey all, just brewed an oatmeal stout. Pretty excited for it, but I'm worried it won't 'look' like an oatmeal stout. Here's the recipe:

9 lbs Maris Otter
8 oz Victory
8 oz pale Chocolate Malt
12 oz Crystal 80
2 oz Roasted Barley
2 oz Black Patent
1.5 lbs flaked oats

I hit 1.057 OG @ 5 gallons.

It's not as dark as I'd have liked it to be, Beersmith gave me 25 SRM, and I have a feeling I should've been in the low to mid 30's. I was trying to avoid a heavy coffee flavor as I despise coffee. Will this still taste like an oatmeal stout....or more...of an oatmeal "brown"?

What should I add next time so that I have subtle roastiness and fairly black, up the roasted barley/patent to 4 oz each? I'm still learning what these dark grains do.

Thanks and cheers everyone.

 

[ACbrewer]

maybe a chocolate malt? They have a 350L rating.. although I don't know how that will affect the flavor. I've never found it particuarlly chocolatly in taste, more in color

 

[wailingguitar]

It will be quite dark... almost, but not quite, black. Some Irish stouts are a deep, deep ruby rather than truly black. To me, it looks like it's toeing the line between robust porter and stout. I think it will be a good beer

 

[Trail]

Looks fine to me, mate. Some of my favourite stouts are lighter... remember, the BJCP styles are just a guideline, and adhering to them slavishly doesn't mean you're brewing better beer.

 

[wailingguitar]

... the BJCP styles are just a guideline, and adhering to them slavishly doesn't mean you're brewing better beer.

Amen to that!

 

[revelation]

If you don't like coffee flavor, avoid black patent. While 2oz shouldn't really give you much coffee flavor, I would recommend just adding another 2oz of chocolate or carafe I or II or III to get the darker color.

 

[BigEd]

Hey all, just brewed an oatmeal stout. Pretty excited for it, but I'm worried it won't 'look' like an oatmeal stout. Here's the recipe:

9 lbs Maris Otter
8 oz Victory
8 oz pale Chocolate Malt
12 oz Crystal 80
2 oz Roasted Barley
2 oz Black Patent
1.5 lbs flaked oats

I hit 1.057 OG @ 5 gallons.

It's not as dark as I'd have liked it to be, Beersmith gave me 25 SRM, and I have a feeling I should've been in the low to mid 30's. I was trying to avoid a heavy coffee flavor as I despise coffee. Will this still taste like an oatmeal stout....or more...of an oatmeal "brown"?

What should I add next time so that I have subtle roastiness and fairly black, up the roasted barley/patent to 4 oz each? I'm still learning what these dark grains do.

Thanks and cheers everyone.

I'd say this will be on the lighter side. A good rule of thumb for basic "stout-like" color IMO is 10% dark grain in the grist bill. In the case of this recipe that's 1.25 pounds. With the pale chocolate, roasted barley and black patent you have 12 ounces or about 6%, and the pale chocolate is lighter in color than the typical dark grains. For a suggestion next time you could try boosting the roasted to at least half a pound and using regular chocolate instead of pale. I'm not a big fan of black patent, especially in a stout, as to me it has a charcoal like flavor. The German Carafa malts are available in similar color ranges and IMO add the same color but with a more neutral flavor.

So maybe next batch for the dark grains try 8 oz roasted, 8 oz chocolate and 4 oz Carafa II.