Overpowering specialty malts.

[NymPymplee]

So, I decided to do a "brown porter". Recipe as follows:

20l batch. Mashed @ 65C.
4500 g pale malt
300 g CaraAroma
100 g Roasted barley
100 g Chocolate malt
500 g Brown sugar (I had it laying around)
20 g Northern Brewer @ 60
15 g Northern Brewer @10
(I let the wort cool on my stove in the kettle over night so actual IBUs are higher)
OG about 1.070
FG about 1.014

Now, specialty malts are foreign territory to me. I generally stay in the PA/IPA, Wheats, and light Belgian range. What the above recipe did was create a very good beer. Delicious... However, it's definitely a one beer a night beer. It sticks to the tongue and strongly tastes of raisins, some black licorice, and a bit of chocolate.

Have you guys had similar experiences with similar combinations?
What would you change about the recipe?
Will some of those flavors become less aggressive with time?

 

[waldoar15]

It should mellow somewhat with age.

I'm not personally a fan of the dark side of beers.

 

[BigEd]

CaraAroma is a wonderful malt, but it is powerful. Much of what you're describing is likely coming from the CaraAroma as it will produce significant raisin/dried fruit and dark, almost burnt toffee. The licorice and chocolate flavors are not unappropriate here and you did add chocolate malt.

300g of CaraAroma was too much IMO. That's 6% which is fine for a traditional medium crystal like 55L. For CaraAroma in this beer 1-2% would have been enough. As waldoar15 said it will mellow with time so with some aging it might be more to your liking.

BTW (I had it laying around) is often a bad reason to add an ingredient to a beer. I understand many homebrewers love to toss in anything hanging around into a recipe. Personally, I suggest careful consideration of what and how much miscellaneous stuff to through in a recipe.

 

[beermanpete]

The licorice flavor is from the brown sugar. If you don't like that flavor omit it next time and make up for it with more pale malt.

 

[corax]

For a brown porter, I'd try replacing the CaraAroma with Brown Malt or Amber Malt. This would give you a drier, roasty or toasty (respectively) flavor.

 

[kh54s10]

I love the flavor that brown sugar gives to my brown ales and porters that I have used it in. It was an "I had it lying around" situation the first time I did it. And I have made several more with the addition of brown sugar.

I agree that you can go overboard with "I had it lying around" but experimentation is part of the fun. You just need a little understanding of what might happen. It would be a very bad thing to put 5 pounds of peat smoked malt in a pale ale "because I had it". But .1 pound would be interesting.

 

[NymPymplee]

For posterity:

After a month in the bottle this brew has smoothed out quite a bit. Dried fruit (raisin especially) and sweet dark roast coffee... That's the best I can do. I'm terrible at describing flavors. It does still stick to the tongue, but not as much.

It's a good beer. Not my best beer... but definitely my best "dark". I'll definitely be brewing this again with some minor adjustments.