simple dark extract beer recipe, thoughts?

[JayEff]

Hey, I've gotten a friend into brewing and ordered his first set of ingredients yesterday. On the last second, he suggested making a dark/black beer and, feeling bold and experimental, I just adapted the simple planned recipe to be really dark.

Now I'm wondering, what results will I get? Will it be alright? Here's the recipe:
For 12 liters, partial, short boil:

1kg DME, Dark,
1kg DME, Dark, late addition,
300g Chocolate malt, around 350 L

20g chinook for bittering, around 26 IBUs at 5 min*
40g chinook hop stand at 170F
40g chinook dry hop for 7 days

(* We'll boil for 15 minutes but as we lack cooling facilities I'm putting an extended boil time of 10 minutes in the no chill section in brewer's friend, hence the late addition and comparatively high IBUs)

Nottingham yeast at low temps to start, around 60F, raising to around 70F after about 2-3 days.

What can I expect? I'm not really looking for a specific style, but those this fit any style decently? Should I change our hop schedule, increase the bittering charge perhaps? I've never used chocolate malt or dark DME...

 

[bradleypariah]

I'm not correcting your recipe, but when I make a dark beer, I typically don't use solely dark extract. With only dark extract, your beer might taste overly bitter or of raisins. Even if half your DME was light or even extra light, your beer will still be black as midnight. Just make sure you know what flavor you're shooting for. I could be totally wrong. I've never made a beer with all dark extract. I typically use light malt extract, and just get my color from steeping grains, or a small amount of amber/dark extract.

 

[JayEff]

I'm not correcting your recipe, but when I make a dark beer, I typically don't use solely dark extract. With only dark extract, your beer might taste overly bitter or of raisins. Even if half your DME was light or even extra light, your beer will still be black as midnight. Just make sure you know what flavor you're shooting for. I could be totally wrong. I've never made a beer with all dark extract. I typically use light malt extract, and just get my color from steeping grains, or a small amount of amber/dark extract.

Thanks for your response!

Truth is, the online store was also out of light or extra light extract, otherwise I would've done just that. Actually, they still had some but only in half kilo packs that would've been more expensive. In retrospect, I should've picked up 500g light and 500g wheat for mouth feel I think, that might've been an improvement.

So if I get any raisin-like flavor, I'll know where it's coming from. Good to know, thanks! As for bitterness - the same kind of bitterness as you get from your bittering charge, or a more astringent kind? Since I'm shooting for low IBUs from hops, if it's the first kind, it'll probably be fine, right?

I honestly don't really know what flavor to expect, it's a bit of an experiment for me

 

[bradleypariah]

The bitterness of dark malt is like old raisins, primarily. It's bitter, but not like hops. More like a burnt character. Some people love it! If you've already made this beer, never fret. Just relax. You might think it's great.

The absolutely worst case scenario is that it winds up with too much of a certain flavor, You can always simply blend it with another batch. I've rescued my own beers with more of another beer a few times. Lots of professional brewers use blending of inferior recipes to create fantastic beers. If your beer isn't infected somehow, never, ever pitch it. That's liquid money with a concentrated flavor right there. Make another batch that is missing the properties that this beer has too much of, then always mix the two whenever your pour yourself a pint.

 

[violinguy]

Even with AG/BIAB, choosing only "dark" ingredients tastes different than lighter grains with a small amount of very dark grains for color. I've learned (the hard way) that too much dark malt hurts the flavor of my beer, especially when I'm going for a dryer, simpler dark beer like a brown IPA. Obviously you can only brew with what's available, but think about it going forward.

 

[JayEff]

Even with AG/BIAB, choosing only "dark" ingredients tastes different than lighter grains with a small amount of very dark grains for color. I've learned (the hard way) that too much dark malt hurts the flavor of my beer, especially when I'm going for a dryer, simpler dark beer like a brown IPA. Obviously you can only brew with what's available, but think about it going forward.

Will do. I've heard that dextrose can dry out beer (while obviously adding alcohol). Could this improve the flavor? It's already going to be 1.063 OG so I'm not sure if I want to, but it would be interesting to know.

 

[bradleypariah]

I've heard that dextrose can dry out beer ... Could this improve the flavor?

I wouldn't think it would defeat the raisin flavor, no. I could be wrong.
It sounds like you haven't brewed this yet. Is that correct? If you haven't, why not buy the missing ingredients now?

 

[chickypad]

Replacing some of the malt in a recipe with sugar can thin out the body and maybe help it finish a bit drier, I don't think adding sugar to this is going to help. I say you'd be better off replacing about half of your dark DME with light. The problem is we don't often know what the composition of dark DME is, but for example if using Briess traditional dark it's 54% munich, 13% C-60, 3% black malt and 30% "base" (I assume 2-row). That sounds pretty malty and sweet if that's all you're using.

On a separate note, I'm not sure I'd be psyched about continuing to order from a place that runs out of all their pale extract. In this case you could have used anything called pale, light, extra light, golden, even pilsner would have been okay.

 

[JayEff]

There's not many alternatives to that shop, but there is one other online shop I found... Might've been a good idea to check that one first, before ordering.

The other problem is the 6 Euros shipping cost, I don't want to place another order for only 1kg of malt extract, when the shipping cost would be more than half the price.

The choices are GOZDAWA spray malt extract dark, extra dark and extra light (which they're out of), as well as Munton Dark, Medium, Light and Wheat. That's all they have. The other shop has only Munton DME. The problem with Muntons is that it comes in .5kg packets that are noticeably more expensive than the 1kg packs from gozdawa.

I still have a 1kg packet of extra light dme lying around which I had planned for my own batch... I might consider using that, but I think I'd rather keep it, who knows when that shop has extra light DME again. But if the beer is really unpleasant to drink because of too much dark DME, it might be worth it, rather than wasting the time and money...

 

[bradleypariah]

But if the beer is really unpleasant to drink because of too much dark DME, it might be worth it, rather than wasting the time and money...

^^This. You're almost assuredly going to have to make a "correction ale" to blend this with. Why brew it. Save your corrections for when there's an accident. If you can avoid the accident, just make the beer right the first time so you'll be drinking it that much sooner.

Granted, you may love the flavor of an all-dark beer, I'm just going to go on record and say you probably won't.

 

[JayEff]

Hehehe
Well it's just that it's not my batch of beer And I'm going to have to put off my batch of beer in favor of this one, if I sacrifice my extra light DME.

Mh. I'd be left with 1kg dark DME and .5kg wheat DME. I was planning to make a hop heavy citra IPA with the light and wheat DME, .2kg of CaraHell and 200g of citra hops. Do you think I could make it a brown ale with those ingredients, replacing the light with dark? I was gonna go for a big hop stand and dry hop and relatively low bitterness. Perhaps I could go for a 12l batch and use another .3kg of dextrose to dry it out, to offset the dark DME? What do you think?

 

[bradleypariah]

Personally, I wouldn't ever make a recipe that had half the malt bill as dark DME. I have made beers that were as black as tar, and had WAY too much burnt raisin character, and they were made with nothing but amber DME and 120L steeping grains. I really would suggest just not brewing until you have all the ingredients you truly want.

Here's a free online tool to help you build a recipe:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator/

It only works in pounds and ounces, so you'll have to convert your kilograms, but try making a beer out of all light ingredients, and play with little additions of dark grains/extracts, and watch the little beer mug icon change color. That color meter is a pretty smart little tool. Just imagine, if it takes so little to make a beer black as tar, and it takes so little to give it that character you love, what might ten times that amount taste like? You will either love it or hate it. I have no idea what your preferences are, I'm only trying to make you aware that a little goes a long way when it comes to dark grains. Some people put a whole pound of hops in a single batch. Some people like pilsner. To each their own.

 

[JayEff]

Nope, brewersfriend can be switched to metric, I've been using it a lot, but thank you I was actually going to use extra light DME and change the color with steeping grains but unfortunately, they were out of light and I didn't know the dark would impart so much flavor. I figured it wouldn't make much of a difference, or rather, I didn't really pay much thought to it...

Hmmm. This is a problem. This would mean I'll have to order quite a lot of the more expensive DME now, if I wanna brew any time soon. I think I'll put it off for now, brew my citra IPA and count the dark dme as a loss. Once available, I'd buy extra light DME and only use some of the dark with the batch of my friend. Ultimately, it's his choice, he paid for the ingredients, and I'm up for an experiment with a potential to fail since it's not my money, but it would be a shame if it ends up being not very tasty.

I will recommend to him to buy 1.5kg of light dme and use .5kg of dark in his brew. That would be more reasonable right?

 

[Brownalemikie]

Hey Jay, just curious....why don't you and your friend buy a recipe kit that is similar to the beer you want? Why not try a "tried/proven" recipe a few times until you guys get your feet wet.

 

[JayEff]

Hey Jay, just curious....why don't you and your friend buy a recipe kit that is similar to the beer you want? Why not try a "tried/proven" recipe a few times until you guys get your feet wet.

My first batch was a brewferm kit, came as hopped LME, a can of 1.5kg and I had to add another 600g of sugar. It's alright but I wanted to move on to trying simple extract recipes right away. My second batch was one of those, but it unfortunately stalled and soon I'll be pitching extra yeast ... but I figured rather than making another one of those brewferm kits, I'd help him make a simple extract recipe like the one I made second, in part because I wanted to gather more experience for my own 3rd batch. I felt like I can't really learn much from the canned kits, and there's no other kinds of kits available from my online store.

It would've been fine, too, I think, if they still had light dme in stock!

 

[Jtk78]

I understand your willingness to experiment, but I would make it real clear to a new brewer that their first batch is an experiment and has the potential of not being very good. If I were the "coach", I'd be prepared to be giving quite a few of my beers up if his batch is a fail. This just seems like a great way for a new brewer to be a one and done. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[JayEff]

Yup, you're definitely right with that. I wasn't gonna experiment at first but he suggested trying something new, and I didn't really think about it... I'll definitely make it clear to him, don't worry.

 

[Brownalemikie]

My first batch was a brewferm kit, came as hopped LME, a can of 1.5kg and I had to add another 600g of sugar. It's alright but I wanted to move on to trying simple extract recipes right away. My second batch was one of those, but it unfortunately stalled and soon I'll be pitching extra yeast ... but I figured rather than making another one of those brewferm kits, I'd help him make a simple extract recipe like the one I made second, in part because I wanted to gather more experience for my own 3rd batch. I felt like I can't really learn much from the canned kits, and there's no other kinds of kits available from my online store.

It would've been fine, too, I think, if they still had light dme in stock!

Well, I can only wish you guys good luck and Happy Brewing....enjoy!

 

[bradleypariah]

there's no other kinds of kits available from my online store. It would've been fine, too, I think, if they still had light dme in stock!

Is there only one online store that delivers to your area? I thought beer ingredients could be purchased from a seemingly infinite number of online vendors? Why not shop somewhere else? Did I miss that explanation?

 

[JayEff]

Is there only one online store that delivers to your area? I thought beer ingredients could be purchased from a seemingly infinite number of online vendors? Why not shop somewhere else? Did I miss that explanation?

Well, I know of two shops, both of which were recommended to me by another brewer from near me. But I'll probably have a look around on google next time a store runs out of ingredients before purchasing something that's not what I wanted, hoping it'd be fine. Part of this is definitely attributable to my laziness.