Stout Projected Color Way Off

[chrisvaf]

Hey everyone. In my next batch I'm attempting to brew a clone of Murphy's Dry Irish Stout. Based on the recipe below, the source of the recipe indicates a projected SRM of 41, however when I enter the recipe into Beersmith it's way lower. I also tried entering the recipe at http://www.brewersfriend.com/srm-calculator/ and it is way off there as well. A few batches ago I brewed an American Stout which also turned out lighter than I expected. Any thoughts as to why there's such a big discrepancy?

Thanks in advance!

5.75 G Batch
7 lbs 8.0 oz 2-row
10.9 oz Roasted Barley
7.2 oz Chocolate Malt
4.8 oz Crystal 60L
9.6 oz Cane Sugar

1.75 oz Willamette (5.5%) - 60 min.
0.55 oz Challenger (7.5% - 15 min.

Danstar Windsor Dry Yeast

 

[kh54s10]

What is the SRM of the Roasted Barley and Chocolate that you chose. There are different ones. I just put it in Beersmith and if you choose the darkest ones I get 42.8 SRM.

 

[chrisvaf]

What is the SRM of the Roasted Barley and Chocolate that you chose. There are different ones. I just put it in Beersmith and if you choose the darkest ones I get 42.8 SRM.

I had the chocolate malt at 350 but I just replaced it with 450. Roasted Barley is 300 SRM. I still get a projected color of 24.9 SRM. Clearly I'm doing something wrong here... Picture of recipe is attached.

 

[redllama]

I played around with it on my end and got similar numbers to you. The original recipe may be using Crisp Roasted Barley which Beersmith says is 695 SRM but that still doesn't quite get you to 42 SRM. I wouldn't worry too much about it though as my house stout which was based off of a Guinness clone comes in at 23 SRM and is plenty dark and tasty

 

[chrisvaf]

I played around with it on my end and got similar numbers to you. The original recipe may be using Crisp Roasted Barley which Beersmith says is 695 SRM but that still doesn't quite get you to 42 SRM. I wouldn't worry too much about it though as my house stout which was based off of a Guinness clone comes in at 23 SRM and is plenty dark and tasty

Is the color closer to an amber/brown or is it close to black?

kh54s10 - can you post a pic of your BeerSmith recipe showing the 42.8 SRM?

 

[laredo7mm]

Can you post the link to the source of the recipe?

Instead of using roasted barley at 300, try Black Barley (stout) at 500. That will get you closer.

 

[kh54s10]

Is the color closer to an amber/brown or is it close to black?

kh54s10 - can you post a pic of your BeerSmith recipe showing the 42.8 SRM?

No, I didn't save it. I think you will get there if you substitute the Roasted Barley at 300 with the Crisp Roasted Barley at 695 SRM.

 

[chrisvaf]

Can you post the link to the source of the recipe?

Instead of using roasted barley at 300, try Black Barley (stout) at 500. That will get you closer.

I got the recipe from a book, so no link to share. The only modifications I made were to the hops (due to availability) and the yeast as I haven't used liquid yeast yet.

I did start playing around with the numbers in BeerSmith and I do get closer to what I expect. I also verified that the chocolate malt and barley are from Thomas Fawcett & Sons. The packaging doesn't indicate the color but their site indicates that the chocolate malt is between 390 and 450, and the roasted barley is between 490 and 600. Looks like it will be closer than I originally thought.

Thanks to everyone for the replies!

 

[Smellyglove]

If you don't know the maltsters the original recipe used you should somewhat wing it and think about where the brwewery is located and look up what maltsters they might use.

Using default malts in Beersmith can really mess up what you've had planned. Find the malt, create a new malt profile in BS and add all the data. This goes for creating recepies yourself. Delete all the default malts and add the ones you use. And don't add it by an add-on. Add it manually. I've seen strange numbers in malts added throught addons.