Thoughts on Black Ale Recipe

[Groober]

Hello fellow Homebrewers,

I was putting together a recipe for a German style Black Ale. I wanted to do something close to a Schwarzbier, but cannot lager at this time. Was going for something dark in color but not too heavy or bitter. Also looking for some good coffee and chocolate notes. Here's the recipe I came up with. Was hoping to get some feedback. Thanks!

Grains
========
Pilsner 5 lbs
Dark Munich 5 lbs
De-Bittered Black .75 lbs
Dark Chocolate .5 lbs
Crystal 60L .5 lbs
Torrified Wheat .25 lbs (I was told this would help with better head retention)

Hops
========
Hallertau 1 oz 50 min
Hallertau 1 oz 30 min
Hallertau 1 oz 20 min

Extras
========
Whirlfloc tablet 15 min

Yeast
========
Wyeast German Ale 1007

 

[stpug]

I know very little of Schwarzbier so take my comments with some salt:
-12lb grainbill seems heavy for a ~1.050 beer; I think you'll land almost 10 points high
-Great yeast choice!! Ferment cold (56F), cold condition your keg/bottles (after carbonation), and you'll be able to approximate a lager.
-Good hop choice as long as the calculated IBUs don't go much over 30
-Too much dark malt I think; I think 0.75 lb of Carafa I/II would be too much
-I would aim for 8 oz of Carafa I or II. I think you'll get enough roast and color without going into porter-area.
-I think you can get some coffee from carafa
-Chocolate notes could be had from Briess Chocolate and/or Crisp Pale Chocolate

I think the hard part will be using enough dark malt to get coffee and chocolate without going into really dark beer territory. I would aim for less this time and adjust next time. You could do a 50/50 carafa/chocolate for about 8-10 oz and see what that gets you. The maltster is very important when picking your chocolate malt otherwise you could end up with a much darker and ashy beer than you hope for.

Hope this helps.

 

[rtbrews]

Here are a couple notes. I am not a schwarzbier expert but am a bjcp judge so I am familiar with the style.

First, a couple questions : What is your batch size and what is your efficiency? If you don't know your efficiency, what is your mashing process?

*That seems like a lot of dark munich. It would probably be fine but I think you'd be better off with more of a lighter munich so the flavors are more subtle and well rounded.

*Scrap the de-bittered and use carafa I (adjust amount to get the estimated SRM you desire)

*Most schwarzbier recipes I have come across include very small amounts of roast barley. This is not necessary but if you scrapped the debittered and added something like .25lbs of both carafa and roast barley

So in summary, all that dark munich is going to be too bready for this style so I think you'd be better off going with a lighter munich then making up the color you lost from switching to a lighter munich by adding a touch of roast. Scrap the de-bittered black and use carafe I

 

[Groober]

So I ended up brewing the original recipe I posted simply because my brew day happened before I saw your comments. I did a 5 gallon batch using the BIAB method. OG was 1.072 which is much higher than what a Schwarzbier normally is, but as stpug mentioned that was to be expected. Color was exactly where I wanted it, nice and dark.

The brew day was last Saturday, and did a check/tasting almost a week later (Friday). Gravity is currently at 1.022 so hoping there's still some conversion going on although bubble activity out of the airlock seems to have stopped. There was a lot of sediment in the sample I poured. I let it settle out for a bit in the fridge before giving it a taste. Taste right now is a little bland. There are subtle hints on coffee and chocolate but not as much as I was hoping for. Its also a little sweet, but hopefully the yeast is still doing its thing and over the next few days the sweetness will go away and some more of that coffee and chocolate flavor will come through.

So I'll see how this batch comes out, but think I'm going to switch out some grains as you guys suggested. Especially the Carafa. I'll do some tinkering in Beersmith and see what it says.

Thanks again for the responses!

 

[Groober]

Did some tinkering in Beersmith. Based on your comments here's the modified recipe:

Grains
========
Pilsner 5 lbs
Light Munich 4 lbs
Carafa I .5 lbs
Roasted Barley .5 lbs

Hops
========
Hallertau 1 oz 50 min
Hallertau 1 oz 30 min
Hallertau 1 oz 20 min

Extras
========
Whirlfloc tablet 15 min

Yeast
========
Wyeast German Ale 1007

 

[stpug]

It looks like you've made some good changes to bring the gravity and roast down a bit. Good calls on both accounts. I still suspect that 1 lb of dark roasted malts will push this beer into too dark a beer category. I used 12 oz of carafa II in a beer and it definitely had that dark roast character to it. I would probably take groober's advice and knock the roasted barley down to 0.25 lb. That will leave you with 12 oz of dark roast malts and you'll definitely get the roast notes from those. If you need to make up gravity points then just up the pils or munich a tad.

 

[Groober]

Awesome, thanks stpug. I'll give this a go on the next brew day.

 

[rtbrews]

+1 to that