In Modern Homebrew Recipes, Gordon Strong mentions that he likes to add dark grains during vorlauf to avoid harshness and astringency. Is this a widely accepted practice?
Secondly, what would be considered a dark grain other than the obvious black, chocolate malts?
Astringency can be avoided by knowing and managing pH. As for harshness, some people simply don’t like the burnt, roast flavors dark malts bring to the table, so they use less dark malt, cold steep, add to end of mash, etc.
IMO this is method another way to brew some dark beer, but not THE way to brew all dark beer.
yeah very hard question to answer as his statement is broad. what qualifies as dark? what kind of beer? utilizing higher PH?
For me-depends on beer style and what I want and don’t want from higher roasted malts. you may want significant roast contribution in a beer, but don’t want anything acrid, harsh, or bites. some roast being withheld can be appropriate (large quantities), and also bumping PH up in the 5.5-5.6 range.
I mash dark grains for the most part - brown ales @ 5.5 pH, porter and stout @ 5.6 pH . But for a beer like a black IPA where I want mostly color and slight roast I’ll throw the black malt in at vorlauf. IMO the thinking that you need to add dark malts at the end of the mash to avoid ‘acrid, astringent’ character is bogus - acrid character is totally a pH thing. A stout mashed at 5.3 is a totally different (better) beer mashed at 5.6 .
Edit - Gordon’s obviously a great brewer. I just disagree with him here. Different strokes.
I used to be a firm supporter of cold steeping dark grains. Why? Because I did not adjust water. Who knows where the pH would have been had I mashed them. I made great beer by cold steeping dark grains. In fact, one was a blue ribbon beer. But since I started adjusting water, I mash the dark grains. By following the advice of Jon, I mash stouts and porters at 5.6. The beers are great this way too. I get to use less dark grains in the mash than I would by cold steeping, and I don’t have to waste time messing with cold steeping. I’m all about time anymore. In this case, I can shave time and make a superior beer.
I just did a few back to back stouts and would agree that pH is the main thing. If you mash only the pale malts at reasonable pH then add the dark grains you’ll drop the pH real low. I did that intentionally to get some of that Guinness character - the final beer ended up at 3.85pH and that was a big factor in it’s taster. Adding all the grains in the mash and mashing higher (5.5-5.6ish - final beer was 4.2 IIRC) resulted in smoother beer for me.
If my goal was really, really smooth dark beer I’d go with dehusked black malt, Carffa III special, black prinz, midnight wheat, etc. Did an oatmeal stout with all the dark grains dehusked, it added a great smooth chocolate flavor.
+1
Gordon uses RO water adjusted to 5.5, and gypsum and/or CaCl2 in the mash. That is his procedure, so adding at vorlauf avoids acrid beers.
Gordon does that as opposed to treating the water for the dark malts. I far prefer to treat the water and add the dark malts to the main mash. There is a big flavor difference if you add them late, so you can kinda base your decision on that, too.
This is one thing I’ve always wondered about this method, is dropping that pH too low after adding the dark grains at vorlauf. I subscribe to JZ’s thinking in that brewers have been mashing grains all together for centuries, no reason to change it. I doubt Fuller’s is adding their dark grains to the London Porter at vorlauf…
I’m using debittered black in an oatmeal stout today, I’m really looking forward to it.
IIRC Martin feels the same way, too. Ok for Irish stout within reason, not so much for other beers.
Yea, I honestly think that slight acidity was one of the beers dominant flavors. Enjoy the brew! I think oats/debittered are a great combo.
What mash pH do y’all shoot for in black IPA? I’m thinking 5.4 is a good target, or would 5.5 be better?
I treat my black IPA’s just like a pale IPA. I shoot for 5.4. I’m using primarily dehusked dark grains in Carafa III for my black IPA’s with the exception of a few ounces of chocolate.
Last time I mashed @ 5.5 and added the carafa III and midnight wheat at vorlauf, knowing that pH would drop a tad. When I mash it all together I mash @ 5.4 since there isn’t near as much roast character in those to be made unpleasant anyway. Dehusked black malts are mild enough that I don’t think it matters much if you mash it or add at end.
Edit - I may go back to mashing all together for simplicity.
You can’t cheat chemistry. While adding roast and crystal malts at the end of the mash helps keep mashing pH in the correct range for most of the enzymatic action, it may result in an overly low wort pH in the kettle.
For beers like Schwartzbier, Dunkel, Irish Dry Stout, I think that the reserving technique is pretty good when you use low alkalinity water like RO. In the case of the Schwartz and Dunkel, the amount of roast is teeny and the technique helps keep the roastiness low. In the case of the Dry Stout, the low wort pH is a signature of the style and the water at the Guinness St James Gate brewery is essentially RO water anyhow. However, you can’t use those examples as justification to use the technique for all dark styles. It doesn’t work.
The qualifier that you should apply to JZ’s comment is that those old brewers where using their local alkaline water to brew the beer that best fit their water source.
Better beer will always be created by those who know how to work with their ingredients…and in some cases, adjusting those ingredients to conform with the beer they water to brew. Being able to adjust water chemistry took brewing out of the age where you could only brew certain beers in your area and made it possible to brew any style.
A couple years back (prior to checking my mash pH), I brewed a RIS where I added all the dark roasted grains (quite a bit) at vorlauf. This is exactly what happened. I think the pH dropped so low in the kettle that the final beer was actually quite tart. A complete dumper after a few keg pours. That was a big waste of money and time.
I have never done this during the vorlauf but i have put dark malts and cold soaked them adding them to the mash when running over starts. another thought is the way I have done it is on a bigger scale so adding the dark malt later is good for color rather than take