I don’t enter competitions but from what I have heard here it seems that judges often don’t give great, or enough, feedback. These judges gave very clear and helpful feedback with the bonus that multiple judges gave you pretty much the same opinion.
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I think “often” is going too far. More like "sometimes ".
“from what I have heard here” is probably doing a lot of work…
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Is this a 5 gal or 10 gal recipe?
If it is 5 gallons, it is probably too much roasted malts.
I have a Irish Export Stout recipe for a 10 gallon batch, 26 pounds total (1069 OG) that had 5 pounds total of Crystal, 1 pound of Chocolate malt, and 1 pound of Roasted Barley.
My notes mention “mild coffee” flavors and a “medium roast”.
For a 5 gallon batch the flavors might be up to medium coffee and high roast, which were too high for the judges.
As a beer judge, malt complexity means different flavors being present. For an Imperial Stout I would expect dark malt, chocolate, dark bread, roasted flavors, perhaps some coffee, nothing burnt, esters of dark fruit like raisin, dates, and black cherries, perhaps some caramel sweetness, warming alcohol, and probably some hop presence.
It sounds like the high roasted coffee flavors were overpowering these other expected flavors.
It’s ten gallons
What are your tasting notes of the beer?
Do you think the roast and coffee notes are out of balance?
There is defintely a lot of coffee and and chocolate and a little dark plum
How are you mashing the dark grains? I find it’s best to soak the dark grains and cold water for 24 hours before the mash to avoid bitter astringent notes being developed in a hot mash. Use enough cold water to fully saturate the grains. I think I use about a half gallon per pound.
After the 24 hr soak, Pour off the dark tea extract and add that to the last 10 minutes of boil.
The wet dark grains can be added to the mash tun with the other grains when you are sparging in the tun to extract a bit more color and flavor in those wet grains.
Hope this helps!
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10-4 sir. Thanks
This can be a valid technique but it depends on your goals and tastes. I find that method isn’t suitable for most dark beers I make. I prefer more of a bite.
After mashing only base malts and hot steeping everything else at the end of the mash for yrs, and winning quite a few medals brewing that way, I found it’s A LOT more convoluted to dial in mash pH once I added the ‘character’ malts. If I wasn’t careful when I added the ‘character’ crystal and dark malts I’d screw up pH into the kettle pre- and post-boil, into the fermenter, and most importantly the finished beer. I’ve found it’s definitely not just add them in and it all falls into place.
I have a very low PITA tolerance and tell you the truth, with the level of fidelity in the water calculators out there now, I’ve learned it’s just a whole lot easier to add everything into one mash up front, setup a water profile, and drive estimated pH with residual alkalinity. The calculator estimate is rarely spot on for me but it’s pretty close and is definitely in the neighborhood. I attribute any variation to operator error and the fact I’m in a hobby that uses an agricultural product.
YMMV.
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I couldn’t agree more
I cut back on the really dark grains years ago. I limit roasted barley to 1/4 lb to per 5 gal finished batch. Gone is black patent, replaced with debittered black malt. Using more brown malt and biscuit malt. I still add chocolate malt about 1/2 lb or so per 5 gal and the obligatory dark crystal. All of this is for my oatmeal stout
I still find many micro stouts one dimensional with too much roasted barley
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It’s all about your own tastes. When “smoothing out the dark malts” became all the rage, I tried it on few versions of my porter recipe. Got so smooth it was insipid. Added a bit of black patent and it became an exciting beer. Whatever works for you.
Agee completely.
I want some roasted flavor in a stout, but not so much that is all you taste.
Everyone says light beers are hard to make I find the opposite is true, it takes work to get a well balanced stout
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