I’ve been trying to create a black beer that tastes like an amber. I’ve been using Midnight Wheat and found that enough gives you a Schwarzbier tasting black beer, which is great too, but not what I was after (I’ve been brewing that too though).
Eventually the idea was given to me to use the MW in the sparge so as to mostly add the color without too much of the flavor. But how would this change my pH?
My latest attempt (5.25 gal) is:
7 lbs pale ale malt
1 lb unmalted wheat
0.75 lb C 60
0.75 lb Midnight Wheat (sparge)
0.25 lb light DME (starter)
I generally target the low 5.4 for pH not testing my water but going by the latest water report. I figure this gives me a little room if the numbers aren’t quite right.
I typically mash with about 3 gals and have another 3.75 gals for sparging used in 3 installations given 7 mins each before I drain. That would give an overall additional mash time for these “sparge grains” of 21 mins. How might that effect my pH?
Why not try adding some sinimar to adjust the color? Less “roast” for sure and might be easier to dial in the color too. No issues with pH either to be concerned with.
I’ve never measured it, but if a tsp. or so if Sinamar affected pH in a 5 gal. batch I’d be stunned. No beer I’ve used it on has tasted like the pH was off. And I guess that’s all that really matters, huh?
I find chocolate malt (at least Briess) to have a very mild toasty flavor as opposed to black malts that taste downright burnt if too much is used. If you have time and patience, I would propose some experimentation to find out what percentage black malt you can use before you can taste it – this might be 1%, 3%, I’m not sure – and then make up the difference in color using chocolate malt to darken it the rest of the way. This will probably take 2-3 batches to get it perfect, so you might want to do half-sized batches so you don’t have too much to drink all at one time before you get it right.
If you are concerned about mash pH being too high or low, play around with adding some of the dark malts at the end of the steep or mash or whatever to limit this effect. Shoot for no lower than pH 5.2 in the steep/mash.
Yes that’s all that matters. And if you are only using 1 tsp. i am not surprised you don’t taste any pH issues in the beer. However, the OP is trying to create a black beer that tastes like an amber ale. So if he uses the recommended rate of 1 T. (3 tsp.)to increase 5 gallons of wort 5 SRM he’s going to use a lot more than the 1 tsp. you proposed (and I agree) would not effect the pH appreciably. Going from an amber SRM of 10 to black SRM of 30 (or more) will take him 12 tsp. (1/4 c.) of Sinamar. Will a 1/4c. of Sinamar effect the pH, I don’t know. Like I said, I have seen nothing definitive on it. No sinamar beers planned right now but if/when I do one I will report back with any effect I find.
It is a color addition. On the tour I was on in Nov. they said Weyermann bought the company that made the extract in the 30s IIRC. The original wa sin Berlin.
Very late roast additions (vorlauf) coupled with kettle pH adjustments can get you pretty close to the OP’s intended result. I’ve done some Schwarzbiers with cold steeped roast malt additions, too, with some success. But Sinamar is the lightest touch for coloring out there, I believe.
A quick gander over at Weyermann says that there is no pH issue with Sinimar. That said, I think raising the pH does a really good job of restraining the roasty character of darker malts so I would say aiming for 5.5 maybe even 5.6 would help get you color without the roast. I mash at 5.6 on my porters. I am not sure there is much info out there but I call all the various specialty dark malt techniques BS. Sparge/late/cold. It’s all about pH to me and going higher on dark stuff is the key.
Schwarz type is stuff is a bit unique. Typically I go lower for lagers since the yeast doesn’t drop it as much as ales so if I had wager a guess on the schwarzbier styles since I’ve not really focused on them I would say mash higher to limit roasty character but then acidify in kettle to drop in inline with lagers. All this being said, heinie/st paulie/becks/etc dark are 99% likely same beers as their lighter counterparts but with an addition of sinamar IMO. They probably just dose at packaging…