My initial thought would be no, but I’m not sure with that low of a gravity. My last stout was a breakfast style stout, and I cold steeped 4 lb chocolate malt, 3 lb roasted barley, and a pound of black patent. The gravity of this beer was 1.080ish and was an 11 gallon batch. The beer is stellar. My rule of thumb that I go by when cold steeping grains is to double the amount that you would mash. I have never used carafa II, so I’m not sure how roasty that tastes. But I would go out on a limb and say that this beer will have a very mild roastedness to it. I’m sensing that you want the rye to shine through some, so you don’t want a heavy roastedness though. If it were me, I’d probably add a 1/2 pound to a pound of both dark grains to your bill.
See what anybody else has to say about this…
On a side note… I cold steep for roughly 24 hours in qt/lb of water
I actually looked at that breakfast stout post before making this one. that’s part of what got me second guessing myself. I don’t want a lot of roast but I want it to taste like a stout. But I’m also open to unexpected wonder so unless someone says it’s way way too little I will likely go for it.
If you do go ahead and use this amount, I will be anxious to see how it turns out. Who knows, I might be using way too much haha. If you had a higher gravity beer, I’d definitely would use more. But being this light, this could be the ticket!
I think you’ll like the results of cold steeping. I won’t make a stout or a porter any other way.
because, and only because it’s not available organically as far as I can tell.
EDIT
okay, it exists but I was not aware of this fact until just now. I have no idea where to find it but I will send an email to 7 bridges and see if they could get it. if so, well I’ll just have to brew ‘this’ recipe again.
You’re spot on with the less bitter roasted flavor assumption. By no means am I an expert on the deal, but my method of cold steeping is to line a stock pot with a 5 gallon paint strainer bag. I crush my dark drain, add them to the bag, and then add 2 qt/lb of water. I let them steep for a day and stir occasionally. Then I add the “tea” to the boil with about 20 minutes to go. You will need to use more dark grains with this method than you would if you mashed them.
Very interesting. I’ll have to research it a bit further. I had heard of adding the dark grains to the mash tun just before sparging but had never heard of cold steeping. Is there a specific reason why you wait until 20 minutes left in the boil to add it to the kettle? That would make it difficult for me to estimate my final volume. Can you add it at the beginning of the boil and get the same results?
I suppose you could. 20 minutes is just enough time to boil out the nasties. I always bring it back to a boil before I start my count again. It is a bit trickier to figure final volume. Just remember you still have the same boil off rate over the coarse of an hour. And you’ll still have roughly the same amount of grain absorption as you would in the mash. The part that I’m not a fan of with the process is that the mash will be thicker than I’d like because about a 1/4 of the water is added late to the boil. So I usually cut my sparge water down to compensate the mash water.
I have a rye stout schedule for later this year and if I scaled it up to 11 gallons it would be 2.5 pounds of chocolate rye and a little over four pounds of roasted barley. I don’t cold steep though, so I’m not sure how to adjust that up for cold steeping.
If chocolate rye isn’t immediately available as an organic grain then you could always toss some rye malt in the oven and run it up to a darker color.
When you’re cold steeping, do you stick the pot in the fridge? I assume that if it’s left at room temp you’d wind up with a bit of souring, but I am no expert.
My last non-Imperial stout tastes too dry for me and it may be the dark grains which were mashed along with the MO. It could stand to be smooother.
Yes… I guess that should have been disclosed. Cold steeping occurs at room temp haha. I should point out that I do retain a terrific roasted taste, because I use a good quantity of grains. I just find that this is the easiest way for me and my capabilities of brewing to eliminate the harsh bitterness that I get when mashing the dark grains.
I suspect the souring will be minimal if existant at all. the starches in the malt have not been converted in a room temp steep so while there are likely some bacteria on the malt, the bucket, the water etc. there is very little easily available food for them. Add to that that the most common souring bacteria present on grain like it a lot warmer than I keep my house this time of year.
true! If this recipe turns out well and 7 Bridges doesn’t start carrying the organic chocolate rye I will try that next time. heck, I might just try that next time anyway.