I’m brewing Oatmeal Cookie brown ale NB BIAB.
One of the ingredients is a half pound of brown malt.
If i want to make it a more chocolatey is it Ok to just replace with chocolate malt?
Or will this ruin the balance of the beer?
I was also going to add cacoao nibs/coffee in secondary.
Thansk
it is going to drastically alter the outcome. Brown malt is about 65L whereas chocolate malt is anywhere from 250-400L+ depending on the maltster.
I’m a newer brewer so I don’t know what the
L + notation means??
I see it next to the malt descriptions.
Thanks
L = lovibond its a measure of the color and thus how kilned the malt is.
for instance, pilsner malt is very light and is 1.8-2.0L whereas roasted barley, the malt that makes stout a stout, is black as night and is 500L typically.
replacing something that is 65L with something that is 400L is going to be a big change.
Thanks for the explaination. If it’s changing the color that not a problem for me.
I just wanted to make sure it’s not going throw the taste off real bad. This is my first non-extract attempt.
color is only one part. the diff in kilning also results in different flavors.
go to the homebrew store - chew some brown malt and the some chocolate malt - you’ll get a handle on the flavor differences
Yes, It will likely change the flavor as much as the color
a healthy dose of roasted barley always gives me a good chocolaty flavor.
Don’t swap it ounce for ounce, use only a couple of ounces of chocolate.
That recipe already has some pale chocolate malt. If you wanted, you could just increase (like double) it and keep the brown malt.
Good point - no reason you can’t use brown malt and chocolate malt. Chocolate malt doesn’t really taste much like cocoa though - I think they call it that mainly because of the color.
