Special Roast in a Pale Ale?

[p.d.]

I Was thinking on putting a small amount of special roast or chocolate in my next pale ale recipe . Anyone try this before and how much did you use? ...p.d.

[ray m]

Are you making an American Pale Ale or an English Pale Ale (just curious)? It's amazing how little an amount of chocolate malt can darken your wort, so if you're doing a pale ale, I would not recommend chocolate malt (if you're concerned about keeping your beer within some sort of style parameters). I have no experience using biscuit malt, but here are some characteristics of it (as dictated by the website of my LHBS, listermann.com):

Biscuit malt is @ 50L, gives a biscuit-like flavor to English style ales. Provides a deep gold to brown color, depending on how much you use. Since you're doing a pale ale, I would suggest using no more than 5% of the total grist, if you're doing all grain. If you're just steeping it for an extract batch, I would start off with no more than 1/4 to 3/8 lb. of it. Hope this helped ya, p.d.

[p.d.]

Ray, Thanks for your input! I am making an all grain American pail ale. My recipe is up to code . I just thought a light toasted flavor might taste real good in a pale ale. I like how some of the english ales have a hint of the bisquit/toasted flavor and I guess that sorta gave me the idea. i don't have any bisquit malt, thats why I mentioned the other two in small amounts. Thanks again!!p.d.

[Fast_Eddy]

Here's the recipe for my chocolate Pale/IPA - really more of an imperial IPA. BTW, everybody that tasted this one loved it. Ray M is right - a little chocolate goes a long way. Actually it's not really noticeable taste-wise especially with all of the centennial I threw in.

----------------


Chocolate Hop Death IPA


Grain/Extract/Sugar

11.00 lbs. 2 Row
0.13 lbs. Chocolate Malt

Sacchirifacation Temp 155F for 60 minutes

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.00 oz. Centennial Pellet 8.05 40.9 90 min.
1.25 oz. Centennial Pellet 8.05 46.5 60 min.
0.30 oz. Centennial Pellet 8.05 2.2 10 min.
0.30 oz. Centennial Pellet 8.05 0.0 0 min.


Yeast
-----

WYeast 1318 London Ale III

------------------

[p.d.]

F.Eddy,Thanks for the help!! So that would be about 2oz. of chocolate,correct? What is your total IBU ? On my pale ale it is 35. Would 2 oz. do me fine??Thanks again...p.d.

[Fast_Eddy]

According to ProMash the IBU's are 89.

More than two oz's might be darker than you want. I came up with my recipe because I wanted a strong pale/IPA that didn't use crystal. So I really was using the choc for coloring as much as anything.

[ray m]

That recipe sounds good, Eddy....I will have to try that one next time I brew a pale.

[Fast_Eddy]

I've been on a simplicity kick lately. Making beers from only two(maybe three) grains.

The above recipe was very well received and disappeared quickly. I really loved the centennial aroma and flavor.

[denver brewhoo]

maybe Mr. English will help us here, but I just had a bottle-conditioned Young's Ramrod, and I'm pretty sure I could taste some chocolate malt in there. I believe the Ramrod is a pale, though it pours a beautiful sort of ruby-tinged brown....