BeerBorg

Yep, hoping mashani sees this and comments.

Does doing this really add color but no roasted flavors? I've like to blow my buddy's mind a bit by doing this in my next APA/IPA if it does.

I'd love to know the process here - which I assume is very simple, but still....

Thanks.

It adds plenty of color. You get color almost immediately when the water hits it.

As far as roastyness, it depends on how much you use and how long you let it steep.

Regardless of how much you use and how long you steep it is mellower and smoother then if you hot steeped it or put it in the mash.

But it doesn't necessarily equate to NO roastyness. But it's not bitter/bitey/astringent. If that makes any sense?

Somewhere between 2-4oz is enough for color adjustment to make a dark colored IPA as long as you throw in some darker crystal malt too. And what little roast it adds, I like a lot. It's mellower and smooth (IE think like coffee cut with chicory root vs. straight up coffee if you ever had that). But if you hate any hints of roasty flavors, then maybe not... That much might not make it "black" but it will make it a nice dark brown with ruby hues if you hold it up to the light.

Now if you cold steeped a huskless roasted grain (IE Weyermann Carafa Special or debittered black malt) I bet you could get all the color but virtually no roastyness at all and be able to use more.

In my cold steeped stout, I used 12oz instead of 8oz that I would have normally used because I knew 8oz would be too mellow / not "stouty" enough. And yeah, it came out plenty stouty. But it was smooth and easy to drink even at 3-4 weeks of age. So you know how folks sometimes think stouts need to age a bit for the flavors to blend and mellow? It didn't need that. All the "stuff" that needs to mellow out wasn't there. Same with the Belgian IPA I made with chocolate rye. It is pretty much black colored, but you know it's not a porter or stout in any way.

The process is simple, just do it like a normal steep, except use room temp water and let it sit 12-24 hours.

If you don't want to wait that long, do it with say 1/3rd the water, stir it up good, let it sit for an hour... pour off that wort... then add another 1/3rd the water... repeat... then another 1/3rd the water... repeat... at that point the wort will be coming out a lot lighter in color and your pretty much done.

It's worked great for me and I like to do it with any roasted grains I have. But you do need to use more if you want the "bam" factor (IE to make it really stouty or really portery... not for color reasons, but flavor reasons).

I would be willing to bet (I have not tried though) that if you just did this more quickly then described... IE the 1/3rd water 3x concept but only 10-15 minutes each time with a good bit of stirring... you could get all the color but even less of the flavor. Maybe go 1/4th the water 4x... it would be worth a try / an interesting experiment. You'll know if you did it enough because if you did the wort your pouring off at the end should be light brown instead of blackish. If it's still blackish, you didn't get everything yet.

Roasted barley is actually a lot mellower then something like say black patent, so if you aren't using Carafa or Debittered black malt, I think roasted barley is a good choice regardless. It isn't necessarily as dark colored though.

If you are going to the borg meetup, I could bring or send along a bottle of something with cold steeped roasted barley.

EDIT: I'll also add that the later you add this to the boil the smoother it turns out too. IE add it as a @10 addition instead of at the beginning of the boil.

I'm often short boiling / all late addition with some extract, so @15 or @10 might just be where it is anyways even if it's at the beginning of my boil.

And there ya have it folks. Everything you wanted to know about cold steeping roasted barley and more. Great information, I enjoyed reading that this morning Dave.

That is helpful, thanks.

For the 2oz - 4oz you mentioned, is that for a 5G batch? And how much water did you steep in?

Sorry, long week and I'm not processing anything well right now so I apologize if this is clear but I'm missing it.

2-4oz is for 5 gallons, I just used 2oz in my 3 gallon equinox ipa batch and my wort didn't taste roasty at all when I sampled it (but maybe it will a tiny bit when it ferments out)

4oz will be of course be potentially more noticeable then 2. I don't know that you would notice 2oz very much, if at all, for 5 gallons except for the added color.

I have 1Q mason jars that I use for various stuff. I just do my cold steeps of small amounts like this in them since they are easy to cover.

If you wanted a "ratio" I would use at least 2Q per # of grain, and I would say only that little if your going to "sparge" it IE do a second mix and steep of some sort. As a BIAB type, I am not afraid to use more water just because I always do... so for something like this I tend to toss in 2-4ozof grains, fill my mason jar and RDWHAHB. Nice thing about the mason jar too is I can tighten the lid and give it a good shaking instead of "mixing" it with a utensil. And shake it whenever I walk past which is not a bad thing if your not going to "sparge" it, it's like "stirring the BIAB mash" as such, except for the mash part...

That said, when I did the cold steeped stout, I did the 12oz in nearly 2 gallons of water in a bag in my pot, because that gave me how much water I wanted to end up with. Because... BIAB type mentality on my end. And that worked out nicely even though it sounds stupid.

So, I don't think you can really "do it wrong", but if you are thinking about doing it the "fast" way with multiple steeps and multiple mixing then of course use less water for each addition so you don't end up with too much.

But it would be hard to end up with too much really, just account for the final amount in your water volume later.

At least that's how I roll, I don't stress about stuff like this.

EDIT: Obviously, at least to me, I pour off the wort through a fine strainer out of that jar.... but just in case someone reads this who doesn't find it obvious, I better mention it.

Inkleg wrote:And there ya have it folks. Everything you wanted to know about cold steeping roasted barley and more. Great information

I'll say! many thanks for the write up