Unleash the Dark Side of Your Beer with Dark Grains!

Dark Grains are one of the most complex grains to brew with to get the right flavours, aromas and colour. These grains are packed with colour and certain flavours which when used correctly are essential in brewing certain beers.

Dark Beers

There are multiple malting companies across the globe. Most of them have their own roasting techniques which help to bring the different characteristics out of the grains. But they all have one thing in common, and it's the time and temperature at which the roasting of the grains takes place.

Dark Grains can bring out excellent rounded coffee and chocolate flavour, but the other side of the coin is that if it's overdone it gives out an astringency and bitterness which essentially gives the beer drinker to shy away from another pint of the brewed goodness. These grains area also responsible for the black or brown colour associated with certain beers like Stout, Porter, Brown Ale, etc.

The grains are differentiated using their colour intensity which is measured as ‘Lovibond’ or ‘L’, this helps us determine which grains to use in what percentage so as to give the beer a colour which the brewer intends to. Let's dive into the different types of dark grains available to us for brewing in India.

Chocolate Malt (200-450L) - This ranges from light chocolate malt to darker chocolate malt. The lower roast or the pale chocolate malt gives flavours of nutty or roasted nuts, low roast coffee or a cold brew coffee. The astringency is on the lower side of pale chocolate. The higher roasting we go, we get flavours of higher roast coffee, dark cocoa without the sugar. There is a slight astringency as well. This post won't talk about how the grains have been roasted. .

Black Malt (450-600L) - High intensity, higher temperatures. Just think of bread that you've forgotten in a toaster, and the moment you smell the smoke and the room smells of burnt bread, that's where the black malt is at, and if used correctly with other dark grains, the flavours from these on beer and brewing is amazing! Flavours of dark coffee, astringent, acrid, and dry help layering beers like stouts.

Roasted Barley (300-500L) - One of my favourite dark grains. So as mentioned, this is dark grain, and it is not malted. So it makes the grain very dry and bitter as there is absolutely no residual sweetness. Using this in the beer gives it a perception of dryness on the palate, which in my opinion, gives a boost to the drinkability vs the other dark roasted grains. Having said that, Roasted barley doesn't fit well in all beers.

Dehusked/De-bittered Malt -I'm not sure, but I don't think all the maltsters have this in their product section. Just a few of them malt these grains. These grains have essentially removed the husks off the grains. Removal of the husks helps reduce the tannins that add to the bitterness and astringent nature of the roasted grains. They too bring out flavours of coffee and chocolate on the roasting techniques. Interestingly, these grains can also be used for colour corrections of the other beers without impacting the base flavour of the beers.

Just a shout-out to Brown Malt as well. It ranges from 50-100L. It gives nice brown colour to the beer without adding a lot of roastiness but towards nuttiness. Great for brown ales!