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Why is my Brown Ale so Dark?

Wildrover

Grandmaster Brewer
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Below is the recipe for my last brown ale.  It is essentially Papazian's Monkey's Paw brown ale.  It turned out great as it tastes amazing!  However, it is much, much darker than prescribed, more the color of a Porter than a Brown Ale?  Any insight would be helpful

thanks

WR


8.50 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 93.82 %
0.25 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 2.76 %
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2.76 %
0.06 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 0.66 %
1.20 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min) Hops 19.1 IBU
1.00 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (10 min) Hops 5.2 IBU
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 20.0 min) Misc 
1.20 tbsp PH 5.2 Stabilizer (Mash 60.0 min) Misc 
1 Pkgs London Ale (White Labs #WLP013) [Starter 35 ml] Yeast-Ale 


 
 
If BeerSmith calculated this recipe to be approx 18 SRM and you got, for ex, 28-ish SRM, my guess would be that your black and chocolate are higher SRM than these ingredients indicate.  Both the Simpsons below are higher than the generic items listed.  If you know the brand you bought, you could lookup that brand's numbers.  (Any chance you used more than intended or less water?)

I've never understood why the dark malts can list such a wide range.  Would we accept a 2-row or pilsner malt that listed its SRM as a range from 2 all the way to 102° L.??

And why does Weyermann "know" it's Choc Wheat is 413L and Simpson is just guessing somewhere between 500 and 600L?  Doh!

From Northern Brewer's site:
Simpsons Chocolate. 375-450° L.
Simpsons Black Malt. 500-600° L.
Weyermann Chocolate Wheat. 413° L.
 
Well this one is still a mystery.  My LHBS carries almost exclusively Briess.  So I went to their website and looked at the highest LovieBond they have for the different dark malts that they carry and was in my recipe.  Even upping the LoviBond as high as Briess goes for these dark malts, BS (and Papazian) still estimates a beer with a lower SRM for the beer.  I'm stumped, I mess with some other variables like efficiency, batch size etc and nothing really explain why this brown ale is so dark.

On a related note (I think).  I brewed an Irish red, I think JZ's recipe, and it also turned out really dark, much darker than what BS and the recipe claimed it should be.  I searched some of the beer forums and someone else had the same problem for the Irish red they brewed.  I looked and there are no common dark grains in the Irish Red and my Brown Recipe so this one has me stumped?

Oh well, both beer tasted good they just didn't look right
 
My initial instinct is that you were very careful in the water being very close to exact.
As you went through the boil, you lost water but did not lose the particulate malt. In other words...
Your water evaporated and you were left with a denser malt than expected. :-\

Either that or you forgot to take your sunglasses off! ;D

Hope this helps.

Photoguy
 
That recipe looks similar to what I would call a red.  I'm not sure why it would be so dark.  Perhaps your scale isn't properly calibrated and you used more than you intended?
 
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