Janet's Brown is the next of my beer rebrews - beers that I liked, but didn't come out quite as perfect as they could have. Several process changes later and I'm ready to make them even better.
As a reminder, the main process changes involved a lower efficiency, a change in the way I scale recipes to my efficiency, racking to secondary with gelatin, the use of 5.2 pH stabilizer and yeast nutrient and lower carbonation across the board.
What I didn't intend was to use Pale Chocolate malt instead of Chocolate. It must have been a brainfart while I was measuring out ingredients at MoreBeer. I didn't even realize the mistake until I was racking into the fermentor and wondering why in the hell my beer was brown instead of black!
For all of you who are confused, let me make it clear.
YOU CANNOT SUBSTITUTE PALE CHOCOLATE MALT FOR CHOCOLATE.
Ever.
You don't sub twice as much pale chocolate for chocolate, or half as much chocolate for pale chocolate. It is about more than color -- the the two malts don't even taste alike.
So once again, no matter what the doofuses at homebrewtalk.com tell you, there are no subs. Use the right one or get out.
Of course, using a different version of chocolate malt won't ruin your beer. It will just be a different beer. Since I've brewed the original, this is a pretty good way to compare the two. The main difference I noticed is that the new version, besides being brown instead of black, has a toasted bread or cracker flavor. It still has a bit of the roasted coffee-like flavor from the regular chocolate malt, but it is much more subtle and hidden in the background. It's actually pretty damn good.
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