Too many specialty grains bad?

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BeerisGOD

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hi again people

Can anyone let me know if too many specialty grains together can ruin one recipe? i was considering crystal, roasted,black and choc for a tweaked coopers stout but would like to know if all of these would be too intense.
going by what ive seen so far, it shouldnt be a prob as long as the ratio's were correct

Cheers:whistle:
 
It depends on what your trying to achieve with each malt as each one will bring it's own particular quality to the brew. I once made a brown ale with four different types of crystal in it. Mainly because I was using odds and ends up but they all added a kind of layering effect of caramel and toffee flavours to the final brew. Doing it just for the sake of it is a bit pointless though of course.
 
Not necessarily but it can cause flavours to become a little muddied if there are loads of different specialty malts. Your recipe doesn't seem over the top at all, though black malt and roasted barley are quite similar in flavour you probably wouldn't need both.
 
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Can anyone let me know if too many specialty grains together can ruin one recipe? ...
Well yes... and no. What is "too many" and what is "one recipe"?
If you've used "too many" how will you know which one ruined the recipe? Or how will you know what combination worked? Complicated combinations have to come from an evolution of a recipe, each batch being a tweak of a previous batch.

Getting to know what "quality" an ingredient brings to a recipe is very important, but figuring out what that is doesn't involve confusing its contribution amongst various other contributions all at the same time.

Patience. Reading and taking advise certainly helps, but at the end of the day its only patience and experience that really counts.

As "MyQul" said "Doing it just for the sake of it is a bit pointless".
 
Well yes... and no. What is "too many" and what is "one recipe"?

If you've used "too many" how will you know which one ruined the recipe? Or how will you know what combination worked? Complicated combinations have to come from an evolution of a recipe, each batch being a tweak of a previous batch.



Getting to know what "quality" an ingredient brings to a recipe is very important, but figuring out what that is doesn't involve confusing its contribution amongst various other contributions all at the same time.



Patience. Reading and taking advise certainly helps, but at the end of the day its only patience and experience that really counts.



As "MyQul" said "Doing it just for the sake of it is a bit pointless".



Exactly as everyone has said previously. But when you formulate a recipe you should have in your minds eye what you want to create. Taste, bitterness, malt character etc

And then after I've developed that recipe I also ask myself this specific question.

Why is that grain/hop/adjunct in there?

If I can't say exactly why each one is there and what it brings/adds to the recipe. Then either it gets removed, or its back to the drawing board.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I've done this....

2kg very dark dme
2kg medium dme
500g wme
250g dark candi sugar

Grains:
250g choc
250g carafa special III
250g roasted barley
500g dark crystal

and it's super lush

so the answer is not necessarily. can I keep the rest of them till xmas, it'll be hard :whistle:
 

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