Black Saison advice

Black patent malt at 1% will give you coloring and little flavoring. Roast barley will add a coffee/nutty flavor, would not recommend at any percentage. Expect color only from de-bittered malt, this is the one to get the most blackness with the least non-saison flavor.

Just curious, what is the motivation for a Black Saison?

 

Below is a description of English Black Malt via Northern Brewer:

English Black Malt

500-600° L. Sharp flavor and black color, with a smoother flavor than roasted barley. Ideal for sweet stout and robust porter.

I use English Black Malt in making my Oatmeal Stouts and it does indeed add the aspect of ‘sharpness’ to that beer.

Maybe you won’t notice this sharpness at a level of 1%.

If I wanted to add color but no (little) flavor to a beer I would use nothing but Dehusked Carafa malt. I would guess that the Belgian de-bittered malt is similar to Dehusked Carafa malt.

My suggestion to solely use Dehusked/De-bittered malt to the amounts that achieve the SRM that you desire.

Cheers!

 

Carafa Special III should give color with minimal flavor addition. Neither BP or RB will do this as effectively.

 

“Neither BP or RB will do this as effectively.” I do not understand those acronyms. Could you please spell them out for me?

Cheers!

 

Apologies. BP = black patent malt, RB = roasted barley.

 

If you just want a Saison that is black, I would just use huskless carafa special only. If you want some roastiness then you can go BP or RB. You could also use SINIMAR extract. It is said to only add color and no flavor/fermentables.

 

Midnight Wheat and Black Prinz in small amounts will add color too. Cold steeping will add color with minimal roastiness also

 

SINAMAR has a decent amount of flavor, and its somewhat ashy.

Midnight wheat from Briess is mildest of the huskless malts to add color and not flavor (I've used them all). Even Dehused CarafaIII Special adds a decent amount of flavor. Blackprinz tastes like shit.

 

Just used a # of Blackprinz in a brown with 2#s of Pale Chocolate...it was more porteresque than I expected, but was probably due to using a whole #...next time I'll use Carafa I or II deshusked in smaller amounts for a brown.

 

Best homebrew name EVER.

 

I had good results using a little bit each of Carafa, Roasted Barley, and Chocolate. I also added some lavender and black cardamom:

http://spontaneousfunk.blogspot.com/2013/02/ambrosia-demeter-sinis-recipe.html

 

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/attachments/0000/2499/MJzym08_Saisons.pdf

Look at the Saison Infernal. It was awesome

 

I used a combo of Midnight Wheat and Carafa III Special in a Black IPA and I thought it did a great job of getting a dark color while only imparting a little roast. I'd use a similar combo if I was brewing a black saison.

 

Agreed.

 

My last dark saison, I used a dark crystal (Special B) and chocolate wheat to get color without the roast, along with a pound of dark candi sugar. It came out to ~ 32 SRM. In previous batches, I've used a little bit of carafa (2-4 oz/5 gallons) to get some color as well though it did impart a slight roast that I didn't want.

 

“I've used a little bit of carafa” Was it Carafa Special (dehusked) malt?

Cheers!

 

Yup, whatever. Carafa II or III. I think it was III, though don't have my notes here.

 

Weyermann makes ‘regular’ Carafa and Special (dehusked) Carafa. The special/dehusked Carafa will provides less ‘flavor’ than the ‘regular’. It does make a difference.

My personal experience with Special (dehusked) Carafa (both II and III) is that in small amounts they did not provide much roasted flavor.

Cheers!