Deschutes Obsidian Stout : Can You Brew It (05/25)

[Steelers&Beer]

even though there may on the rare occasion be a little confusion, i just want to say thank you to JZ, Tasty, J and the other guest brewers for CYBI. Its fuckin awesome. Keep up the great job and once again, thanks for all your time and effort to get 'er done!!! Drew

[BrianL]

Just took a hydrometer sample of my 1.4 lbs roasted barley version after 8 days. It was pretty darn good! I drank the whole hydro sample and was tempted to open back up the fermenter. Gonna keg on Thursday.

I second that! I just started brewing in May, jumped right into all grain, this is my 4th batch and I'm already brewing some really good beer thanks to all the info on the podcasts and Jamil and Palmers books!

You guys are awesome!

[overflow]

This may be a dumb question, but what kind of wheat malt do I want for this? NB sells Rahr White Wheat, Weyermann Pale Wheat, and Weyermann Dark Wheat grain. Thanks in advance.

[Martin2D]

I used Weyermann Pale Wheat.

[Howie]

The confusion, I think, came from (other than the names being close) the brewer stating that there are "copious amounts" - 8.5% or more of "Black Barley" and about 1% of Roasted Barley.
(Minute 13:50) and then you state that there is 1.43lbs of Black Barley Malt. (minute 35:00)

Briess description says "Don't confuse unmalted Roasted Barley with Black Malt. Roasted Barley and Black Barley are not malted."

I think the problem and confusion comes from Breiss. They are the only maltster (to my knowledge) that makes a 300L roasted unmalted barley product. The British malting companies call their +/-500L unmalted product "Roasted Barley". Briess is the only one who uses the term "Black Barley."

IMHO, Breiss should have called their 500L product "Roasted Barley" and the 300L product "Lite Roasted Barley" or something like that.

[whywhyzee]

In listening to the show, the Deschutes guy indicates this is a tough beer to brew. If I recall, specific references were made to the difficulty in lautering process. What's the deal here? Risk of stuck mash due to the black barley?