Brewing With Roasted Barley

Roasted Barley is a highly kilned and roasted adjunct made with unmalted barley. It is one of the darkest grains available for brewing and often finds itself in recipes to add colour. This is not the end of it though because there is a massive amount of flavour in this grain and unlike the other roasted malts, it stands out because it isn’t malted so let’s take a look at what roasted barley can bring to a beer.

What Is Roasted Barley & How Is It Made?

Roasted barley is a complex grain that adds a unique flavour as well as colour, depending on the amount used this can range from ruby red to the darkest black. The flavour is an intense coffee like roastiness.

Roasted barley is unmalted so unlike other grains, the barley is not germinated and is transformed in a roaster much the same as coffee beans. The barley is roasted so it develops a deep dark brown colour and intense coffee-like aromas.

Raw barley is heated in a roaster to temperatures of up to 230°C until the desired colour is reached. Roasted barley colour can range depending on the maltster with anywhere between 300 – 600 Lovibond so this makes it one of the darkest grains available to the brewer. Breiss, for example, makes roasted barley that is 300 Lovibond compared to Simpsons whose roasted barley is between 500 – 600 Lovibond.

What Beers To Use Roasted Barley In?

Roasted barley is most closely associated with stouts and is almost a prerequisite for brewing stouts. Occasionally roasted barley is used in porters but almost always along with caramel malts and chocolate malt to balance out any coffee like roastiness.

Another attribute that roasted barley provides is that when used in small amounts it imparts a deep mahogany red to a beer so red ales often see a small amount of roasted barley in the grain bill.

One beer that is almost synonymous with roasted barley is Guinness. The dry Irish stout with a fluffy white head gets all of its dark colour from roasted barley and another point worth pointing out is that the roasted barley doesn’t colour the foam as much some other dark grains, the head remains cream coloured rather than brown or tan.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSsS7bIWzO4&w=750&h=422]

Scottish beers such as wee heavy and some of the darker scotch ales can work well with a roasted barley addition to boost colour and provide a rich coffee like aroma.

How Much Roasted Barley To Use?

Typically up to 12-15% max.

Roasted barley is a complex and highly intense grain so using too much can risk overpowering the beer especially if you are using it with other dark and roasted malts. If you are brewing a beer with chocolate malt, black malt and roasted barley then you will want to limit all these together to avoid making the beer too dark and overbearing.

Guinness is a good example to see the effect of roasted barley and uses around 10% of the grain bill.

The highest percentage of roasted barley I have ever tried in a beer was around 12 – 15% in an imperial stout which as a flavourful beer was fine.

If you want to impart a touch of roasted barley to achieve a deep red in a red ale for example around 2% is a ballpark figure to work from.