# Substituting Pils Malt For Pale Malt



## sinkas (1/8/06)

Hi all,
Hope this has not been covered recently, searched but could not find.
I am brewing a big-ish yankee style IPA, which calls for 6 odd kilo's of pale 2-row malt, I only have enough Weyermann Pils malt in stock, should I use this or will it tast bizarre, should I just bite the bullet and get a sack of JW ale malt from the LHBS?

Cheers

Case


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## Kai (1/8/06)

In a big beer would probably be alright, though I would drop the hop bill slightly to compensate.


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## peas_and_corn (1/8/06)

It will have an overall effect on your beer, since it is the base malt. Pils malt is lighter than ale malt so the overall beer will reflect that.

How much pale malt do you have? any chance of a blend of the two?


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## wessmith (1/8/06)

Guys, there is a difference between "pale" and "ale" malts. All lager and pils malts are "pale" malts. Ale malts are not always "pale" malts. If your recipe is US in origin and calls for "2 row pale" then any lager or very low colour ale malt will do the job. As the recipe in this case is an IPA, then probably the originator meant ale malt. The colour of a typical ale malt is around 6 EBC while lager and pils malts are nearer 3 EBC. For an IPA I would go for Bairds Maris Otter or Golden Promise probably 50:50 with some pils malt as the "base malt" component.

Wes


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## Denwa (1/8/06)

wessmith said:


> Guys, there is a difference between "pale" and "ale" malts. All lager and pils malts are "pale" malts. Ale malts are not always "pale" malts. If your recipe is US in origin and calls for "2 row pale" then any lager or very low colour ale malt will do the job. As the recipe in this case is an IPA, then probably the originator meant ale malt. The colour of a typical ale malt is around 6 EBC while lager and pils malts are nearer 3 EBC. For an IPA I would go for Bairds Maris Otter or Golden Promise probably 50:50 with some pils malt as the "base malt" component.
> 
> Wes




Being from North America, I can tell you that the common base malts for an A.IPA are NA 2row (2 lov) and "british" 2 row (3 lov).

American IPA's tend to be on the light side, though the style does call for an srm of up to 14. So you can use the pils malt. A lot of pils malts are slighty less deg lovibond as NA 2 row pale ale malts. (1.3l-1.8L vs 1.8-2.8, avging 1.5 for pils and 2.0 for pale) Usually slighty less protein and nitrogen.

You'll be ok with the pils malt. I'd just use and approriate amount of chrystal malt ( or munich, vienna etc) to get the color/flavor your looking for.


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## big d (1/8/06)

This is great to hear as im currently left with only pilsner malt and heaps of specialty malts.Im just using up my base malt supply until i restock when i move down south.Its weird as ive done a few bastard brews so far just to see how it turns out.So far not to bad but not something i would want to make a habit of.

Cheers
Big D


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## warrenlw63 (1/8/06)

IIRC Ray Mills once advocated the use of Pils malt in an APA here.

I like a 50/50 blend of Ale and Pils as Wes said too. Comes up quite nicely. You could even add 5-10% Munich I or Vienna if you wanted as well jut to add a bit of malt complexity.

Doesn't seem to hurt the American styles one iota.  

Warren -


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## MAH (1/8/06)

For quite a while I've been using Weyermann Pils as the base malt for all my American ales. It has worked fine and I don't see a problem with this approach as the major characteristic of these beers is the hop profile. 

I've played around adding melanoidin malt or munich to boost the malt flavour, but found it not neccesary when making an APA, just the addition of some crystal will do. For an American Amber Ale, some melanoidin plus crystal works fine.

Cheers
MAH


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## big d (1/8/06)

Im sold.Will do an apa with pils as the base and see how it turns out.Good link warren.

Cheers
Big D


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