# Brown Malt



## fawnroux (1/2/12)

G'day all,

I have a couple questions about how you use brown malt? I've never used it in the homebrews yet, but I want to put it in my next porter. Does it get used as part of the base malts? Or as a specialty malt? What I'm looking for is how strong is the flavour?

As a rough recipe, the porter grist is _currently_ looking like this

78% pale malt
10% brown malt
10% specialty malts
2% black malt

This is obviously open to tweaking. I'd love to know how you use this malt and how this current grist balance looks.

Dave


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## dago001 (1/2/12)

Having recently brewed a Porter from an 1846 recipe, I would think that around 10% brown malt would be ok. The recipe I had was for 1/3 pale malt, 1/3 amber and 1/3 brown. I used Briess Special Roast as the Brown malt, which is a suitable substitute. At this stage ( 2 months conditioning in keg) I find it is a little roasty for a Porter. However I was keen to try the malt with an old (gentlemans) porter recipe.
I would treat it as a specialty malt and keep it at 10% for a typical Porter. Although most recipes from pre 1900's would be using it a as base malt. 
Having said that I have only used it once. Still got 10kg to work out a great porter recipe using it.
Hope this helps in some small way.
Cheers
LagerBomb


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## fawnroux (2/2/12)

LagerBomb said:


> Having recently brewed a Porter from an 1846 recipe, I would think that around 10% brown malt would be ok. The recipe I had was for 1/3 pale malt, 1/3 amber and 1/3 brown. I used Briess Special Roast as the Brown malt, which is a suitable substitute. At this stage ( 2 months conditioning in keg) I find it is a little roasty for a Porter. However I was keen to try the malt with an old (gentlemans) porter recipe.
> I would treat it as a specialty malt and keep it at 10% for a typical Porter. Although most recipes from pre 1900's would be using it a as base malt.
> Having said that I have only used it once. Still got 10kg to work out a great porter recipe using it.
> Hope this helps in some small way.
> ...



Thanks for that. I appreciate your thoughts.

Was the '1846' recipe from the year 1846? If so, can you send me that recipe? I'd love to have a porter recipe from 160 years ago in my files. :beerbang:


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## dago001 (2/2/12)

thefawnroux said:


> Thanks for that. I appreciate your thoughts.
> 
> Was the '1846' recipe from the year 1846? If so, can you send me that recipe? I'd love to have a porter recipe from 160 years ago in my files. :beerbang:


18 litre batch
1.5 kg pale malt
1.5 kg amber malt
1.5 kg brown (blown) malt

Bittered to 22 IBU 
Aroma hops - 0.4g/l EKG
Yep the recipe was from a google book dated 1846. It was a Gentlemans Porter. I have only had a couple of samples from the keg at this stage. Going to leave it for a few weeks and drink it for my birthday (with my best mate whose birthday is the next day).
I think it is a cracking beer but not an great beer. Will probably age very well, but who can wait that long.

Edit: Bourbon fingers for typing - you cant drink beer all the time ?


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## Bizier (2/2/12)

I use brown malt in my mash personally - it works quite well there.

I reckon 10% is fine. I don't know if it is just me but I find it makes for some rough edges which need a little time.


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## dago001 (2/2/12)

Sorry, only half the information there.
I did a protein rest at 55c for 10 mins and mashed at 67c for 60 mins. Cant recall what the recipe was, but I followed it pretty much by the book. I don't think it had a protein rest, but I do it as a habit these days.
Added PH 5.2 to the mash and the boil. I use Brewbrite in the boil at 15 mins.
Fermented with S04 - the recipe did not give a yeast type.

I can't find the URL for the recipe, but I found it on the "Shut up about Barclay Perkins " website

Gotta love a good porter .


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## fawnroux (2/2/12)

LagerBomb - Cheers for that! 'Shutup about Barclay Perkins" is a great website. I really should find more time to read it.

Bizier - What do you reckon is a minimum time for the malt to round off? I know porters and stouts need/enjoy a bit of ageing. My plan is to brew over the next couples of weeks and have ready to go in the cold of winter for Friday night footy.


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## srcossens (2/2/12)

thefawnroux said:


> As a rough recipe, the porter grist is _currently_ looking like this
> 
> 78% pale malt
> 10% brown malt
> ...



I know some people that hate brown malt and some people that love it. It took a while for brown malt to grow on me. I now love it. I think it is a very under-utilised malt in dark beers these days.

Your grist seems very similar to a double brown stout that I brewed at the start of the month. It had 70% Pale, 12% brown, 12% biscuit (should have been amber) and 6% black malt. I'm not sure whether this came from Barclay Perkins, but it did come from a friend who speaks to Ron Pattison and who researches old recipes. I've tried that recipe from cask before and it was a wonderful beer at ~7%. Mine has only been in the bottle for a few days, but it was tasting great out of the fermenter, could of had a pint, but stopped myself.

I've also tried it in a RIS at 20% of the grist and another lovely beer. But that one is certainly for ageing.

I suppose I would use it in conjunction with pale malt, so treating it as a specialty malt. It does have a strong flavour, very unique, but I'm sure you'll like it. It should suit a porter in the %'s that you have specified. I think the black malt at 6% in my recipe pushed up the roastiness.

I travel down to Melbourne frequently to see my folks so I could pop past your place to happily test out the brew and give you any suggestions, especially if Essendon are playing on the Friday night!!


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## Benchish (2/2/12)

Im pretty sure old brown malt (1800's) was different to what we have now, it retained some enzymes and was used as a larger part of the grist.

i have a copy of "Old British Beers & How To Make Them" and some of the recipes have brown as a seriously large percentage of the grist.

I added 500g jaggery (indian palm sugar) to my last porter and it came out quite nicely


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## fawnroux (2/2/12)

Cheers lads! Feeling positive about the recipe now.

ScottC - We'll have to make it a Geelong/Essendon header!


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