100 Grains: Tool For Recipe Formulation

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notung

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I'm working on a recipe for a small, biscuity uk-styled table beer. I just had a go at the '100 grains' technique for formulating and tweaking my malt bill before I settled on a recipe. This is something that Sean Paxton mentioned in the 'Cooking w/ brewing ingredients' show on the Home Brewed Chef podcast (linky).

When I begin a recipe on Beersmith, I initially enter the mass of each grain as a percentage of total grist. Eg/ If I want 86% of maris otter, I enter 86kg and so forth. This makes it easier for me to scale recipes. For this recipe I was thinking of a grain bill like this:

86% maris otter
8% light crystal
3% dingmans biscuit
3% special b

IMAG0232.jpg

So in my shot glass I put 86 grains of maris otter, 8 of crystal, 3 biscuit and 3 special b grains. You load it all into your mouth, trying to crunch every grain and think about the qualities that a grist like this will impart to your beer. After the test I decided I wanted more biscuity character so changed the grist to look more like this:

83% maris otter
8% light crystal
6% biscuit
3% special b

It's not a perfect tool but seems like a nice way to make adjustments to your grist without having to brew and mature a whole batch before you tweak. Has anyone else used this, and if so did you make adjustments that worked out? In addition, if you want to critique my recipe I'm open to that too!
 
Ill give this ago next time I'm trying to come up with a new recipe, thanks for the idea!
 
I've got a mate who swears by it. Always been meaning to give it a shot myself but always forget, munching on grain never seems to get to the top of my list of priorities. I reckon I'll give it a go one day though.
 
I use a French press .. Crack grain , add hot water sit for about 15 minutes and taste wort.. But might give your method a crack side by side mine and see how they go.
 
How well would the taste of raw malt relate to the final beer though?
 
I use a French press .. Crack grain , add hot water sit for about 15 minutes and taste wort.. But might give your method a crack side by side mine and see how they go.

Talk about a mini mash! Sounds worth a try. I might have a go side by side as well.
 
I would just chew the spec malts - they are the ones you taste as they have already been mashed and are sweet. The base malt will (eliminating a subtle saliva amylase reaction) taste like flour.
 

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