Base grains

[Glot]

I rely on postage for all my products. As I will be near Brisbane soon, I was planning on stocking up on some base grains to help postage costs. Trying to put together a list of a few more versatile ones for ales. Any suggestions? Same goes for specialties but that would be a broader list.

 

[Yob]

Pale, pilsner, wheat, marris otter

 

[Black Devil Dog]

These are some of the ones I keep on hand.

Pilsner
Ale
Wheat
Vienna
Munich I & or II
Cara Pils

I buy full sacks of the pilsner, ale and wheat and smaller quantities of the others.

 

[Josh SA]

Id be happy with pils, maris & munich I or II.

(too slow ..)

 

[Donske]

I tend to just keep BB Galaxy and Bairds Marris Otter on hand for base grains, although I'll be grabbing a bag of Viena during the next bulk buy just to give it a run.

 

[QldKev]

I can tell you what I keep on hand, but that may or may not be for beers that you would brew.

Work out what brews you normally make / planning to make for the next period. Put them in a spreadsheet and add up the total grain bill per type and see which malts there are most off.

 

[jaypes]

I keep:

JW Trad Ale
Maris Otter
Wey Boh Pilsner
BB Pale Ale
JW Munich

Like Kev stated calc what you use most of and buy that

I went a little overboard in the last BB having around 12 sacks in my garage - missus loves it!

 

[pedleyr]

To those who keep Maris Otter and Pale, do you find that you actually use a lot of both, instead of just using Maris Otter?

 

[jaypes]

Most of my recipes that I like to brew call for equal parts of pale and maris, so I like to use both equally.

I like the taste of a fully hopped otter

 

[Black Devil Dog]

Not sure how the timing will work for you Glot, but there's a Brisbane bulk buy going on here.

Might be able to make some pretty decent savings if you get on board.

 

[Glot]

Thanks for all your input. I have just moved to BIAB so don't really know what I plan to brew. Just looking for a bit of flexibility. I plan to seek out recipes for what I will have. Already got a good list of the DB. Those listed are basically what I had short listed. Thanks heaps.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

If you're buying in 5kg lots for base - TF (or Bairds, which I prefer) Perle Ale Malt is an excellent flexible base malt. Use to be able to brew English Bitters, Dark Ales, Stouts and APA/IPA with it as well. Also managed some other beers with it as a mixed base. But for buying from Craftbrewer in person, I found a 5kg bag of that milled was excellent value and I could brew most things with it as a base.

 

[angus_grant]

When I first shifted to BIAB, I bought a bag of BB Ale and BB Pale

A few reasons for this:
- I had just spent a fair bit on equipment and they were the cheapest malts
- If I screwed up royally on the brewing I wasn't throwing away expensive malts during the learning process.
- I wanted to get a taste for a few of the more popular hops and figured that the BB malts would not contribute as much as other malts to the overall taste
- I wanted to start with beers where hops were the hero (APA, IPA) and figured that the base malts wouldn't matter too much to my untrained palate.

Having given you my reasons for choosing malts you will have to develop your own reasons.

APAs/IPAs would be a little easier to hide mistakes in as the hops are the dominant flavour of the beer.

I plan on brewing some English pale ales, stouts, and re-trying a Belgian Tripel that I brewed as a 3rd AG batch (it didn't work out too well) so with these styles the base malts are little more important. Maybe I'll pony up for the more expensive malts.

 

[phoenixdigital]

I know this will get varied responses but normally I buy

Bairds (British) Malt - Perle (Ale)
I am thinking of getting

Barret Burston (Australian) Malt - Ale
Not because of the cheaper price but mainly to support aussie farmers.

My question: Is there a noticeable difference in flavours using these as base malts for a standard ale?

Which is better?

I have no problems spending the extra $15 per sack for the British Malt. But if there really is no noticeable difference why bother.

 

[Donske]

My question: Is there a noticeable difference in flavours using these as base malts for a standard ale?

Which is better?

I've used both a few times and not really noticed much of a difference, I've never brewed malt forward beers with either of them though, just APAs so someone else might be more help.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

If you where to do a beer that soley used base malts you may notice a difference. Once you start adding speciality malts you wont notice as much.

BB is a great malt. Dont know why more dont use it

 

[manticle]

I know this will get varied responses but normally I buy
Bairds (British) Malt - Perle (Ale)
I am thinking of getting
Barret Burston (Australian) Malt - Ale
Not because of the cheaper price but mainly to support aussie farmers.

My question: Is there a noticeable difference in flavours using these as base malts for a standard ale?

Which is better?

I have no problems spending the extra $15 per sack for the British Malt. But if there really is no noticeable difference why bother.

Not used barrett or bairds but prefer the same recipe made with simpsons maris otter or Weyerman pilsner to Joe white ale or joe white pils. When I say same recipe I mean same with ale or maris and another, separate, different recipe with JW pils VS wey pils (or dingemans pils).

I disagree with stu too - among my first AGs were a stout and a porter with lots of spec malt - simpsons maris makes a difference. Just a preference and I still enjoyed the beers with JW.

I use maris for UK and US and euro pils (wey or dingemans) for euro style beers. I go one further and use German for alts, pale lagers, bocks etc and Belgian for any belgian style.

I use munich I (weyermans) and Vienna regularly too but before you go buying willy nilly, you need to take QLD Kev's advice and work out which style of beers you want.

For me Maris and Pils would see me through if I had to only buy large quantities of large malts. The rest can be bought on an individual basis depending on the brew schedule.