Domestic Aussie 2-row Question

[HumDum]

I'll admit I'm undereducated when it comes to domestic Australian Malts, specifically your 2-row Pale varieties. I know the charactersitics of a few of Domestic American 2-row Pales but I'm curious what y'all use for your Pale 2-row additions. What kind of color are you used to getting from it, how well does it convert, does it lend itself to one water variety or another. Do you have to supplement it with a 6-row for more complete mash conversion. Sorry for the barrage of questions but I'm itching to learn more about it.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

We have mostly Schooner and Sloop malts here. Now a country customer of mine were telling they grew another variety exclusively for Coopers.

they also told me that technically Schooner is a better malt than Sloop, but that the Schooner growers seemed to be less careful or something so that Schooner malt tends to be full of stem material and other rubbish, even stones!

I use mostly Thos Fawcett floor malted Maris Otter/Golden Promise in my ales or German Pils/Munich malts for my lagers. Oz lager malt is good, like your six row, for when a high proportion of unmalted adjuncts are part of the grist: it is of high diastatic power.

Jovial Monk

 

[HumDum]

We have mostly Schooner and Sloop malts here. Now a country customer of mine were telling they brewed another variety exclusively for Coopers.

they also told me that technically Schooner is a better malt than Sloop, but that the Schooner growers seemed to be less careful or something so that Schooner malt tends to be full of stem material and other rubbish, even stones!

I use mostly Thos Fawcett floor malted Maris Otter/Golden Promise in my ales or German Pils/Munich malts for my lagers. Oz lager malt is good, like your six row, for when a high proportion of unmalted adjuncts are part of the grist: it is of high diastatic power.

Jovial Monk

[post="47108"][/post]​

Thanks JM. Is it difficult to get 6-row in your parts? I assumed Maris Otter was common as it is here for certain styles and by personal preference.

 

[Dunkel_Boy]

Joe White is another domestic one, they are about 10 minutes drive from my place.
Their malts are pretty good (except I hate their crystal) and their 'traditional pale' is very good to use, it doesn't have the toastiness of some others (MO, and another Australian malt) but converts well and you end up with quite a good beer.

 

[Chatty]

I'm not too sure about your comment JM regarding the care put into growing schooner. Growers get docked quite severely or their truckload of grain gets rejected if they deliver grain contaminated with sticks, stones, sand etc so they usually make bloody sure it goes in clean.

If there are any problems then it may be that Schooner is a more squat variety - making it harder to harvest close to the ground without collcecting the odd bit of crap in your sample. I wouldn't think this is the case as Schooner is a variety grown in the southern parts of Australia where the crops are generally pretty good with regards to height and harvestability. In any case, I can't see the commercial malsters using grain that they haven't screened and removed contaminants.

The other major variety grown in Australia is Gairdner, and there is a new one just out called Baudin.

Paul

 

[chiller]

JM ... quote "they also told me that technically Schooner is a better malt than Sloop, but that the Schooner growers seemed to be less careful or something so that Schooner malt tends to be full of stem material and other rubbish, even stones!"

I'm really suprised you would post such inaccurate material.

I have used various Australian malts from many different sources and one thing I have noted is the quality of the product.

There appears to be a touch of international eletism in your post - intentionally or not. I have only ever had non barley bits in one lot of Maris Otter but never any of the Australian Grain.

The beers I have made have been no different using local or imported ale malts. I do choose to use Wyermann Pils malt though as it has a unique flavour profile which I like.

As for 6 row grain, apparently we don't need to resort to those strains as the characteristics of our barley's are very good to excellent for conversion of moderate amounts of adjucts.

I imagine the majority of huskiness and astringency problems reported by American home brewers can be attributed in part to the use of 6 row malt. It appears to have a higher husk to starch ratio which I believe would contribute to extraction of tannins if the sparge was not tightly controlled.

Hopefully Wes smith can shead some factual light on this topic.

Steve.

 

[HumDum]

Hey Steve, I sent you a PM. Take a look.

 

[beersom]

JM is right in regards to stones etc in schooner batches. A malster recently told me that carlton were complaining to them about damage to their mills from stones in with the malt. This is apparently because the maltings screening process can only remove rubbish larger or much smaller than the grain size hence any stones etc that are roughly the same size as grain can get through without them being able to do much about it. This creates a problem at the brewery mill when the barley will crush but stones will not......
I don't know whether it was just this maltings plant, or if others were facing the dilema as well.

 

[wessmith]

Thomas me man, youse been sucking on those BIG ales again? Malt doesnt grow - it is man made. And barley aint brewed - its grown.

Anyway, lets talk about barley strains. The Schooner and Sloop varieties are both quite old and are certainly not in volume production anymore. There was some Schooner grown last season but generally the varieties are as Paul noted - Gairdner and now Baudin. And these strains vary slightly from state to state to suit the different climatic conditions.

Most of the barley used for the Malt Craft range is Gairdner from NW Victoria and the Mallee districts. These malts are all produced for us at the Joe White plants in Ballarat and Joe White also produce the malt for Coopers at their 2 Adelaide plants.

Steve is exactly right about barley and malt quality - produce rubbish and you loose the market. Malting grade barley is always at a price premium with the best low protein and plumper grains selling at a much better price than feed grade. Can also confirm we do not grow any high protein 6 row in Australia.

The English barleys MO, Golden Promise and Halcyon only exists today because maltsters have them contract grown for them. They are low yielding plants and were superseded long ago by more modern strains but the English micro inductry still insists on using (and is willing to pay for) the premium malts made from these barleys.

Wes

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Hmmm re the rubbish getting into Schooner, I was quoting the barley growers.

humdum, the only way we can get 6row is to import it from the US, a pricey option!

JM

 

[Sean]

The English barleys MO, Golden Promise and Halcyon only exists today because maltsters have them contract grown for them. They are low yielding plants and were superseded long ago by more modern strains but the English micro inductry still insists on using (and is willing to pay for) the premium malts made from these barleys.

Wes

[post="47165"][/post]​

In my experience it's not so much the English micros as certain old family brewers who are willing to pay the premium for Maris Otter et al. All the micros I've spoken to about malt are happy using the more modern variety, even those who swair by the traditional floor maltings (Tucker's, Fawcetts, etc). Either way, the number of breweries using Maris Otter is tiny.

I've got no data to back me up, but the Powells floor malted pale malt I've just starting using seems to be remarkably close to the floor malted stuff I was used to using in England (from Tucker's of Newton Abbot - England's smallest and probably most traditional floor maltings).