Staple Grain Varieties

[Renegade]

As I push further through this hobby, the grain usage increases with each batch. Whilst I am still doing extract (or partial? Call it what you will )brews, i'm now up to close to 1kg of grain per batch, which is mini-mashed or steeped. So now that the time has come to order more supplies, I'm wondering which grains to get. Typically i enjoy making pale & amber ales, but also keen on being able to rip out the odd porter.

So..... what grains to buy? 4kg of Pilsener malt for starters. Lately I have been roasting a portion of this cracked grain, once for an hour @ 200c, and it appears to have imparted a burnt coffee flavour to the porter that's soon to be bottled - so no true taste test yet(I was aiming for chocolate! Never mind, burnt coffee could be good too) and recently roasted some Pils at 150c, spray-wetting every 15 minutes, for a biscuit malt flavour to a reently pitched hopburst.

For small batch mini-mashes, it it really that essential to have a wide variety of grains at one's disposal, or it is feasible to roast one's own pale malt to a style appropriate to the next beer being made - quite simply using limited resources to their maximum capability.

My forthcoming shopping list includes 4kg Pilsener malt, and 1kg each of chocolate, crystal and cara. What are people's thoughts on this as a staple stock ?

 

[Pennywise]

Instead of the Choc malt have a crack at Choc Chit malt, IMO a whole lot better if you're after a really choccy taste.

I thought it was no good to roast grains that have been cracked? Something about tannins?

 

[Renegade]

Mmm, I saw Choc Chit on Ross' site (I think). But teh supplier Im ordering through doesnt stock it 9and his grain is cheaper, and free postage, so its not worth the overall extra cost just to get this. Maybe next time)

RE: Cracked Grain Roasting - I don't see how, either way the husks are being exposed to the same amount of heat (although there's up to twice as much surface area - ie the underside). I thought the only potential issue would be overdoing the malt itself, being that it's exposed and not shielded by husk.

If anyone can offer an opinion on this, please do. Perhaps I need to get uncracked grain (and then develop a way to crush it - rolling pin ? There's no justification in a mill purchase at this stage)

 

[manticle]

I've been in a similar position recently. I've just started making all Grain and placed a big (for me) grain order today. I'd look at keeping it simple - buying a good size quantity of base malt (say 5 kg each of ale and pils.) Then top that up with a kilo each of various specialty which will enable you to make a wide variety of brews. Depending on how big your grain bill grows that should keep you for 5 - 10 brews of different types.

If you're only doing 1 kg grain bills I can't imagine you'd need to go overboard with getting the most expensive malts or seven different grades of crystal.

I just ordered 10 kg JW ale and a couple of kilos each of various specialty malts (choc, crystal and roast/black). I have about 16 kg left of a bag of JW pils and a lot of biscuit malt (maybe too much -I just got excited during the Vic bulk buy) so I'm in kind of a similar situation. This will enable me to make stout, brown ale, pilsner, lager, golden ale and a million varieties of each one by varying amounts, combinations, hops and yeasts.

 

[Fourstar]

IMO, it comes down to your brewing and styles you generally focus on and mroe importaintly if you are mashing, if you are not mashing, i'd go just for a big cache of specialties and crack yourself when required. if i was to build up a malt stock (im AG) mine would be something like this:

Base malts: Sack of each/ full mayo bucket:
Ale Malt or Pilsner
Maris Otter
Munich
Wheat (probably a 1/2 bucket)

Specialty: several kilos/ half size mayo bucket
Carapils
Light Crystal - around 10-29 Lovibond
Medium Crystal - 30- 69 Lovibond
Dark Crystal - 70 Lovibond+
Carafa Special - Dehusked Chocolate malt.. really smooth, no husk astringency.
Roast Barley
Melanoiden


Then adjuncts... Rice, Polenta, Flaked Barley, sucrose and Rice Hulls but I'd probably buy these on the fly where required.

Its a few Several hundred $$ of malt to buy up front, I'd probably look at restocking some specialties every 2-3 months at the rate i brew.

One way to work out what you are best to get is to have a look at the history of your recipes and tally the grains you have used the most to forecast what you may use in the future and buy accordingly.

 

[manticle]

Still working these things out - is the main difference between the light, dark and medium crystal the colour or is there a noticeable flavour difference too? Until my brews start getting more complicated (read until I confidently know what I'm doing) I'm just looking at generic medium crystal and getting other characteristics from roasted spec malts.

 

[tdh]

Yes to your flavour query. Flavour can go from caramel in the lighter varieties up to plum/raisin in the darker (e.g.CaraAroma).

Go for a British Medium Crystal (120-150 EBC). I bet most pommy ales have got a percentage of this in it.

tdh

 

[manticle]

So different enough from lighter coloured crystal and different enough from roasted malts to be worthy of inclusion in a grain bill?

Thanks - it's something I'll be keeping in mind for future. Wanted to keep it simple this time around but adding a few more base ,alts and specialty malts to the inventory as I go is probably not a bad idea.


Munich and wheat will be the next bases on the cards and maybe a dark crystal and a melanoiden for specialty. I want to understand the flavours I'm playing with though as a few of my extracts were a bit of a mish mash of things I thought I should be doing. Will be playing with some SMASH beers for a while and non smash will still be as simple as is practical.

 

[Fourstar]

Hey manticle

Rough description on specialties

Light crystal - raw sugar-refined sugar sweet, really light toffee as you push towards 30L~
Medium Crystal -toffee sweet of various darkening.
Dark Crystal - Dark toffee/bitternsweet toffee@80Lov~ and plum and raisin flavours @ 120L+

Roast Barley(unmalted) = Coffee
Choc/carafa = bittersweet chocolate
Black (patent) malt = Burnt/acrid/charcoal... always seems to be another level above coffee flavours or roast barley

 

[manticle]

Thanks for that. Have used a generic no label/information crystal from cellar plus in many brews - seems to give sweetness and body and I would guess it's a medium. Choc and roast barley I've used plenty (love that roast barley coffee flavour in a stout - drinking one at the moment) and black I've only ever used as extract (also in the stout I'm currently imbibing). Plan is to make AG versions of some of the brews I've made successfully as partials with little bits of tweaking and improving.

Dark Crystal description sounds delectable. I keep thinking of a bearded nerd making puppet animations though.

 

[Fourstar]

Plan is to make AG versions of some of the brews I've made successfully as partials with little bits of tweaking and improving.
Dark Crystal description sounds delectable.

Yeah its best way to go IMO. You will be disappointed after your 1st few i think. Especially when you make a beer you thaught was tops as an extract and its now all out of balance as you have so much more of a malt backbone! Off to the drawing board to up the hops and adjust your specialty malts. I found my recipes changed dramatically once i started doing AG, notably the specialty malts decreased as a result. Sometimes you dont always find its as easy as subbing extract for base malt and leaving the specialties as-is. it works in some circumstances in others it can be OTT. Its ok, you will find your sweet spot either way!

Oh Dark Crystal.. its quite tasty. Some find it OTT and prefer the lighter crystals, others find it the inverse. e.g. i usually go more light than dark in most beers.. usually highly hopped/hopped forward beers and the reverse for lower hopped/ malt forward beers. Be careful with the 120+lov crystals.. they can sneak up on you.

 

[manticle]

Grain bills got to around 3-4 kilos in my last few partials so hopefully I won't be too out of balance. I have also recently worked out that the majority of my grain bill should be a base malt with specialties and extracts filling in the gaps so most of those kilos were usually ale or pils.

It was the main reason I decided to make the leap - there seemed no point adding anything if I was going to use that much grain. That said - the stout will be one I will have to play with. I've always been happy with my stouts - whether kk, k'nb, extract, extract specialty or partial but there's always been tinned something and dried something going into them. Don't want to ruin my so far reasonable record on the blacks.

Anyway cheers for the info and sorry to Renegade for the hijack.

 

[buttersd70]

Andrew (and OP, for that matter), go to the craftbrewer (no affiliation, yada yada) website and read through the descriptions for all of the maalt varieties. Ross's descriptions are as per the manufacturer's descriptions, and for the most part, are right on the money as far as what the actual flavour is....it really helps to put things into context.

fwiw, I am a big fan of the weyermann range, particularly their cara- varieties (read crystal....cara- is the weyerman tm for their crystal varieties). I have absolutely no issues whatsoever in using German malts in English (or any other type of) beer....the range of flavour, and the subtle shifts between cara types is phenomenal.

 

[tdh]

Weyermann is the ducks nuts. Their spec malts are awesome. Just love CaraRed, CaraAmber, Mel and Rauch.

tdh

 

[buttersd70]

Weyermann is the ducks nuts. Their spec malts are awesome. Just love CaraRed, CaraAmber, Mel and Rauch.

tdh

You missed the best one.....CaraAroma! ooooohhh, just thinking about caraaroma gets me all wobbly in t'knees.... :icon_drool2:

edit: for additional emphasis.

 

[tdh]

Damn straight! Shocking oversight!!!
Just used it again in a FE Stout, noice.

tdh

 

[Maxt]

If I could only have 4 they would be:
Marris Otter
Weyermann Pils
Choc chit
Munich

 

[Renegade]

Anyway cheers for the info and sorry to Renegade for the hijack.

No worries, mate. It's still all good info for me - thanks for asking the questions !

Andrew (and OP, for that matter), go to the craftbrewer (no affiliation, yada yada) website and read through the descriptions for all of the maalt varieties.

Yep, I discovered that handy little 'database' a couple of weeks ago, and it's a great way to find at least a brief description of the character.

May I throw the question out again ? HB79 touched on the idea of tannin flavours being released when home-roasting CRACKED grain. Any substance to that ? The last couple of brews I've roasted a portion of Pils, thinking I'm a smart little bugger by expanding my malt range just by popping the oven on

It was suggested to me last night that there might be enzyme conversion during this process, If so, this would turn my base malt into what might be deemed as a specialty malt...... no matter, I mashed straight, unroasted Pils as well.

Both beers Ive been experimenting with using this process are still in the fermenter, but I can say from the hydro tube taste test of the porter (roasted a few hundred grams at 200 for an hour, along with some mashed Pils & medium crystal), It's really going to make an impact on the final beer once it's carbed & chilled.

 

[tdh]

Ok then, my 4 would be -

WEY Pils
WEY Melanoidin
WEY Munich 2
WEY Carafa Special 2
WEY CaraRed

tdh

 

[3G]

I think that is 5 TDH!!!
Have those malts on hand and you can brew a heap of style with them. Loving carafa spec II and cara red at the moment