Tell Me Your Top 5 Specialty Grains

[Jazzafish]

This shall help me start my specialty grain library to go with my base malts.

Basically, buy specialty malt to cover your next few brews as needed. Don't need to store it in bulk unless it is rare/not something that comes up often. Like Special B for example.

If you really want to keep something on a shelf to stand at attention, I suggest something over the colour spectrum:
English: Bairds Crystal, Chocolate and Roasted Barley
Euro: Weyermann carapils, carared/caramunich and carafa special 2

In the base malts I normally have an ale, pilsner, munich/vienna and wheat. Covers my moods in taste.

 

[ianh]

No particular order and extract brewer

CaraAmber
CaraAroma
CaraRed
CaraPils
Choc Chit malt

 

[Barry]

melanoidan
caraaroma
carafra specialI
amber (hopefully English)
a range of others eg Bairds crystal 90.

 

[beachy]

my favourites are

dingemans biscuit
pale choc
carared
brown
dark crystal
pale wheat (as specialty instead of carapils)

 

[raven19]

Thanks all, I have a number of recipes on the cards, however I figured while I was getting these particulr specialty grains I would get a number of others while I am at it.

A great spread of favourites there with some common ones too.

Thanks again!

Cheers!

 

[drsmurto]

English crystals - bairds and simpson, medium and dark.
Bairds amber/brown
Caramunich
Carafa special
Bairds Pale choc
Flaked barley/oats
Torrified wheat

I could go on but next time you are passing by drop in and check out my wall of spec malts. I think i have the full set...... :icon_chickcheers:

 

[raven19]

Dr S - do you try and keep around 1kg of each, more or less? (until it started getting used of course).

(I also now have 7 of those 48L tubs from the Green Shed - they just fit a 25kg sack of grain in them indeed. After one brew it shall fit a little better though!)

 

[drsmurto]

Dr S - do you try and keep around 1kg of each, more or less? (until it started getting used of course).

(I also now have 7 of those 48L tubs from the Green Shed - they just fit a 25kg sack of grain in them indeed. After one brew it shall fit a little better though!)

I buy 1kg at a time as the containers i have fit 1kg perfectly.

English crystals and torrified wheat i use more frequently so buy in 2-3kg lots.

 

[KHB]

I cant stop at 5 i have a big stand with kilo lots of them, plus some bulk base grains

 

[raven19]

After totalling the entries thus far (thanks all!) I have a most popular list of the following (3 or more votes) in no particular order:

Biscuit Malt
Chocolate
Medium Crystal
Dark Crystal
Carapils
Choc
Pale Choc
Caramunich
Melanoiden
Caraaroma
Carared
Brown Malt
Caraamber
Caramalt
Carafa 2

Plus many others with 1 or 2 votes...

Darn thats a lot of grains! :icon_cheers:

 

[raven19]

Just placed my Specialty Grain order for the following with Wayne:

Roast Barley

Carapils

Dark Crystal

Medium Crystal

Choc Malt

Cara Red

Cara Munich

Cara Aroma

Biscuit

That will cover my next 6 or so planned recipes and aligns pretty closely with the grains suggested by you all in this thread!

Next grain order will be a different set again to slowly build the library!

Cheers.

 

[Fourstar]

Just placed my Specialty Grain order for the following with Wayne:

Looks like a good mix there Raven!

Carapils/Dextrin malt, 1 Light SRM Crystal (carared), 2 medium crystals (Caramunich and Medium Crystal), 1 Dark Crystal, 1 Uber Dark Crystal (Caraaroma), Roasted Malt (Chocolate malt), Roasted raw grain (Roast Barley), and a highly kinled malt (biscuit).

Looks like you have covered all spectrums! Think about giving Carafa special a go too! There is something i just looooove about the dehusked chocolate malt, its so uber smooth, nutty and bittersweet! :icon_drool2:

 

[raven19]

Looks like you have covered all spectrums! Think about giving Carafa special a go too! There is something i just looooove about the dehusked chocolate malt, its so uber smooth, nutty and bittersweet! :icon_drool2:

Thanks mate, I already have it on the next list.
Its hard to hold back and not buy one of everything!
Give it time.... :icon_cheers:

 

[brettprevans]

lets see. when i got all my grains for starting AG (plus other grain from extracts etc) I got
generic light crystal
caraaoma (dark crystal)
Caramunich (medium crystal)
carapils
black patent
choc malt

now really i need to add some carared & Melanoiden to my collection.

 

[Pennywise]

Here's mine

Med Crystal
Choc Chit Malt
Caramalt
Roast Barley
Caraaroma

It is really mean of you to limit us to just 5 though

 

[raven19]

Not limiting the list to 5, but I thought it would make a great starting point!

Add more if you need to...

 

[Tony]

only 5?

I have about 25 in stock!

top 5

Bairds Pale Crystal (100 ebc)
Weyermann carahell
Bairds Chocolate malt
JW caramalt
Weyermann Choc wheat

love em.

high raters:

Carared
Carafa scec malts
Pale choc
Standard crystal
flaked barley
Flaked maize

yum yum

 

[Stubbie]

Bairds Pale Crystal (100 ebc)
Weyermann carahell
Bairds Chocolate malt
JW caramalt
Weyermann Choc wheat

Tony,

Find much difference b/w JW caramalt and W carahell?

 

[Tony]

hell yeah

The carahell is only 26 ebc and the caramalt is usually around the 50 mark

Carahell i use in beers i want to add a subtle honey sweetnes to ballance a bitterness or add a subtle maltiness to say......... a weizen. I use min 5% and up to 10%. Adds body and sweetness similar to carapills but better IMO.

Caramalt is a bit more in your face. I use it around the 5% mark in an Aussie pale ale or where i want a more prominent malt sweetness.

2 similar malts that can be used to two very different resuts

Thats the joy of brewing

cheers

 

[Stubbie]

Thanks Tony.

Haven't used caramalt but find I can detect the carahell sweetness in even small amounts ie. < 5%. For my palate, anyway. Got near 5 kg of carahell and have been too apprehensive about using much more than 5%. Gonna last me for ages unless I up the ante.

Cheers