Top Ten Specialty Grains To Stock

[Thirsty Boy]

I inventoried Brewing Classic styles and also my own recipe data base. Listed all the malts that appear (or a suitable local substitute) and the number of recipes that they appear in. Giving me a descending list of malts to keep on hand. I picked the top 8 or 10 with tweaks to make sure I included my favorite recipes and my taste preferences.

So I keep these on hand at all times - this enables me to brew almost any beer I want on a whim and without a trip to the LHBS

2.5kg of

Munich
Wheat
Roasted Barley
Medium Choc
Vienna
Light crystal
Medium Crystal
Amber (this is specific to my brewing and probably not too useful in such large amounts to others)

and a kilo or so of

Dark Crystal
Melanoidin
Carafa Spec II

and usually a couple of kgs of DME and a bag of rice hulls

I tried keeping adjuncts like oats, raw wheat, poelnta etc etc... but why? when the local shop or our pantry has them.

A process I highly recommend for brewers planning on developing recipes is to buy a small amount of a LOT of different specialty malts and to make infusions of them. Filter and taste the malt "tea" this give you a really good idea of how the flavours of the different specialty malts compare to each other and allows you to make substitutions or alterations to recipes.

For instance - I use a very lightly flavoured base malt. I like to use Marris Otter Ale malt - but I get my bland malt for free. I decided it was my duty to work out how to brew good beer with the free malt that the universe was providing me. So I tasted a lot of worts... and too me, the vast majority of the difference between a Marris Otter Pale Ale malt, and the malt I use - is the flavour that is to be found in Bairds Amber malt. Substituting 1-2% of my pale malt for amber give me a very similar wort to a pure Pale Ale malt.

 

[Barry]

General
caraaroma
melanoidan
amber (Belgian if you can get it)
brown
carafra special I
caramalt
crystal 90 (Bairds etc)
dark crystal (Bairds etc)
caramunichs

Special
roast barley
carafra special III
crystal wheat
roast wheat

 

[3G]

Thanks Guys for the ideas, have decided on 1kilo each
Cara aroma
carafa specII
Cara red
Cara anber
Cara pils
Bairds brown malt
Cara munich I and III
Roast barley

have loads of choc and 150crystal on hand as well as BB ale Wey pils and Munich

 

[Hutch]

For instance - I use a very lightly flavoured base malt. I like to use Marris Otter Ale malt - but I get my bland malt for free. I decided it was my duty to work out how to brew good beer with the free malt that the universe was providing me. So I tasted a lot of worts... and too me, the vast majority of the difference between a Marris Otter Pale Ale malt, and the malt I use - is the flavour that is to be found in Bairds Amber malt. Substituting 1-2% of my pale malt for amber give me a very similar wort to a pure Pale Ale malt.

Great post Thirsty - this is really useful information re approximating MO with cheaper domestic malt and a touch of Bairds amber.
With another Malt BB on the cards, I'm wondering wheather to continue buying Marris Otter for my English Ales, or save a few $$ and switch to JW Ale malt, and prop it up with specialty grain? Seems to be a general consensus that the imported MO is not justifiable for the marginal difference.

...Of course, having not tried TF floor-malted Marris Otter, I don't really know what I'm missing out on!!!