They were a sponsor for a category in a local beer competition.
To my surprise I got a letter saying Congratulations for winning the Light/Hybrid category and it came with an ID number plus a phone number.
The certificate was good for a free bag of malt, my choosing!
I have ten gallons of late-season O-fest made with Cargill Munich lagering right now. The jury’s still out. I’ve used both the Pils and Munich from Cargill and everything’s been uninteresting so far, though I still have quite a bit left.
I have won sacks from cargille twice… the first time they let me get a sack of Dingemans Pale which was great, and the second I had to get “cargille” label only. I went for their euro style pils malt, and my efficiency went down the tubes (about 20% drop both with a single 150F infusion and a 120F rest, 150F sacc. rest). I loved the prize, but had a lot of frustration predicting my gravity with the cargille brand pils malt… both batches were way below the predicted gravity on a system that is extremely predictable. I am not sure if it was the sack or the product, so it may have just been a single sack of slack malt. The remainder sits unused until I run out of rahr malt.
Cargille’s data sheet on the product is virtually identical in composition to their pale malt. The key difference is a slightly lighter color. The main difference in the product description is a slight “grassiness” in the flavor. As I mentioned previously, I suspect the sack could have been slack malt (high moisture leading to low efficiency) but I do not have a scale that allows me to easily weigh 50 pounds on arrival. I loved the Dingemans product I received from them, and have a friend who swears by Cargille malt, but I did not have a good experience with the Cargill Euro Pils I received.
that’s very interesting about the grassiness comment - the German Pils I have on tap now (though its almost gone) has a very distinct grassy aroma that I thought was hops going bad, though I had not noticed it in the beers made right before and after with the same exact hops (Tett and Hall). I used 100% Cargill German/Euro Pils (not sure if there is a difference between the two). That might explain the grassy aroma!
I can’t disagree with the grassiness comment, though I couldn’t have identified the flavor by myself.
Does anyone notice a complete lack of head retention with these malts? I have made 20 gallons of beer, different styles, with two different Cargill malts. Each keg pours up with a normal sized head but it quickly dissipates, similar to glass of soda.
Overall I’m pretty unhappy with these malts, but it could be user error ???