I just became aware of Full Pint Malt from GWM. Anybody brew with it yet? I would appreciate any feedback you may be able to provide, thanks.
Description from Farmhouse Brewing:
Full Pint Malt was developed at Oregon State University (originally named BCD-47) and is a spring 2-row barley. Described as “very fermentable and having a very nice extract… Full Pint wort also tasted very good, pre and post boiled… a very pleasant and strong fresh salted popcorn note. A very positive clean sweetness as well, with no harshness or astringency… the fermented Full Pint beer was clean, slightly estery, a bit tart and bready.”
The salted popcorn flavor description does give one pause for concern. Another fellow brewer recently made a blond ale primarily using this malt and gave this review:
"I’m pretty pleased with it…and the beer has been well received. Not quite 100% as I used a pinch of acid malt and a pinch of oats for body.
It’s quite pale…almost pilsner-esque, and has a cracker-y quality to it. Very clear wort, I barely vorlaufed at all before clear.
I’d definitely use it again, and I think it would be well suited to saisons. That cracker-y quality reminds me a lot of MFB malts."
Just a follow up on this malt. I brewed a SMASH blond ale with this malt in early Oct. which I’m just finishing. It cleared beautifully and exhibits a clean, tart flavor with a slight biscuit quality. It’s flavor is more distinct than other North American 2-row malts I’ve used (Briess, Rahr, CMC), but not in the league of some of the German malts like Weyermann or Bestmalz in terms of overall character.
I can’t say I detect any salty popcorn or diacetyl flavor. I used Safale US-05 at around 65 deg F., so I suspect the tart flavor is predominantly from the malt.
I know I’m resurrecting an old thread here, but I have brewed a couple beers with this malt now, so I figured I would chime in.
The comparisons to continental pilsner malt are off - this is more akin to a British pale malt. I got more color from it (in a SMaSH), than I ever got from Fawcett or Simpson’s MO or GP. Also, the salted popcorn thing isn’t how I would describe the flavor, but I understand where they’re coming from. I would describe it more as bready. However, where I find maris otter, optic, halcyon, and golden promise to all be pretty smooth and slightly sweet compared to, say GW Pale Ale Malt; this malt is not only sweet, but very bready and bold. I used it in a strong US-hopped bitter (SMaSH w/Ahtanum) and in an American brown ale. In both beers the base malt stood out too much for me. I won’t be buying it again, but I could see it working in smaller quantities in place of Vienna malt, perhaps.