Are there any websites with information on what the maximum percentage of the grist particular malts should be? I would like some kind of a starting point for experimenting with roasted malts.
I think your taste buds are more important than someone else’s opinions.
But, there are general guidelines regarding the maximum percentage of some grains and malts. They wouldn’t be hard and fast, but they would provide the OP some guidance.
Pick up a copy of “Designing Great Beer” by Ray Daniels.
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Designing Great Beers is definitely a good idea. Some of the bigger HBS online have guidelines in the malt descriptions too. Northern Brewer and Rebel Brewer come to mind.
Also check out the webpage of whatever maltster you are buying product from. They will often have recomendations.
Yep, and that’s a good place to start. But where you finish is up to your individual tastes.
Designing Great Beers is a great book. It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but what I remember, in a nutshell, is “90% base malt, 10% misc specialty grains.” You can’t go wrong with that. When I first started brewing I made too many “special-grain soup” beers. After reading Daniel’s book my recipes got a lot simpler and my beer a lot better.
Agreed to all. I have a copy of Designing great beers on my coffee table, and I refer to it every time I am looking to make a style of beer that I haven’t made before. I usually use that to formulate my first recipe, and then I adjust different ingredients to push the flavor I want in my personal beer. The really nice part about it is that when you are looking at specialty grains, it will tell you how people arrived at certain flavors. For example, with roast barley vs Black (Patent) Malt in porters.
Briess has suggested percentages in most of their pdf files. Weyermann has them listed on their site.
Can’t recall the source, but “no more than a pound of crystal per 5 gallon batch,” is also a good rule of thumb to go by when formulating recipes. You be the final judge, though.
Based upon DGB I settled upon no more than 8% total of specialty grains and unless it is a stout or the like and then no more than 2% very dark malts like Special B or Black Patent. For my brewery that is. The 10% is pretty good number for a ROT.
When steeping it might not hurt to bump up the amount a bit. Thoughts on this?
At a year into this disease, I find this to be the truth. I know what I want to target but I usually end up in the mid 6% range. I find this to be my happy medium and enjoy the end product.
I would like to counter the idea that you can’t go higher than 10% specialty malt. Beers that have a strong roast character often use an equal or greater amount of crystal malt as well. For a Robust Porter or RIS you could easily use 10% crystal and another 10% roasted malt. In the end its all about the flavor and balance of the beer. I would tend to agree that 10% is approaching the maximum for crystal malt but there are some good beers out there that use a bit more than that. I was looking at Jamil’s Dopplebock recipe the other day and he uses 2lbs of Caramunich in a 6 gallon batch. That beer won gold at NHC…just sayin’.
I agree with you and pretty much said the same thing. Then it was pointed out to me that what was wanted was a general guideline. I agree that 10% is a good place to start, but by all means don’t limit yourself to that. I have recipes with much more crystal than that. Let your tastebuds be your guide and experiment.
Jamil would admit that the recipe that wins competition often isn’t the recipe that makes the beer closest to style. You need to play to the judges expectations, which sometimes means making a parody of the style. So a beer like this or a Scottish Ale might be made with a lot of crystal malt for competition, while a real example might contain little to none.