A silly idea occurred to me not long ago - how much crystal malt can I put into a beer? Today’s post is about taking a good thing to silly extremes. This is the first in what I hope will be a fun little series of posts where I push the limits of various aspects of brewing.
Wow, interesting! I’m sure the Extra Dark Crystal is plenty roasty, I believe that for sure. Very curious to see where the final gravity comes out, as well as perception of sweetness and body.
I know somebody who made the mistake of making a beer with 100% honey malt.
Hopefully you will have better luck.
Well, it’s a 1.75 gallon batch. Five pounds of grain, a half ounce of hops, about 75 grams of DME are all I have invested in it. If it’s an absolute failure… hey, I know for sure that 90% is too much!
I was really surprised at how roasty it was. This wort had a pretty unique flavor, that’s for sure.
Homebrewdad, could you change your link to http: from https:? Using https: makes my browser think you are a scammer.
Very interesting. By the end, you had me hoping to hear results despite the disclaimer that it would be a couple weeks. I look forward to hearing the outcome
Link changed. Though that seems like really odd behavior - the entire point of https is to protect you from scammers.
The https comes from the fact that I was logged in to BU when I copy/pasted the link. I have the site set so that if you are logged in, everything goes on https so as to prevent people from, say, intercepting any data you enter.
Sorry, I will post results as soon as I have them! I do have airlock activity, suggesting that SOMETHING is happening.
Me, too. It turned out surprising well.
The variety of feedback I am getting on this is really intriguing. I’m being told that it won’t convert - even after I quoted the Briess web page where they say conversion already happened in the grain, been told that I need to add amylase to make this work (utterly contrary to the entire point of this silly experiment), that it will be nasty, that it sounds delicious. Heck, now I have two references to 100% honey malt beers with different opinions of them.
I’m not going to try to evaluate this as a “good” beer - that is too subjective. My goal for calling this an experiment a success or failure is based on pure numbers - did I end up with reasonable attenuation (i.e. finished below 1.020). If so, I will certainly give it a subjective evaluation (i.e. see if it tastes nasty or not), but if it is a success, I plan to bring a few bottles to HBC this year.
Sorry, I hate wait, too. I’ve had a lot of fun with this, and hated to just sit on the idea; I wanted to share it while it was fresh. I’ll publish my findings as soon as I can! I followed up on the Red X/Irish red, I promise to not leave you hanging here!
Sorry, I was trying to be funny. I’m terrible with that in real life, I don’t know why I try in type 
I look forward to your impressions of this experiment when it concludes.
No need to apologize, I think I took it in the spirit it was intended. 
Maybe not directly inline with your intent but have you seen these threads?
Testing fermentability of crystal malt:
Are crystal malts completely unfermentable?
https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=9465.0
Crystal Malts Reduce Fermentability: Fact or Fiction?
Very interesting reading, to be sure!
This might be interesting also…http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/Homebrewing/FAQs.htm#a
Thanks for the link, Denny. I had been looking at some of the information, as well. I think that the Briess blog link on how crystal malt is made is super informative.
That and more info is in Experimental Homebrewing, also.
Time to dig that one out…
FYI, your choice of chalk was likely the reason your mash pH still ran low. It’s not all that soluble in the mash.
FYI, your choice of chalk was likely the reason your mash pH still ran low. It’s not all that soluble in the mash.
Two things.
-
It’s all I had. I’m aware that pickling lime would be preferable. I only had chalk due to an accidental purchase. My water is usually very high in pH, and I have never needed to raise my pH in five years of brewing.
-
This is my third brewday in a row (and fourth batch) so affected. My water company has recently changed something - it’s all over the community facebook group. Our friend could not buy her tropical fish when she had planned due to not being able to get the pH up enough.
So while the chalk is likely a factor, the lower than reported pH is probably a bigger issue.