Single-Malt beers

[nateo]

If I want to stay with the fuller beer profiles like a scottish ale, what would anyone recommend on the type of grain to try first?  A british pale 2-row, MO, or something else.

Thanks!

If you haven’t seen it already, google skotrat’s traquair house recipe. If you can get MO, that’s good. If you can get any kind of floor-malted MO, that’s even better. I went to the brew store and just chewed on some base grains, and picked the one with the most flavor and aroma. I ended up with a sack of Golden Promise. It’ll depend on what the brew store has in stock, and what they have that’s fresh.

If it’s hard to chew, then it won’t mill well. “Friable” malt is easier to mill and work with and should be more efficient. If it’s hard to chew and doesn’t taste like much, or tastes like hay, or tastes like cardboard, it probably won’t make great single-malt beer.

[morticaixavier]

I have been enjoying this discussion and thank everyone for their input.  Currently just put my 5th AG batch to ferment, an oatmeal stout that has 9 different grains in the bill.  Also have been reading Tess and Mark Szamatulski’s Clone Brews where I find many beers made with a primary grain and only one other specialty grain which I find very curious.  Keeping the bill simple but producing very different beers.  So I think my next beer will be a SMaSH just for the education of malt and hop flavors.  Anyone have a good starter SMaSH for someone who is new to the AG brewing?  I have done a scottish ale, porter and a cream ale from my own recipes which turned out fine from my biased opinion but also all liked by my wife, neighbors and co-workers.  Just bottled a pale ale so I have to wait and see how it did.

My favorite grain for a SMaSH with lots of complexity is Munich 10L. You can do an ordinary bitter with Munich and the British hop of your choice and that’s nice. Goldings is good.

[weithman5]

i am going to make a run of double malt beers. mostly 2 row and then 2 row that i have modified myself to make vienna, crystal, munich etc.  don’t know that i would compare these to same brew but with commercial adds or not.

[dcdwort_comcast.net (dcdwort)]

dang work getting in the way of beer research!  Anyway I just checked out skotrat’s traquair house recipe and will look for the Golden Promise pale 2-row, might even has some N. Brewer hops in the fridge.  Looks like I need to start doing some small batch brews so I can test many variations.
Thanks everyone!

[denny]

@weithman5

i am going to make a run of double malt beers. mostly 2 row and then 2 row that i have modified myself to make vienna, crystal, munich etc.  don’t know that i would compare these to same brew but with commercial adds or not.

You can’t really make some of those malts unless you start with green malt.  Here’s some info…

Malt Production

[morticaixavier]

@denny

@weithman5

i am going to make a run of double malt beers. mostly 2 row and then 2 row that i have modified myself to make vienna, crystal, munich etc.  don’t know that i would compare these to same brew but with commercial adds or not.

You can’t really make some of those malts unless you start with green malt.  Here’s some info…

Malt Production

it may not be exactly the same but you can re-wet the malt and treat it as green. This works for crystal malts for sure, although it can be tricky to keep all the sugars in the malt. I read about one person doing it by soaking the pale malt and then sealing it in a vacuum seal bag and ‘mashing’ in a crockpot boil-in-bag style. You then re-kiln. But you’re right Denny, it’s not exactly the same.

[denny]

@morticaixavier

But you’re right Denny, it’s not exactly the same.

Which was all I was saying.  You’ll make something, but it won’t be exactly what you set out to make.

[nateo]

I’ve found the biggest problem with making my own crystal was hitting the right color. The endosperms get darker than the husks. Dang if it doesn’t taste just like the crystal malt I buy though. Maybe someone with a better palate could tell a difference, but I can’t.

[weithman5]

i have brewed with homemade munich (beer goes in to lager tomorrow) which tasted great when i checked.  i did not resoak this malt.  i made a couple pounds of crystal (no idea where it will end up in terms of lovibond) and this i soaked over night.  the malts flavor when eating a few kernals is definitely different than the malt started. i recognise it won’t be spot on with commercially available, but then they don’t always match from one maltster to the next.