Toasting malt

General Homebrew Discussion
1

I’ve got a big sack of local Pilsner malt.  It’s very light.  I think the barley variety is called Newdale.  I want to make a Scottish style ale.  Not necessarily a wee heavy, but something like a McEwan or a Belhaven (which I haven’t had in years).  I have about 3 lbs of Munich malt, and a little less than a pound of black patent.

Would you folks recommend toasting some of the Pilsner to darken it up or not bother?  If so how much?  I figure I’ll use about 12 lb of malt total for 5 gallons.  No adjuncts.

2

For a wee heavy, I wouldn’t. I’d use the Pils straight with a 1-3% addition of black. Then take the first gallon of your runnings and boil it down as far as you dare - at least to a quart or a pint left. Then dose that into the rest of the wort that you collect

3

Thanks, I read about that but I’m concerned about sherry like flavors in the beer which I’m not a fan of.  I don’t mind an occasional glass of good sherry though!  I’ll try a lesser reduction.  I want to slug the stuff down in January and February.  I’d been doing bocks for a couple of winters, but want to switch up.

4

IMO, the boil down is only appropriate for a week heavy.  For a lower gravity Scottish I wouldn’t recommend it.

5

I like to add a little victory and/or biscuit to liven up US 2row when I want to do a malt forward style and its all I have. I usually bulk buy base malt.

6

I’m thinking of using the Munich malt I’ve got to do something similar.  I’ve never toasted malt, but way back I lived next door to some Ur-hippies who brewed and I remember them roasting malt in turkey roaster pans in their Queen Atlantic wood cook stove.

7

Using a little toasted malt in a wee heavy probably isn’t to style, but you should definitely do it anyway even if you don’t use it in this beer. The aromas it creates in the kitchen are absolutely amazing.

8

Yeah, the time I made my own Crystal malt my house smelled fantastic.

9

Did you actually make crystal ?  Where did you get the green malt?

10

I followed the procedure that was on the Basic Brewing podcast years ago that called for essentially stewing base malt in its own husks at mash temps in the oven, then raising the temps to dry it out and toast it a bit at the same time. I doubt I got anything near full conversion, but it got significantly sweeter during the mash. It ended up in the ballpark of a C40, but still retained some of the Golden Promise flavor from the base malt. It was a fun DIY experiment, and it was pretty tasty in the bitter I used it in.

But no, I did not use green malt, and it was definitely not a true crystal malt.