Types of Malt

[Hoppkins]

Im trying to get my head around how the different malts influence colour flavour etc.

I can see almost all recipes styles bar some use pale malt as the base and crystal/chocolate etc malts in much lesser proportions.

What would an entire crystal malt ale turn out like? Do any recipes use other malts than pale/mild/lager in greater proportion?

[Garth]

I haven't done it, but a pure crystal brew would be minging, also crystal has no diastatic power

any more than about 20% crystal in a brew be sickly and cloying.

[TC2642]

Agree with Garth, pretty grim, try using smaller quantities first and tasting what the various malts are like before toning in a beer to your own requirements. The most crystal I have ever used was around 500gms in a APA with an OG of 1057, it turned out really well because the Safale 05 yeast took the gravity down so low, and I didn't want a too dry a beer, there was a nice balance.

[Hoppkins]

I understand. Thanks for the replies!

[steve_flack]

Do any recipes use other malts than pale/mild/lager in greater proportion?

I've seen a Munich Dunkel (a dark lager) recipe that is nearly all Munich Malt with a smidgen of carafa special for colouring. It's in Jamil Zainasheff's book.

[oblivious]

Munich Malt works great in a lot of ale recipe, especially for American hop IPA's



also just for fun in theory you can make a beer with 100% Aromatic malt

[steve_flack]

also just for fun in theory you can make a beer with 100% Aromatic malt

I once tried chewing a bit of melanoidin/aromatic malt....I could taste it for ages afterwards.

[oblivious]

also just for fun in theory you can make a beer with 100% Aromatic malt

I once tried chewing a bit of melanoidin/aromatic malt....I could taste it for ages afterwards.

Interesting

From what I heard the beer was not the great

[Barley Water]

I have some Munich Dunkel on tap right now and the base malt is Munich malt with a little carafa II for color and a touch of Meloidin to kick up the malt impression just a little more. I do a triple decoction and ferment using the usual German lager yeasts, it turns out just great. Not my idea of a light beer however.

I have also seen formulations using almost 100% Vienna malt (although I have not yet tried making a beer like that myself). I think that later in the spring, I will try it as I would like to put together a Vienna lager which is a little lighter than an Octoberfest (will go down easier in the HOT Texas summers).

The only thing about using these more highly kilned malts is that they are not supposed to have the diastatic power of the more lightly kilned varieties. I suspect it would be a bad idea to try and dump too much corn or rice into the mash with them since you run the risk of not being able to convert it all (although I have never tried it myself so I would defer to others with more experience).

[TC2642]

Forgot to add that you can do this with Smoked malt aswell, although I would go against making a beer with a large percentage of peat smoked malt in it. 125gms gives a noticable taste in 23ltrs.

[Aleman]

As mentioned you cxan make a beer with 100% weyermann smoked malt in it . . . . its not bad, I've made a couple of Smoked beers one had 30% Smoked malt and the other was more than 50% (Vossy My Schwarzbier ) In neither case was it overpowering (IMO) . . . . The peat smoked malt is supposed to be very phenolic though

[BarryNL]

Forgot to add that you can do this with Smoked malt aswell, although I would go against making a beer with a large percentage of peat smoked malt in it. 125gms gives a noticable taste in 23ltrs.

I did have a strange German beer that was really heavy on the smoked malt at the House of 100 Beers in Berlin. I was like drinking bacon.

[oblivious]

My smoke porter used 18-20% rauchmalt, but next time i would up it to around 30%