An interesting but versatile malt? 25kg bag

[fury_tea]

I bought 25kg of Maris Otter Extra Pale earlier in the year. This has been a great choice and has made some of the best beers I have ever made. It's interesting as a lager malt, as a pale ale malt, as a SMASH or as the base malt in most recipes from porters to NEIPA.

I'm getting to the end of the bag now though and wondering what I should buy next. I'm tempted to get MOEP again because it's great in most recipes but wondered if anyone has any other suggestions?

I'm considering Vienna, pilsner or golden promise, but I'm open to other suggestions.

Thanks

 

[prog99]

These guys (and gals) are good.
https://www.craftymaltsters.co.uk/products2

 

[Sadfield]

Not really a suggestion for a change. I have a similar experience with Extra Pale Propino, now superseded by Extra Pale Planet. Versatile for many styles and more predictable brew days using the same malt, sack after sack.

 

[Libigage]

I bought 25kg of Maris Otter Extra Pale earlier in the year. This has been a great choice and has made some of the best beers I have ever made. It's interesting as a lager malt, as a pale ale malt, as a SMASH or as the base malt in most recipes from porters to NEIPA.

I'm getting to the end of the bag now though and wondering what I should buy next. I'm tempted to get MOEP again because it's great in most recipes but wondered if anyone has any other suggestions?

I'm considering Vienna, pilsner or golden promise, but I'm open to other suggestions.

Thanks

What was your best SMASH? Or best recipe, I'm thinking if getting some.

 

[fury_tea]

What was your best SMASH? Or best recipe, I'm thinking if getting some.

This is so simple but it's killer:
British 'pseudo lager' (SMaSH)

5kg extra pale Maris Otter
20g Opus (experimental British hop) @ 60 mins
20g Opus @ 10 mins
Yeast: 22g Nottingham

Followed a quick lagering technique and drank it all before it was truly 'ready' but it was just that good.

You could swap Opus for any citrussy hop to be honest, I just wanted to keep it to all British ingredients as a test. It comes out so crisp and tasty when the sun pops out for those first few garden beers at the beginning of summer!

 

[Libigage]

This is so simple but it's killer:
British 'pseudo lager' (SMaSH)

5kg extra pale Maris Otter
20g Opus (experimental British hop) @ 60 mins
20g Opus @ 10 mins
Yeast: 22g Nottingham

Followed a quick lagering technique and drank it all before it was truly 'ready' but it was just that good.

You could swap Opus for any citrussy hop to be honest, I just wanted to keep it to all British ingredients as a test. It comes out so crisp and tasty when the sun pops out for those first few garden beers at the beginning of summer!

Is that a full brew as I'm thinking of getting a 20 litre pot

 

[MickDundee]

These guys (and gals) are good.
https://www.craftymaltsters.co.uk/products2

Seconded. Their Pops Ale Malt is tremendous. The lager one is very good too but I haven’t been quite as blown away by it as I was by the Pop’s (I have made my 2 best lagers to date with it but I’m not sure if that’s more to do with me gaining experience in brewing them than it is the malt - i might need to make the same beer twice with different lager malts to see)

 

[Hanglow]

One of my brewing resolutions this year is sticking to two base pale malts, simpsons golden promise and weyermann barke pilsner.

Although I do want to try the crafty malsters malts too....

 

[Richard_H]

I would be tempted with Munich, although its slightly darker than MO I have had some fantastic beers using it as a base malt

 

[fury_tea]

I would be tempted with Munich, although its slightly darker than MO I have had some fantastic beers using it as a base malt

I am still undecided on this, I have enough for another brew or 2 so not in a rush. I thought I might buy 10kg each of Munich or Vienna, golden promise and something like pilsner malt.

I'm like a kid in a sweet shop!

 

[Sadfield]

Sounds like a cop out. Get 10kg of Diastactic Amber Malt and 10kg of Peated Distillers Malt.

 

[Cestrian]

You can't go wrong with Maris Otter. Classic, reliable base malt and my go to for many years. Never really had much luck with golden promise though. Funny cos I love TT landlord. Would never buy it again though, after the last two sacks. Efficiency was poor and beers had a terrible astringency. Thought it was me after the first sack, but months later bought another sack and had the same problems again.

I've just bought 3 x 25Kg sacks of weyermann from get er brewed; pilsner malt, vienna & pale munich

Vienna is probably my favourite base malt - just beautiful malty goodness. Works well mixed with pilsner or MO to add more malty depth of flavour, but if you haven't tried a 100% Vienna beer you should buy 5Kg and just give it a go. You're in for a treat!

10% munich with MO in an ale or 10% munich with pilsner in a lager gives the brew much more depth and complexity, but if you use 100% munich it can be too much and you're efficiency can drop off.

If you haven't used vienna or munich before, you should definitely try them out. A lot of focus is on the hops these days, but experimenting with these malts opened the door for me to brewing German style malty lagers. I was never a big fan of lager until I started playing around with these malts, but now I'd say 50% of my brews are German style lagers. For me it makes a nice change from heavily hopped IPAs (which I also love by the way )

 

[fury_tea]

So I was buying from Get er brewed anyway so I added my base malt order. In the end I bought 25kg of Vienna, 5kg of munich and 5kg of Pilsner.

I already have roasted barley, chocolate malt, caramel 80 and wheat malt as well as a bit of the MO extra pale left so I think I should be able to make a fairly wide range of things with that assortment.

Looking forward to trying out things like my Baltic porter recipe using the Vienna, plus Vienna lagers and hoppier things like IPAs etc

First up might be a SMaSH because while I have tried it before I've never used it as a dominant base malt. Thinking Vienna, Mandarina Bavaria and Nottingham ale yeast, fermented low and slow to keep it clean - should be pretty good

Thanks all

 

[Cestrian]

Sounds great! Let us know how you get on.

 

[trueblue]

The last 3 sacks I bought were Simpsons MO does cost a bit more the the depth of flavour I find worth it.

 

[An Ankoù]

Sounds like a cop out. Get 10kg of Diastactic Amber Malt and 10kg of Peated Distillers Malt.

...and make a pilsner with pacific gem and bullion? Now we're talking!

 

[An Ankoù]

You can't go wrong with Maris Otter. Classic, reliable base malt and my go to for many years. Never really had much luck with golden promise though. Funny cos I love TT landlord. Would never buy it again though, after the last two sacks. Efficiency was poor and beers had a terrible astringency. Thought it was me after the first sack, but months later bought another sack and had the same problems again.

I've just bought 3 x 25Kg sacks of weyermann from get er brewed; pilsner malt, vienna & pale munich

Vienna is probably my favourite base malt - just beautiful malty goodness. Works well mixed with pilsner or MO to add more malty depth of flavour, but if you haven't tried a 100% Vienna beer you should buy 5Kg and just give it a go. You're in for a treat!

10% munich with MO in an ale or 10% munich with pilsner in a lager gives the brew much more depth and complexity, but if you use 100% munich it can be too much and you're efficiency can drop off.

If you haven't used vienna or munich before, you should definitely try them out. A lot of focus is on the hops these days, but experimenting with these malts opened the door for me to brewing German style malty lagers. I was never a big fan of lager until I started playing around with these malts, but now I'd say 50% of my brews are German style lagers. For me it makes a nice change from heavily hopped IPAs (which I also love by the way )

If these are from GEB, they're likely Crisps made from English barley and a bit different to the German varieties from, say, Bestmalz or Weyermann which are made from pilsner malt. Crisps Vienna is my goto for mild, but I use Bestmalz Vienna and Munich for Vienna lager.

 

[Cestrian]

...and make a pilsner with pacific gem and bullion? Now we're talking!

Sounds nice! What's the recipe?