Base grain for most brews?

[Rodcx500z]

I mainly use pale malt and pilsner for base grain, if your within striking distance of Sandbach check out the south Cheshire buying group on this site

 

[Cwrw666]

I started with maris otter but switched to Hook head pale malt (mostly because it was 2/3rds of the price. Slightly different taste to pale ales but neither noticeably superior.
Last year I wanted to make a pilsner so bought Hook head pilsner (lager) malt instead. I rather like it - makes good pale ales and I find I get slightly increased efficiency. So I'm using that for everything now.
In darker beers, speciality malts totally drown out differences in pale malts.

 

[An Ankoù]

Ooops sorry see you have posted your recipe higher up on the thread , but thanks anyway ( still a bit groggy after a heavy session yesterday )

Here we are, Tommo, I knew we'd had a thread on this somewhere:
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/summer-lightning-recipe-clone.85750/post-880971@Cheshire Cat says there's no crystal in it, and he's right, but there used to be. Summer Lightning was originally made with Pipkin malt with 2% crystal malt, then they changed to the richer Maris Otter and discontinued the crystal. So don't put it in. The bottled version uses all MO or all Optic malt (haven't heard of that one for years) and 100% EKG.
Hope that helps.

Very appropriate for this thread as it shows how different malts are "adjusted" to try to keep the flavour constant.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Here's my Autumn Lightning recipe 22 litres (with Crystal)
4700g Maris otter
150g Crystal 45L
100g Wheat malt or Torrefied wheat
50g Black malt
35g Bramling Cross @60 minutes
25g First gold @15 minutes
25g Fuggles whirlpool 85C for 20-30 minutes.
Nottingham style yeast.

 

[An Ankoù]

Just found this recipe for Summer Lightning online. Strong Bitter Recipe - Hopback Summer Lightning Clone | Brewgr
Hahaha. With cascade and simcoe!

Hopback also do a seasonal beer called Winter Lightning. Has anyone come across a recipe for it?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Just found this recipe for Summer Lightning online. Strong Bitter Recipe - Hopback Summer Lightning Clone | Brewgr
Hahaha. With cascade and simcoe!

Hopback also do a seasonal beer called Winter Lightning. Has anyone come across a recipe for it?

No but I’ll try and make one up. Stronger, different hops and bit of colour.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

My take on Winter Lightning probably nowhere like the real thing but here goes
22 litres
5000g MO
300g Munich light
300g Honey malt
200g Biscuit malt
45g Bramling Cross @ 60 minutes
25g EKG @ 15 minutes
Nottingham style yeast
OG 1058
FG 1012
ABC 6.0%
IBU 38 SRM 8.38

 

[An Ankoù]

No but I’ll try and make one up. Stronger, different hops and bit of colour.

https://www.hopback.co.uk/product/winter-lightning-polypins/...and a subtle blend of herbs and spices. I'd think I'd have to taste half a gallon or so before making one up, to remind me what it tasted like. I'd be interested to know how yours turns out. In the meantime, I used to very much enjoy a pint of Entire Stout at the Waterloo Arms. I've tried that once or twice and it turned out alright. I might have another go.

 

[The Baron]

OK who's hiding the Spring Lightening recipe?

 

[fury_tea]

I usually buy a 25kg bag every 5-6 brews (most of my brews are around 5kg). I try a different type each time and usually buy some wheat and maybe 5 or so kg of something like Munich. I also keep a stock of some oats, caramel, chocolate and roasted barley and I find I can make almost everything I want to.

If a recipe calls for a specific malt I just sub it for whatever I have on hand, and sometimes. It won't be exactly the same recipe but it's good enough for me and very much drinkable. Plus I really get to know the base malt I have on hand so I'm building my knowledge as I go too.

 

[dwhite60]

2 row pale malt. If I need more maltiness I can add some Munich, Vienna, or similar.

I keep some white wheat malt and Munich on hand too.

 

[Clint]

I usually get 25kg of maris otter and 10/15kg of pilsner malt. I always have in stock Vienna,Munich and wheat. My back up malts are quite varied..3 or 4 types of crystal,black,brown,chocolate,Amber,cara,flaked barley,roast barley, oats,torrified wheat.
So many beers...so little time.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

For some reason I thought all grain brewing was going to be a cheaper exercise but looking at all the recipes they all seem to want a different pale malt.
If buying in bulk the grain price isn’t so bad.
Does anyone use the same pale malt for their base when brewing different recipes? And if so which one?

Yeah, it's the norm to have a standard pale malt which gets used for almost everything - there's not a huge difference between different "standard" pale malts of the same level of kilning. You've not said what kind of beers you're into, if you're planning lagers then you want a pilsner or extra-pale malt, otherwise just standard British pale malt or one of the named varieties thereof.

You have to be aware that traditionally since malt was heavy and expensive, people generally took a recipe and substituted in their "local" base malt for cost reasons - so Germans would make a English bitter recipe with pilsner malt, in North American they would use US 2-row and so on. Such attempts to make foreign beers with local ingredients can evolve into styles of their own - eg the origins of American Amber ales lie in US attempts to make bitter with 2-row and local caramel malts.

Conversely you have to be aware of the "Chinese whisper" effect when using foreign recipes - I've seen Brits trying to make a bitter based on an American recipe, and asking what exotic & expensive replacements they can find in the UK to substitute for US 2-row and Victory malt, when those are only in the recipe as a US approximation to bog-standard UK pale malt.

On the assumption that if you can afford an all-in-one you're not going to be quibbling too much about a quid or two extra, then it's probably worth going for named varieties like Maris Otter or Golden Promise rather than generic pale malt made from a blend of industrial varieties.

Looking through earlier editions of Wheeler's books, we have Maris Otter, Halcyon, Pipkin, Golden Promise, etc etc. Later editions pretty much specify simply "pale malt".

Optic malt (haven't heard of that one for years)

The average barley variety has a typical lifespan of only 10 years or so before it gets superceded by new varieties with marginal gains in yield, disease resistance etc. We've talked about this more over on HBT, but the key graph is this one. Twenty years ago it was all Optic as the summer variety and Pearl as the winter barley. Then Tipple took over, but since then it diversified somewhat - Propino and Concerto and Venture were big 5 years ago but have now been largely replaced by Planet and Laureate. This graph gives you an idea of how fluid things are.

Maris Otter and Golden Promise are the exceptions to the rule, in that they have effectively assumed "heritage" status and are kind of outside the normal barley market. But 95% of malt is made from varieties on the AHDB Recommended List of malting barleys, which are a dozen or so varieties that have been tested over a number of years in different regions, so that farmers can be confident that they should yield well and have decent disease resistance, and which are also tested to meet the requirements of maltsters for protein content, consistency of grain size etc. As better varieties come along, they push older ones off the list - typically 2-3 varieties make up 70+% of the crop, the others can be used in niche situations such as particular heavy soils, or windy sites, or where a particular disease is a problem. It's reasonably unusual for a variety to stay on the list for much more than 10 years these days.

So if you buy a sack of generic pale malt, it will be made up of one or more varieties on the Recommended List, sometimes you may order "pale malt" and when the sack arrives it will say the name of a specific variety like "Planet" or "Laureate" etc, but sometimes not.

In general the varieties on the Recommended List are generally selected to work well for farmers and in the malthouse, but not necessarily for flavour - after all, they're what Carling is made from! So unless cash is really tight, it's not unreasonable to spend the extra couple of quid to buy GP or Otter.

Personally the majority of my beers are SMaSH-ish golden ales, so often the only malt I have in stock is a floor-malted Otter from the likes of Warminster or Fawcetts - makes inventory control much easier!

 

[An Ankoù]

In general the varieties on the Recommended List are generally selected to work well for farmers and in the malthouse, but not necessarily for flavour - after all, they're what Carling is made from! So unless cash is really tight, it's not unreasonable to spend the extra couple of quid to buy GP or Otter.

I've learnt from experience that choice of malt in a SMaSH is of paramount importance. I made two SMaSH lagers at the beginning of the year, for a laugh really: one an "English "lager (Called lager Lout) with Crisp's Plumage Archer malt and the other a "Scottish" lager (called Free Scotland) with Crafty Maltsters Pop's Pale Ale malt (grown in Scotland I believe). Both used EKGs and the same lager yeast (the dregs of one was used to inocculate the other) and the specs and process were exactly the same in each. What a difference! I had a side-by-side last night and it was hard to tell that the only thing different was the choice of pale malt. The Scottish is relatively coarse and sweeter (although the FGs were the same) and the PA version was much more rounded. The moral of the story is that Pale Malt is not just Pale Malt and not necessarily interchangeable in a SMaSH.
Both had a tad of acidulated malt to correct the pH so not strictly a SMaSH, but I think the principle holds.

 

[Dorst]

I found that pilsner malt actually gives me the most versatility for the styles that I like to brew. It allows you to brew everything German (pilsner, helles, Berliner weisse, weizen, Gose, Kölsch) and Belgian (dubbel, tripel, saison, blond) to start with but it also works really well in Pale Ales and IPAs (including NEIPA).

Within pilsner malts there is some good variety as well. So far I like Barke Pilsner by Weyermann the best.

 

[Braufather]

I mainly use pale malt and pilsner for base grain, if your within striking distance of Sandbach check out the south Cheshire buying group on this site

to kick off you might want to order recipe kits from guys like geterbrewed. its so convenient , I’m still doing that after 3 years, it allows you to get exactly the right malts and hops each time , no matter the quantity. Really useful when doing american styles with complex hop bills or speciality beers like rye ipas etc

 

[Rodcx500z]

to kick off you might want to order recipe kits from guys like geterbrewed. its so convenient , I’m still doing that after 3 years, it allows you to get exactly the right malts and hops each time , no matter the quantity. Really useful when doing american styles with complex hop bills or speciality beers like rye ipas etc

I get were your coming from but, for me the joy is in the making and the challenge

 

[Harbey]

I buy a 25kg sack of Marris Otter as my base which lasts for about 6 brews. I then just use CrossMyLoof to order small amounts of speciality malt, hops and yeast as needed for each brew. I do like to make it up as I go along most of the time but build almost everything (I do like the odd wheat beer) on Marris Otter.

 

[Obadiah Boondoggle]

Looking through earlier editions of Wheeler's books, we have Maris Otter, Halcyon, Pipkin, Golden Promise, etc etc. Later editions pretty much specify simply "pale malt". Local brewers used what they could get from their local malster, I think, and many of these malts are no longer easily available.
Get a full sack of a good malt. I use Crisp's Best Pale Ale or Hookhead Pale depending on who I'm ordering from. I really only use MO for Summer Lightning (I'm not even sure that Hopback use MO all the time). And I'm moving over to using Chevallier for my very best pales and bitters and even in a mild.
I hope Crisp keep the Chevallier line going as it's lovely stuff, but it's getting a bit expensive.

I've got some malts I need to use up as their getting a little old: Bestmalz Red-X and Simpson's Imperial in particular. Both of these are fully diastatic and I thinking of using up to 90% in dark beers. I rather fancy the Red-X might give a Guinness clone that slighly sour, flavour which is so hard to find otherwise.

Interesting article re Chevallier Revival of ancient barley variety thrills fans of old beer styles

However, Crisp are telling us here at the Malt buying co-operative that it has low enzyme levels so are advising mash at 63C for 30 mins longer than normal and add 10% of some other pale malt; the enzymes in the other pale will help with the Chevallier

 

[Jim Brewster]

Start off with a SMaSH with one of your favourite dual purpose hops and go from there. You'll naturally start to acquire a few different malts to use in small quantities as you go forward.

All the AG brews I've done are very simple grain bills and I've done around 40 brews. I like pale ales so it's easy with Maris Otter base malt and I only mostly add just malted wheat and don't need multiple types of crystal or chocolate malt etc. But I can also simply make a stout just with a small amount of roasted barely and some oats from the cereal aisle.

Alternatively you could always start off with a small batch all grain "kit" that comes with all the malts weighed out already so you can get practice of mashing and the rest of the process before moving to larger batches