Has anyone used Chevalier malt?

[peebee]

Spoke loads on this in my Victorian Bitter thread. Bit more up-to-date than my musings of near two years back.

I'll also get on the same beer as @jjsh (Tetley's 1868 AK Bitter) for Xmas. I want to try Edd's "trademark" mix of malts for emulating old beers (though I hope his book, when we eventually see it, will explain the thinking behind the malt selections?). Edd is also behind some of the unusual mash schedules (and more?), 'cos he told me! The Tetley's recipe is similar to the Morrell's 1889 Bitter (subject in that Victorian Bitter link) in using "Hochkurz"-like mashing schedules, which I found to be such a good way of handling Chevallier barley malt (see that "Victorian Bitter"). Mashed right Chevallier barley malt can give beers of 80%+ attenuation (FG <1.010) and no loss of "body" and malty creaminess.

 

[An Ankoù]

Plenty of reading and links to follow up in your post #21 above. Thanks @peebee.

 

[Oneflewover]

Interesting reading. I've got ingredients in for an ESB I'm planning, with chevalier as the base malt.

 

[marshbrewer]

Update in the Victorian Bitter thread.

 

[An Ankoù]

Two brews in and I'm beginning to get a feel for Chevallier. It's different. Not subtly different, but massively different. My trial SMaSH with Goldings: target OG was 1050 and it came out at 1054 so no problem with yield FG 1006 so not overly sweet or full bodied. In fact it's very full bodied and distinctly sweet. It's 6 weeks in the bottle and is fully carbonated and holds a thick creamy head. It's like drinking a mug of Horlicks. The hops shine through and I couldn't place them at first, I had to go back to my notes. It's also quite dark for a SMaSH. Even after six weeks, it's clear it would benefit from at least another 4 weeks maturing. So, I envisaged this as a Summer Lightning taste-alike and it's nothing like. it's more like drinking a pint of Old Thumper, which brings me to my second trial, a batch of Old Thumper: 92% Pale, 6% T. Wheat, 3% Crystal 150 ebc, 1% Chocolate. Bittered with Challenger and Goldings to finish. Bottled same day as the SMaSH and within days of a more conventional recipe using MO. Tried a litre last night and it was absolutely gorgeous- again lusciously malty and sweet which suits the smile admirably. I followed it with a litre of the MO version and it tasted thin by comparison.
This is not a malt to swap in or out of a recipe on a whim. The difference is sufficiently great that the recipe should be built round it just as you would if the only base malt you had was Munich, for example.
I'm impressed. Just ordered another sack, but I won't be attempting to make a lager out of it

 

[marshbrewer]

Mine was best after several weeks (I think Brewfather said it had been conditioning for 50 days when I tasted it and thought I was amazing. Mine was also quite dark for an ale that only had various pale malts in it. Come the new year, I'm definitely going to get a sack of it and use it more frequently, despite its relatively high price. I'm also itching to get hold of crafty maltsters heritage 6-row they will be malting for the first time this year, as I'd love to try it out in a historic recipe with Chevallier.

 

[Oneflewover]

Interesting reading. I've got ingredients in for an ESB I'm planning, with chevalier as the base malt.

Brewed my ESB this afternoon.

Chickened out going 100% chevalier for the base malt and went 50% chevalier, 40% marris otter, 5% medium crystal, 4% torrified wheat, 1% chocolate.

Bittered to 40IBU with challenger with a big charge of EKG at 10mins and flameout. WY1968 London ESB. Got around 26litres into the FV @1.056. Looking forward to sampling this given the flavour descriptions above.

 

[Sadfield]

Two brews in and I'm beginning to get a feel for Chevallier. It's different. Not subtly different, but massively different. My trial SMaSH with Goldings: target OG was 1050 and it came out at 1054 so no problem with yield FG 1006 so not overly sweet or full bodied. In fact it's very full bodied and distinctly sweet.

Once you've used it, it's easy to see why many 1800's IPA, Porter and Stout were so heavily hopped, often to triple figure IBU's on calculation.

 

[Richard_H]

Used 2KG in a winter ale about a month or so ago, there was another 2KG of Munich malt along with some some brown and melanoidin malt (stupidly never made any notes) but there is a very strong English strong ale flavour in the 2 bottles I have had so far. It clearly needs a long conditioning time but my brew reminds me of a slightly stronger Old Crafty Hen.

I have another brew planned with 75% MO & 25% chevalier with English hops which i am looking forward to

 

[MrRook]

Come the new year, I'm definitely going to get a sack of it and use it more frequently, despite its relatively high price.

Where do you get yours? Maybe A different shop would have a better price.
I've seen it listed in two different shops in the States.
One was $2.49 a pound and the other was $1.79 which is in line with the usual price for maris otter.

 

[marshbrewer]

I pay around £20 for 25kg of Baird's Maris Otter, but the cheapest I can find Chevallier for is about £36 plus postage, taking it well over £40.

It seams a big increase, bit it isn't really in a per pint basis; I just need to stop being such a tight arse!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Once you've used it, it's easy to see why many 1800's IPA, Porter and Stout were so heavily hopped, often to triple figure IBU's on calculation.

Not really - that was all about trying to stop bugs growing in it at a time where there was no pasteurisation and the only refrigeration was with blocks of ice. Hopping rates went down a lot once pasteurisation came in.

 

[Sadfield]

Not really - that was all about trying to stop bugs growing in it at a time where there was no pasteurisation and the only refrigeration was with blocks of ice. Hopping rates went down a lot once pasteurisation came in.

Have you used it? Modern Cask beer is unpasteurised and doesn't require such high bitterness or refrigeration.

To quote Dr Chris Ridout, the man who resurrected this malt.

“There’s a definite flavour to it,”, he says, “which is quite harsh at first but matures and mellows. It has quite a full mouthfeel, and a dryness, and it seems to have an effect on hop bitterness: you need to put more hops into the beer to get the same effect as with modern malt varieties."

http://zythophile.co.uk/2013/04/15/...rley-variety-thrills-fans-of-old-beer-styles/
A point echoed by Crisp Malts.

https://crispmalt.com/malts/chevallier-heritage-malt/

 

[Sadfield]

Took delivery of 5 Kg this morning, so will probably brew another 1800s style IPA.
I also ordered some Hana Heritage Pilsner Malt to try.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Modern Cask beer is unpasteurised and doesn't require such high bitterness or refrigeration.

Errr - you'll find "refrigeration" in every modern pub cellar, even if it's refrigerating to a temperature of 12-14C which gives cask beer a typical life of 2-3 months. But that halves for every 10C rise in temperature, so if you were exporting to India then modern cask beer would barely get to Suez in one piece. And the beers you see with daft hopping rates were the ones intended for long keeping as stock beers or for export to the colonies - the 19th-century equivalents of modern bitter like AK were far less highly hopped.

I assume you've had the RedWillow lagers made with Hana? They're great.

 

[jceg316]

I forgot to report back on my chevallier best bitter. I've attached the recipe.

From what I remember it was nice but for such a hoppy beer I could have sub'ed the Chevallier for MO and it wouldn't have made that much of a difference. I don't remember that much malt coming through.

I might try it again one day on a malt forward type of beer.

 

[Hanglow]

I'm trying it in a saison now, just 4kg of it on its own.

I'll be interested to hear what the Hana is like too.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Also I meant to say the timing is all wrong - the decline in bitterness happened at the same time as pasteurisation became a thing, from the 1880s, whereas Chevallier was pretty much universal on British farms until being replaced by Spratt Archer and Plumage Archer, which first entered the trade in 1919 and 1924 respectively driven by Guinness and Warminster and which had 75% of the acreage by WWII.