Maris Otter vs. Pale Malt

[marshbrewer]

As far as brewing barley goes, I believe we are net exporters.

 

[Burlyman]

I strongly suspect @Drunkula has probably tried this out already

 

[trueblue]

Do you know whether we are still self sufficient in grain (specifically barley for brewing)? I dont want to mention the B word but you never know...

Sorry don't know he retired about 20 years ago and died 5 years ago and Home grown cereals have been absorbed by DEFRA so good luck getting info from them. The concept was strongly influenced by the EU as we were buying a lot from Canada and the US so I guess we may be in Trump's sights now. Also brewing grains were just one aspect of his work I seem to remember wheat for bread was one of the biggest successes in his time.

 

[MyQul]

Sorry don't know he retired about 20 years ago and died 5 years ago and Home grown cereals have been absorbed by DEFRA so good luck getting info from them. The concept was strongly influenced by the EU as we were buying a lot from Canada and the US so I guess we may be in Trump's sights now. Also brewing grains were just one aspect of his work I seem to remember wheat for bread was one of the biggest successes in his time.

Thanks. Sounds a very interesting bloke

I generally don't eat bread so am all right for that

 

[Slid]

This is classic.. trueblue you should do a book on these.. Imagine someone brewing an ale with chicken food....

I rather liked @Drunkula and his story about the beer using mixed bird food from Poundland in a beer - true and traditional style brewing with whatever is available.

If you took animal feed grade malted barley, ground it up, soaked it in hot water for an hour, then boiled the runnings for an hour and made beer with it, what might be the consequences? Is it heavy metals that could be the issue? If so, then would these not just accumulate in the animals it was fed to? Presumably the animals in question are for consumption, are they not?

To return to the OP's question, I can honestly say that I cannot tell the difference between base malts from taste. I also know the anecdote attributed to GW that if you were to add up the grain usage of all the breweries (in Britain) claiming to use Maris Otter, it would far exceed the productive capacity of the land actually used for growing it.

 

[trueblue]

Thanks. Sounds a very interesting bloke

I generally don't eat bread so am all right for that

Yes he was interesting. Those old enough to remember the live aid era he was vilified by the Sun because he was in charge of our "grain mountain" and ended up on TV where a 30 min interview was cut down to a few mins and made him look terrible, they forgot to add the bit when he told them we had given them a lot of grain weeks before Geldof got involved, but the bottom line was our mountains were used and any surplus sold. I do hope we are in the same position now as he and his team worked hard to get us there.

 

[MyQul]

Yes he was interesting. Those old enough to remember the live aid era he was vilified by the Sun because he was in charge of our "grain mountain" and ended up on TV where a 30 min interview was cut down to a few mins and made him look terrible, they forgot to add the bit when he told them we had given them a lot of grain weeks before Geldof got involved, but the bottom line was our mountains were used and any surplus sold. I do hope we are in the same position now as he and his team worked hard to get us there.

Yes, I remember tales of EEC grain/butter/other food mountains in the paper. As long as we have enough barley to brew with I'm happy

 

[chthon]

Do you know whether we are still self sufficient in grain (specifically barley for brewing)? I dont want to mention the B word but you never know...

I suspect that since the end of the 18th century, the UK never has been completely self sufficient in brewing barley. I derive this from Ronald Pattinson's extensive figures on ingredients, where in many 19th century recipes, barley (or malt) from different places all over the world was used: Canada, North-Africa, the US, South Africa,...

I think that in those times that the British Isles had to be self-sufficient, mainly the two wars, the self-sufficiency was reached due to stringent government regulations which limited the maximum average original gravity that a brewery could brew, so much low OG beer and very little high OG beer (source, also Ronald Pattinson).

 

[trueblue]

I suspect that since the end of the 18th century, the UK never has been completely self sufficient in brewing barley. I derive this from Ronald Pattinson's extensive figures on ingredients, where in many 19th century recipes, barley (or malt) from different places all over the world was used: Canada, North-Africa, the US, South Africa,...

I think that in those times that the British Isles had to be self-sufficient, mainly the two wars, the self-sufficiency was reached due to stringent government regulations which limited the maximum average original gravity that a brewery could brew, so much low OG beer and very little high OG beer (source, also Ronald Pattinson).

That was all the reasons John's company was set up. When he retired we were self sufficient for our main cereal crops which included brewing grains that was around the year 2000

 

[MyQul]

I suspect that since the end of the 18th century, the UK never has been completely self sufficient in brewing barley. I derive this from Ronald Pattinson's extensive figures on ingredients, where in many 19th century recipes, barley (or malt) from different places all over the world was used: Canada, North-Africa, the US, South Africa,...

I think that in those times that the British Isles had to be self-sufficient, mainly the two wars, the self-sufficiency was reached due to stringent government regulations which limited the maximum average original gravity that a brewery could brew, so much low OG beer and very little high OG beer (source, also Ronald Pattinson).

Tbh, in our globalised world with at least half of our food coming from elsewhere, I'd be very surprised indeed to find were are self sufficient in brewing barley

 

[trueblue]

As this has stayed away from the OP one other thing the father in law would say was the miller was important when it came to the final product. He would visit all the leading mills and said there was differences between them all not that I have noticed any major difference.

 

[Clint]

Only recently people on this very forum were on about buying "stuff" from animal feed suppliers to brew with because it was cheap...

 

[trueblue]

Only recently people on this very forum were on about buying "stuff" from animal feed suppliers to brew with because it was cheap...

Fair enough if you are buying it as animal feed at animal feed price but I was being sold it as pale malt.

 

[Clint]

Shouldn't really be using animal feed even at cheap prices for brewing ..

 

[MyQul]

Only recently people on this very forum were on about buying "stuff" from animal feed suppliers to brew with because it was cheap...

Oh ,yes. I remember that.

For anyone who doesn't the discussion was about flaked maize for things like cream ales. I think the discussion started off about using things like shop bought cornflakes and air popped pop corn , but someone brought up the possibilty of using animal feed maize

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Sorry don't know he retired about 20 years ago and died 5 years ago and Home grown cereals have been absorbed by DEFRA so good luck getting info from them.

Well - that role was taken over by the AHDB who shockingly hide the information in plain view on their public website. It varies by harvest, and recent numbers are a bit weird thanks to the heatwaves and Brexit effect, but broadly we're significant exporters of barley and the far less significant oats, we usually import a bit of wheat but some years are net exporters, we're usually net importers of rapeseed and we're massive importers of maize and soy products.

A lot of it is just geography - remember that wheat originated in the Middle East and generally needs warmer weather than barley. And sunnier weather generally leads to more protein, which is good for breadmaking but bad for chill haze in beer. So it kinda makes sense for northern countries to specialise in barley and warmer countries to specialise in wheat.

But as has been hinted at, one of the great triumphs of crop breeding in the 20th century was the development of high-protein wheats that would grow in the British climate - or at least, wheats with enough protein for use in Sunblest, which allowed us to replace high-protein Canadian wheat with British wheat.

Feed barley isn't necessarily "poisonous" or anything, a fraction of it (depending on harvest) is just malting barley that failed to meet the stringent specs of the maltsters for protein content, regularity of grain size (important for consistency in malting & kilning) and that kind of thing. But in general barley varieties grown for feed are lower quality in return for higher yields. So growing for feed is more about quantity, growing for malting is more about quality. But if you grow malting varieties and the weather is unfavourable then you'll fail to hit the quality requirements and you'll have to sell it into the feed market (at a lower price).

 

[MyQul]

Well - that role was taken over by the AHDB who shockingly hide the information in plain view on their public website. It varies by harvest, and recent numbers are a bit weird thanks to the heatwaves and Brexit effect, but broadly we're significant exporters of barley and the far less significant oats, we usually import a bit of wheat but some years are net exporters, we're usually net importers of rapeseed and we're massive importers of maize and soy products.

A lot of it is just geography - remember that wheat originated in the Middle East and generally needs warmer weather than barley. And sunnier weather generally leads to more protein, which is good for breadmaking but bad for chill haze in beer. So it kinda makes sense for northern countries to specialise in barley and warmer countries to specialise in wheat.

But as has been hinted at, one of the great triumphs of crop breeding in the 20th century was the development of high-protein wheats that would grow in the British climate - or at least, wheats with enough protein for use in Sunblest, which allowed us to replace high-protein Canadian wheat with British wheat.

Feed barley isn't necessarily "poisonous" or anything, a fraction of it (depending on harvest) is just malting barley that failed to meet the stringent specs of the maltsters for protein content, regularity of grain size (important for consistency in malting & kilning) and that kind of thing. But in general barley varieties grown for feed are lower quality in return for higher yields. So growing for feed is more about quantity, growing for malting is more about quality. But if you grow malting varieties and the weather is unfavourable then you'll fail to hit the quality requirements and you'll have to sell it into the feed market (at a lower price).

Thanks for that. Interesting about the oats too as I eat shed loads of oats (no wonder they're so cheap in ASDA)

 

[Clint]

I like oats in an IPA...

 

[trueblue]

Well - that role was taken over by the AHDB who shockingly hide the information in plain view on their public website. It varies by harvest, and recent numbers are a bit weird thanks to the heatwaves and Brexit effect, but broadly we're significant exporters of barley and the far less significant oats, we usually import a bit of wheat but some years are net exporters, we're usually net importers of rapeseed and we're massive importers of maize and soy products.

A lot of it is just geography - remember that wheat originated in the Middle East and generally needs warmer weather than barley. And sunnier weather generally leads to more protein, which is good for breadmaking but bad for chill haze in beer. So it kinda makes sense for northern countries to specialise in barley and warmer countries to specialise in wheat.

But as has been hinted at, one of the great triumphs of crop breeding in the 20th century was the development of high-protein wheats that would grow in the British climate - or at least, wheats with enough protein for use in Sunblest, which allowed us to replace high-protein Canadian wheat with British wheat.

Feed barley isn't necessarily "poisonous" or anything, a fraction of it (depending on harvest) is just malting barley that failed to meet the stringent specs of the maltsters for protein content, regularity of grain size (important for consistency in malting & kilning) and that kind of thing. But in general barley varieties grown for feed are lower quality in return for higher yields. So growing for feed is more about quantity, growing for malting is more about quality. But if you grow malting varieties and the weather is unfavourable then you'll fail to hit the quality requirements and you'll have to sell it into the feed market (at a lower price).

Cheers for that, I'm sure the old fellow would be chuffed the his work of over 30 years is still bearing fruit.

 

[Burlyman]

Well - that role was taken over by the AHDB who shockingly hide the information in plain view on their public website. It varies by harvest, and recent numbers are a bit weird thanks to the heatwaves and Brexit effect, but broadly we're significant exporters of barley and the far less significant oats, we usually import a bit of wheat but some years are net exporters, we're usually net importers of rapeseed and we're massive importers of maize and soy products.

A lot of it is just geography - remember that wheat originated in the Middle East and generally needs warmer weather than barley. And sunnier weather generally leads to more protein, which is good for breadmaking but bad for chill haze in beer. So it kinda makes sense for northern countries to specialise in barley and warmer countries to specialise in wheat.

But as has been hinted at, one of the great triumphs of crop breeding in the 20th century was the development of high-protein wheats that would grow in the British climate - or at least, wheats with enough protein for use in Sunblest, which allowed us to replace high-protein Canadian wheat with British wheat.

Feed barley isn't necessarily "poisonous" or anything, a fraction of it (depending on harvest) is just malting barley that failed to meet the stringent specs of the maltsters for protein content, regularity of grain size (important for consistency in malting & kilning) and that kind of thing. But in general barley varieties grown for feed are lower quality in return for higher yields. So growing for feed is more about quantity, growing for malting is more about quality. But if you grow malting varieties and the weather is unfavourable then you'll fail to hit the quality requirements and you'll have to sell it into the feed market (at a lower price).

That's very interesting info, thank you..