saccharomyces
Active Member
I've mentioned before that I recently came back to amateur brewing after a long hiatus. Many things changed in the American home brew trade while I was away from the hobby. A big hurdle for me was finding an imported base malt that I like enough to fork over the cash for a 25kg bag (I purchase all of my base malt in bulk). I used to use a lot of De Wolf-Cosyns Pale Ale Malt when I used pale ale malt. However, Interbrew closed the De Wolf-Cosyns malting facility in 2001. By that point in time, I brewed pretty much everything I made with Durst Pilsner malt. I know that brewing ale with Pilsner malt is considered to be a sin in the UK. However, I really liked the flavor of that base malt, and more than fifty percent of the beer that I made was either Vienna or Dortmund-style lager. Having sold my dedicated fermentation refrigerator while I was away from the hobby, I am back to making ales. I've been working my way through a 50lb bag of domestic 2-row. Domestic 2-row is a great base malt to use when making American West Coast-Style Pale Ale. However, it leaves a lot to be desired after one moves away from making ales that taste like one is sucking on a grapefruit.
Truth be told, I cannot stand the taste of the Maris Otter. At first, I thought that we were just getting the Maris Otter that could not be sold in the UK. However, many years and suppliers have passed since my first experience with the base malt, and they all have had that funky tasting note in the finish that I find in many British imported beers. It seems to be specific to the Maris Otter cultivar because I have used Pipkin malt and Halcyon malt from the UK, and neither of those malts have the problem.
I was about to give up on British malt and use Dingeman's (the company that purchased De Wolf-Cosyns' assets) when I decided to give Thomas Fawcett (TF) Pearl Malt a shot. Purchasing this malt was a leap of faith because my local home brew supplier does not sell TF Pearl Malt by the pound; therefore, I could not taste it before purchasing a 25kg sack. To my delight, the malt smelled and tasted great when I opened the bag on Thursday evening. If I had to describe Pearl, I would say that it has the toasty, malty flavors found in most British pale ale malts with the clean finish of American 2-row. It's like the be best of both worlds. About the only detractor that found when using this marvelous base malt is that one needs to be careful when mashing-in, as it tends to produce large dough balls that need to be broken up. On the other hand, TF Pearl Malt produces a lot of extract per pound/kilogram of grain. I usually achieve an average extraction rate of around 29 points per pound per U.S. gallon (242 points per kilogram per liter or 80.5% efficiency) if I use the maximum amount of sparge water for a given grist. With TF Pearl Malt, I achieved an extraction rate of 31 points per pound per U.S. gallon (259 points per kilogram per liter or 86% efficiency), and I used a half of a gallon less sparge water than I usually use for the same amount of grist.
In closing, the best part about using TF Pearl Malt is that is a joy to crush compared to American 2-row (which is well modified). I've used a hand-cranked fixed-gap Jack Schmidling Production (JSP) Malt Mill since 1994. I was thinking about motorizing my Malt Mill because I am not as strong as I used to be when I first started to use this type of mill. Crushing the TF Pearl Malt is like crushing marshmallows compared to crushing domestic 2-row. I was able to mill the grist for my latest batch without breaking a sweat.
Truth be told, I cannot stand the taste of the Maris Otter. At first, I thought that we were just getting the Maris Otter that could not be sold in the UK. However, many years and suppliers have passed since my first experience with the base malt, and they all have had that funky tasting note in the finish that I find in many British imported beers. It seems to be specific to the Maris Otter cultivar because I have used Pipkin malt and Halcyon malt from the UK, and neither of those malts have the problem.
I was about to give up on British malt and use Dingeman's (the company that purchased De Wolf-Cosyns' assets) when I decided to give Thomas Fawcett (TF) Pearl Malt a shot. Purchasing this malt was a leap of faith because my local home brew supplier does not sell TF Pearl Malt by the pound; therefore, I could not taste it before purchasing a 25kg sack. To my delight, the malt smelled and tasted great when I opened the bag on Thursday evening. If I had to describe Pearl, I would say that it has the toasty, malty flavors found in most British pale ale malts with the clean finish of American 2-row. It's like the be best of both worlds. About the only detractor that found when using this marvelous base malt is that one needs to be careful when mashing-in, as it tends to produce large dough balls that need to be broken up. On the other hand, TF Pearl Malt produces a lot of extract per pound/kilogram of grain. I usually achieve an average extraction rate of around 29 points per pound per U.S. gallon (242 points per kilogram per liter or 80.5% efficiency) if I use the maximum amount of sparge water for a given grist. With TF Pearl Malt, I achieved an extraction rate of 31 points per pound per U.S. gallon (259 points per kilogram per liter or 86% efficiency), and I used a half of a gallon less sparge water than I usually use for the same amount of grist.
In closing, the best part about using TF Pearl Malt is that is a joy to crush compared to American 2-row (which is well modified). I've used a hand-cranked fixed-gap Jack Schmidling Production (JSP) Malt Mill since 1994. I was thinking about motorizing my Malt Mill because I am not as strong as I used to be when I first started to use this type of mill. Crushing the TF Pearl Malt is like crushing marshmallows compared to crushing domestic 2-row. I was able to mill the grist for my latest batch without breaking a sweat.
