Standard building blocks of a brew

[Edindie]

I'm just about to make an order from Rob and am only going to get enough grain for two or three brews. I'm going to make a Deuchars clone (as I have the British Real Ale book with a recipe in) and want to make a fruity hoppy golden ale in a couple of weeks. The deuchars recipe contains pale malt, crystal malt and wheat malt, alongside fuggle and styrian hops.

Can the above malts be used to make a golden ale (I assume so) and would you suggest purchasing a different hop bill for the golden ale? Is it the hops and the yeast which make fruity beers?

 

[clibit]

Do you have any fruity hoppy golden ales in mind? I'm guessing you'll be wanting a beer with new world hops. The Deuchars malts will work for a golden ale, just pale malt and wheat probably.

 

[Edindie]

I see a lot of people talking about marris otter and using that as the base of many brews. If I'm only going to do ple or golden ales for the immediate future, would most of them not need MO?

Also, how long do grains last for if they've been milled already? 6 months?

 

[boozy_shoes]

I see a lot of people talking about marris otter and using that as the base of many brews. If I'm only going to do ple or golden ales for the immediate future, would most of them not need MO?

Also, how long do grains last for if they've been milled already? 6 months?

I've only ever used Maris Otter as a base and have made stouts, porters, IPA's, belgians, ambers, bitters and barley wines and never had a problem or failed to replicate a style because of the malt. They should be used as soon as possible but i've made beer from stuff that's more than a year old and it's made good beer.

 

[graysalchemy]

Marris Otter is a barley variety, along with golden promise. However when we talk about MO we are talking about Pale malt. This is a base malt and is the base of the majority of beers. It provides the sugars (when mashed) and has the diastic power to convert the starches of other 'speciality malts' such as crystal. Speciality malts usually lose their diastic power as they have been roasted which denatures the amylase enzyme.