Experiment for Malt Taste Analysis...maybe

So I've been thinking for a while now on how to do a taste comparison test between different specialty malts and what they add to a beer. I'm not a very good 'taster' as such and I reckon this would help me get my head around what I can taste (malt-wise) in a beer.

Last weekend I saw a video podcast on basicbrewing where they steeped an ounce of grain in 3 cups of water and then let it cool to taste the differences in malts. I tried it and had trouble tasting more than one sample, they all tasted like boring tea with a grainy flavour. I've also tried chewing grains and haven't really got much from that.

So my new plan is this...

I'd like to taste-test the following grains I have on hand (percentage of grain in wort in brackets):

Munich (30%)
Caramunich (30%)
Carapils (30%)
Caramalt (approx 20L) (30%)
Crystal (approx 75L) (30%)
Dark Crystal (approx 120L) (30%)
Chocolate Malt (15%)
Roast Barley (15%)
Amber Malt (30%)
Control of LME only wort

I'm going to make a small beer for each to test.

Make a base wort from light LME, and bitter with around 10IBU of a tasteless hop.

Split the wort into 10 parts.

Steep a relative amount of the grain in water to add to the base wort to make around 500mL of wort at around 1.040. I plan on using around 1.5 times the max amount to really bring out the flavour of the malt.

I'll then transfer each ~500mL wort to a 750mL bottle and add US05 yeast. The bottle will be fixed with a crude airlock of some sort, possibly just a sanitised balloon.

After fermentation appears to be complete I will bottle and probably not carbonate and then age for approximately a week.

It seems like it may be a little time consuming but I'm hoping it will be worth the effort.

The biggest problem I see so far is sanitising the wort after the steeped addition but in theory I think everything else should work out OK.

I'd be happy to hear anyones suggestions or comments from people who have tried something similar.

Cheers

I like this idea, and might have to give some version of it a try. The only problem I see is that you won't boil the wort after steeping the grains. I think you may get mostly sour beers out of this since a lot of malt has bacteria on it.

Yup, unfortunately the best way would be to steep prior to the bittering boils, just use a bunch of small pots.

Yeah that's what I was thinking, I tried a sour mash before so I definately know that sour cultures are alive and well on the grain I have.

I'm trying to avoid lots of small boils but will do it if there's no other options. I was thinking a campden tablet (or portion of) but IIRC they only slow down bacteria etc not actually kill them.

You don't have to boil an hour. Just figure your 10 IBU based on 20 minute boils and then you can do 3 small pots at a time, in a few consecutive boils.

Please post results when you get this completed even if you don't think you're not a great taster. I've thought about doing the same thing, but haven't worked out the specific process. I thought about doing 3 gal batches of AG per specialty malt, but that's a lot of generic beer. I've also wondered about doing this with yeast also.

^^Will do.

Bobby_M said:

You don't have to boil an hour. Just figure your 10 IBU based on 20 minute boils and then you can do 3 small pots at a time, in a few consecutive boils.

Click to expand...

Good idea, I didn't think of that, I'm pretty good at not thinking of the simple options haha. But I'm starting to wonder now if the hops are acutally necessary. The preservative qualities shouldn't matter too much cause it's not like it's going to age for a long time and I'm thinking it may be easy to assess (for me anyway) without some slight bitterness in the background.

If you want to know what malts are doing go out and get a clone recipe book (BYO's 150 clone issue), taste the beers and look at the recipes.

Wait. Why not add your specialty grain tea to the base wort as planned, then just microwave it for a couple minutes till it boils?

Sure, it's not a good process from the standpoint of making a repeatable large batch of beer, but I think it'd work great for an experiment like this...

Just get yourself a pyrex pitcher and nuke away.

Thanks Brett but I already own that issue and I've brewed a few recipes from it (and many recipes from other brewers) but none of them help me understand an actual single malt as most recipes (the ones I like to drink anyway) call for at least three different malts.

Awesome idea Sir Humpsalot. Freakin' hell I love this forum and it's members.

OK the updated plan is -

Add 30g of crushed grain (15g for RB and CM) and steep for 15 min in 500mL of approx 66C water - Close to 1.040 and the grain makes up about 32%

After steeping add 60g of LME and microwave for 5 minutes - From what I've read one should microwave longer but I think for this small volume it should be ok.

Cool and add to bottle.

Add small amount of yeast (US05) - I think I worked out I would need 0.3g of yeast, not measurable for me so I'll just guestimate that one and hope my pitching amounts are similar.

Add sanitised balloon to bottle

Ferment

Cap - no going to worry about decanting off the sediment, shouldn't matter for the small amount of time it will be sitting on it, it's probably a good thing anyway.

Age 1 week.

Analyze.

Wouldn't it be simpler to do your first idea of a regular 60 minute boil of all the extract, and use this as a base, then do a number of small steeps for your specialty grains and then add a predetermined amount of the base wort to it.

You could probably steep the specialty grains in a variety of vessels. Cups, bowls, etc. I would think that this is closer to a beer then using a microwave.

That was the original plan but it would mean a second sanitisation in the microwave anyway to kill the bacteria on the grain.

I'm thinking of using a thermos to steep the grain in, should hold the temperature better. Will be a little more time consuming though.

I was also thinking of fermenting and aging in the same bottle. Make sure to add either sugar or carb-tabs to get some carbonation, that will change a lot about a beer.

OK, I started off the experiment today.

More details in blog if you click the link in my signature.

Cheers for the help everyone.

Good work! Can't wait to hear the results!

Ahhh

I was intrigued by this experiment and this is the last post?