best two row for pale ale

I have been brewing all grain for quite a while. What is the best two row pale malt for making a pale ale. I am looking for a malt that gives the best clean taste. So far I have used Simpsons, MO, and Briess. Simpsons produced a nutty flavor that was terrible, Mo and Briess was ok, but i am looking for something beter. Any suggestions?

Make 1 gallon mini batches using a bunch of different two-ro s, but the rest of the recipe identical. Report back!

I could easily do this, but am looking for other opinions to save time given my limited luck in the past.

I've always assumed your basic 2-row was pretty identical... with the exceptions of color/slight variation in flavor like w/ MO and Pils.

My vote goes to Rahr because it's nice and cheap.

i'm partial to MO, but that's just me. you're asking a question that's a matter of preference... I wouldn't rely on someone else to tell me what I like. Parker36 had a pretty good idea. Maybe crank it up to 3 or 5 gal batches with a recipe you like to minimize the margin of error. Worst case scenario you have a lot of similar beer you like!

pp270 said:

I have been brewing all grain for quite a while. What is the best two row pale malt for making a pale ale. I am looking for a malt that gives the best clean taste. So far I have used Simpsons, MO, and Briess. Simpsons produced a nutty flavor that was terrible, Mo and Briess was ok, but i am looking for something beter. Any suggestions?

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What pale ale are you talking about, American or English? When you say "better" what do you mean? In general the domestic (US & Canadian) pale malts are cleaner (I would say blander) than the UK and European malts. Most American style pale ales use domestic malt and if that's the style you brew I would suggest sticking to the domestic stuff. There isn't much any cleaner/blander than Briess. If what you want is less malt flavor you could try blending some adjuncts into the grist like corn, rice, etc. BTW Briess and Simpsons are brand names of malting companies and Maris-Otter is a barley cultivar. There are a number of UK maltsters that offer a MO pale malt. There are also UK pale malts produced from other barleys like Pearl and Golden Promise. However, based on your question virtually all the UK pale malts are a little more highly kilned than the domestic pales and are all more broadly flavored, richer and perhaps "nuttier". German pale malts are very good. Cleaner than the UK pales but still nicely rich and malty. Try several and see which you like better as Parker36 suggests.

might you suggest some germam malts to try? Weyermann perhaps?

pp270 said:

might you suggest some germam malts to try? Weyermann perhaps?

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Weyermann pale malt is excellent and fairly easy to find.

Canada malting premium 2-row or their pale malt for APA and other american ales.

FRANCO-BELGES Pale malt for belgian pale ales

Bairds Maris Otter Pale Ale malt for English bitters and other ales

Another suggestion is to blend in a couple different base malts to get the profile you prefer.

the rahr is a very light malt if that's what you're going for, briess is really good too

I've never really noticed a drastic difference in the malts, but i usually don't make beer light enough to notice the base malts' little differences

do a smas recipe at 1g each to test the various malts flavor profiles. i personally prefer dingemans pale malt or pilsener but will probably be switching to briess next bag because of the $20 per bag difference.

Hikeon3 said:

I've always assumed your basic 2-row was pretty identical... with the exceptions of color/slight variation in flavor like w/ MO and Pils.

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This could be expanded with an experiment I've wanted to do for a while:
• I've had it in my mind to take a middle of the road pale ale recipe, and change out all of the 2-row in the recipe to pils 2-row and change all the hops to Saaz.
• And it would be cool to take that same recipe, convert all the base malt to MO and all the hops to EKG.

I thought it would be interesting to taste these beers side-by-side.

Two words: Maris Otter.

My LHBS has either Briess or Gambrinus on hand and I go with the Gambrinus for 2 row. The Briess has a husky, more tanninic flavor when you munch them side by side. MO would be nice but it's nearly twice the price for a sack.