Talk to me about Vienna malt

Seriously...tell me what you know about brewing with it. I've used it in smaller quantities (up to 3 lbs), and I believe it can be used for 100% of the grain bill. I'm just looking for any general knowledge and experience with Vienna. Thanks!

Yup, 100% of the grain bill: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f59/brads-vienna-lager-80356/

Yeah,
Vienna is probably my favorite toasted brain, love to use 4-5# in our house ale to replace some crystal/carapils. It has enough diastatic power to convert itself. 100% vienna for vienna lager would be a classic, also consider a mix of vienna and munich for a marzen/ oktoberfest.

paul

any ales with this kind of malt?

doctorRobert said:

any ales with this kind of malt?

Click to expand...

Oh, yes! I use Vienna malt in lots of my beers. Some of my pale ales use a few pounds, including my house APA and my Fizzy Yellow Beer. It's a bit darker than pale malt, but not as dark as Munich malt. It's rich and aromatic, and gives a nice "malty" flavor to many ales. You can use it for 100% of the base malt, or add it as part of the base malt- it's one of my favorites. I buy Briess' Vienna malt in 50 pound bags, since I use it for many of my ales.

For my Vienna lager, I still buy Weyermann Vienna malt. I think there is a difference, and for a special Vienna-centric beer I will buy the German malt. But for my American style beers, I use the Briess and it's great!

DeathBrewer's Vienna Northern Brewer Smash is a great way to introduce yourself to Vienna.

10lb Vienna
1oz Northern Brewer @ 60min
1oz Northern Brewer @ 20min
1oz Northern Brewer @ 5min
Nottingham or US-05 dry yeast

Delicious! Vienna has a slightly sweet, slightly toasted quality to me. You can use it as a base for most beer styles. I just did a Strong Scottish Ale with half Marris Otter, half Vienna as the base and it came out great. I'm planning on a Vienna-based Cream ale soon too:

5lb Vienna
1lb flaked corn
12oz honey malt
8oz dry rice extract
1oz Cascade at 60min
.5oz Cascade at 15min
1oz Cascade dry hop

I used Death's Vienna/NB SMASH as inspiration for this years Irish red and it turned out great. I just added a little de-bittered black and some cara-pils to the SMASH recipe and I was very pleased with the results.

+1 to Vienna & Maris Otter combo.

Also, note that there is a malt called "caravienna" or "caravienne". I made the mistake of using this other malt in a proven recipe I had that called for regular vienna malt and it came out way darker with a pronounced and somewhat unpleasant "twang" that is not present beers made with regular vienna malt. So, be aware that vienna and caravienna/caravienne are fairly different malts that will produce dramatically different beers.

I've done a couple of Vienna SmaSh's. Enjoyed both of them. Will do another soon with less hops. Used Notty and SO5, liked the SO5 brew better, not as harsh, but did cut back on the (same) hops, too.

I made a lager (split W34/70 and Munich) with Vienna and hallertauer - turned out great.

Just did my first brew w/ vienna as a base malt. the grain smells fantastic! I'm looking forward to a SMaSH soon.