Just home from the LHBS w/ 70 lbs of grain + more

Woohoo!

Just got back from the LHBS and got the following:

55 lbs of Gambrinus ESB Malt
1 lbs Caramel 10
3 lbs Caramel 40
1 lbs Caramel 60
1 lbs Caramel 120
1 lbs Special Roast
1 lbs Munich Malt
1 lbs Honey Malt
1 lbs Pale Chocolate
1 lbs Roasted Barley
1 lbs Brown malt
1 lbs Chocolate Malt
1 lbs Black Patent

1 pack of Wyeast 1968
1 pack of Wyeast 1028

3 lbs of Light DME

Looking forward to getting brewing!

Now which to brew first... Ordinary Bitter, ESB, Mild, or Brown Porter. Thinking either Mild or Ordinary Bitter, then repitch that into the ESB.

Do you have much experience with the gambrinus esb malt? I've heard it can be a bit heavier than Maris Otter, and needs to be tempered with some pale malt or 2 row. I've got a sack as well, with a brown ale in secondary where we used 2/3 esb and 1/3 pale as the base.

you missed my two favorite malts! But you have a bunch of possibilities there.

Special B
Biscuit

IRmeterman said:

Do you have much experience with the gambrinus esb malt? I've heard it can be a bit heavier than Maris Otter, and needs to be tempered with some pale malt or 2 row. I've got a sack as well, with a brown ale in secondary where we used 2/3 esb and 1/3 pale as the base.

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I don't have much experience, in fact I don't have any!

I'm just trying my hand at some english style ales and wanted to give Gambrinus ESB Malt a shot as my base, plus I got it for a good price at my LHBS compared to some other base malts. We'll see! This is my first try at AG from Extract, so looking forward to it. Just got done foodsavering everything, and portioned out some recipes already (minus the base malt - got that stored in a pet food container from walmart). :rockin:

onthekeg said:

you missed my two favorite malts! But you have a bunch of possibilities there.

Special B
Biscuit

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What do you typically include those in? So far I've got an Ordinary Bitter/ESB/Mild/Irish Red/Scottish 70/-/Brown Porter plugged into Excel to brew. Always looking for others to add to it.

I add biscuit to bitters and I use Special B in Irish Red.

I hope you got English crystal malts for your English brews. They taste totally different from their American counterparts (less sweet, more complex).

onthekeg said:

I use Special B in Irish Red.

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Interesting. I just used some in a Belgian Dubbel (.5 lbs. in a 5 gallon batch) and have read that most people dislike it in other beers. I have also heard that too much is overbearing even in Dubbels. How much do you use in your Irish red and how does it blend with the rest of the recipe?

ArcaneXor said:

I hope you got English crystal malts for your English brews. They taste totally different from their American counterparts (less sweet, more complex).

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Most of it was Briess if I recall correctly.

Not too concerned, as these will be my first AG batches, and not planning on entering any competitions, so will only be for my personal use/friends/family. Going bulk just made sense, because if a batch doesn't turn out - compared to extract the batches are only costing me around $15-17 depending on the specific recipe.

Once I've got some of my process dialed in, I'll look into getting some more authentic imported stuff, like a bag of Maris Otter over the Gambrinus ESB malt for example. For learning however, I couldn't pass up the $44 bag of Gambrinus ESB Malt vs. $59 for MO. I'm a rookie, so that $15 difference is a batch! But yes, I do understand the importance if you want to brew to style of using that styles origin specific malts/etc.