Sixbillionethans
Well-Known Member
This post could be highly mis-understood so bear with me please...
I'm trying to understand why so many brewers (commercial and homebrewer's alike) use so much pale/pils malt in their recipes when a darker malt would work.
To illustrate what I'm getting at, let me use an example (I'm not saying it's the greatest example in the world, just AN example):
Porter (20-30 SRM per BJCP guidelines)
You could go with say 9 lb of 2-row, 1 lb crystal, and 0.5 lb chocolate: ~24SRM & $16 in malt.
OR
You could use 6 lb Mild Ale, 4 lb Brown, 0.25 lb chocolate: ~27SRM & $17 in malt.
It seems like the 2nd option (no pale malt) would be significantly more complex and unique than the first.
If I'm a brewery, I can understand using the first recipe. I've only got to keep one base malt in inventory and I get a lot of bang for the buck on my specialty malts. Plus I probably buy base malt by the ton and save $0.10/lb over some other malts.
But I'm not a brewery, I make beer in my garage...I get my stuff from the HBS down the street and I don't care if I spend $1 more on my malt bill.
So when I look at a recipe that calls for 95% pale malt plus 4 oz of this and 2 oz of that, should I assume they are taking the commercial brewer's approach?
An analogy would be that Randy Mosher basically says to never use an ounce of hi-alpha hops where 2 ounces of noble hops will do. Is the same true for malt? Never use 0.5 lb black patent where 4 lb of brown will do?
I'm trying to understand why so many brewers (commercial and homebrewer's alike) use so much pale/pils malt in their recipes when a darker malt would work.
To illustrate what I'm getting at, let me use an example (I'm not saying it's the greatest example in the world, just AN example):
Porter (20-30 SRM per BJCP guidelines)
You could go with say 9 lb of 2-row, 1 lb crystal, and 0.5 lb chocolate: ~24SRM & $16 in malt.
OR
You could use 6 lb Mild Ale, 4 lb Brown, 0.25 lb chocolate: ~27SRM & $17 in malt.
It seems like the 2nd option (no pale malt) would be significantly more complex and unique than the first.
If I'm a brewery, I can understand using the first recipe. I've only got to keep one base malt in inventory and I get a lot of bang for the buck on my specialty malts. Plus I probably buy base malt by the ton and save $0.10/lb over some other malts.
But I'm not a brewery, I make beer in my garage...I get my stuff from the HBS down the street and I don't care if I spend $1 more on my malt bill.
So when I look at a recipe that calls for 95% pale malt plus 4 oz of this and 2 oz of that, should I assume they are taking the commercial brewer's approach?
An analogy would be that Randy Mosher basically says to never use an ounce of hi-alpha hops where 2 ounces of noble hops will do. Is the same true for malt? Never use 0.5 lb black patent where 4 lb of brown will do?