Getting that maltiness.....

Okay so this is my fifth all grain batch so far and I am still dissapointed by what I get. I really dig english malty beers and here's my last brew



ESB clone ( 5.4 gallons)

10 lbs maris otter
0.8 lbs crystal 120
0.6 lbs crystal 60

mashed at 152 F for 60 min
esb wyeast

I kegged this one last night, been in secondary for 6 weeks and it's pretty thin and definitely not malty like the real one. I'm hoping it will get better once carbonation is done.

I've tried mashing at 158, 152 and 156 so far with different beers and I never get a flavorful beer even though I hit my gravities all the time. I use a thermapen thermometer so I don't think my temperature readings are off. My city water is pretty soft from what I've read from the city report and I use a chlorine filter. Now I'm down to the mash ph....still don't know what to do. Any ideas ???

Not sure but are you sparging? How are your gravity readings? If that is all normal you Might want to adjust your recipe.

Definitely check out your water. Just like with food, salt makes a difference. With soft water especially, a little bit of CaCl2 and CaSO4 can make a huge difference for bringing out that bready, biscuity malty character.

There are tons of good brewing sheets out there...EZ Water, Bru'n Water, Brewers Friend...input what you know about your water, then follow the steps to adjust as necessary.

Or, trial and error works too. Adding 2 grams of CaCl2 would be a great starting point.

Id say go out and but some PH srips and report back

oops forgot to mention I batch sparge and I also add gypsum (1 tsp/gallons).

What is cacl2 ? Should I add the gypsum in the mash instead of trying to dilute it in the hlt ?

matc said:

Okay so this is my fifth all grain batch so far and I am still dissapointed by what I get. I really dig english malty beers and here's my last brew



ESB clone ( 5.4 gallons)

10 lbs maris otter
0.8 lbs crystal 120
0.6 lbs crystal 60

mashed at 152 F for 60 min
esb wyeast

I kegged this one last night, been in secondary for 6 weeks and it's pretty thin and definitely not malty like the real one. I'm hoping it will get better once carbonation is done.

I've tried mashing at 158, 152 and 156 so far with different beers and I never get a flavorful beer even though I hit my gravities all the time. I use a thermapen thermometer so I don't think my temperature readings are off. My city water is pretty soft from what I've read from the city report and I use a chlorine filter. Now I'm down to the mash ph....still don't know what to do. Any ideas ???

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If you are not getting a malty beer with 10# of MO in five gallons then something is amiss. What is your yeast, hop schedule, water profile? Simply saying the water is "soft" doesn't really convey any detailed information. Changes in yeast, hops and adjustments to water are all possibilities here but more input is required for an informed answer.

some brewers swear by a 90 min boil or alternatly you could carmelize a half gallon of wort.This is done by using a half gallon or so of your fist runnings in a smaller sauce pan and boiling it hard for 30 min.

What is your hop schedule ? You could be bittering too much and balancing out the maltiness.

english beers are low temperature tight mashes. try mashing around 150F with 1qt of water per lb of grain. batch sparge @ 168 english yeast kept in lower 60's.

should get you in the ballpark.

matc said:

oops forgot to mention I batch sparge and I also add gypsum (1 tsp/gallons).

What is cacl2 ? Should I add the gypsum in the mash instead of trying to dilute it in the hlt ?

Click to expand...

If you want malty flavor, I'd suggest skipping the gypsum (especially if you're using a lot of it- I don't know if you mean one teaspoon total or 1 teaspoon per gallon so I can't say).

Find out what's in your water. "Soft" doesn't mean anything at all. But if "soft" is the best description of what you have, you can use CaCl2, which is calcium chloride, in the brewing water.

the hop schedule was

1.94 oz goldings at 60 min

0.32 oz fuggles at 20 min
0.32 oz goldings at 20 min

0.25 oz fuggles at 0
0.25 pz goldings at 0

total ibu of 40 which is in the mid range for an esb

For the mash, I use 1.28 qt water/lbs of grains for all of my beer.

I used the wyeast 1968 (esb) for my starter and fermented in at 68 F



As for the water report, it's in french but here are a few important details :

Alkalinity (mg/L CaCO3) 12
Hardness (mg/L CaCO3) 84
Sodium (mg/L) 4.5
Sulfates (mg/L) 14


Should I lower my water to grain ration for the mash ? Could this be the reason for my problem ? I will skip the gypsum next time and buy some CaCl2

And now for the "Well, duh" comment....

Have you tried some grains known for their malty punch? Victory, Munich, Biscuit etc.

As for water, unless you know what you are starting with, you are just taking a 50/50 bet when you add anything. If you think the water is a real issue, get a water report OR start with RO water and build up.

matc said:

ESB clone ( 5.4 gallons)

10 lbs maris otter
0.8 lbs crystal 120
0.6 lbs crystal 60

mashed at 152 F for 60 min
esb wyeast

1.94 oz goldings at 60 min

0.32 oz fuggles at 20 min
0.32 oz goldings at 20 min

0.25 oz fuggles at 0
0.25 pz goldings at 0

total ibu of 40 which is in the mid range for an esb

For the mash, I use 1.28 qt water/lbs of grains for all of my beer.

I used the wyeast 1968 (esb) for my starter and fermented in at 68 F



As for the water report, it's in french but here are a few important details :

Alkalinity (mg/L CaCO3) 12
Hardness (mg/L CaCO3) 84
Sodium (mg/L) 4.5
Sulfates (mg/L) 14


Should I lower my water to grain ration for the mash ? Could this be the reason for my problem ? I will skip the gypsum next time and buy some CaCl2

Click to expand...

Your water/grain ratio is fine. Adding gypsum is fine too. It's the typical brewing salt addition for this style although you could mix in CaCl2 as well. However, before doing any of that I strongly suggest you obtain from your water supplier or have done a detailed water analysis to provide you with your water's actual content of important brewing ions. Until you have that information adding any kind of brewing salt is strictly guesswork. There is a wealth of information here at HBT in the Brew Science section on brewing water. Make use of it.

With all that in mind I still don't see where this beer would not be "malty". Perhaps you are either expecting something else or not describing exactly what you want. An ESB should have a good hop presence but at the same time a nice, rich malt body to balance. While I might alter that recipe a bit, overall it still should provide those basic aspects to the beer.

All right thanks for the tips guys !

As for the grain types, isn't maris otter known for its malty taste ? This recipe was a clone of the fuller's esb , which I like very much so I know what to expect !

Have you tried doing a batch and using a no-sparge method? Personally, I'd try something like that before messing around with water chemistry, not that there's anything wrong with using salts. You may want to start with RO water and build it from scratch based on a little research.

I would skip the gypsum and use a yeast strain that accentuates the malt, White Labs 002 maybe & ferment for the first few days at the high end of the temperature range. ESB's should be a little lower body, imo, so I would go with a lower mash temp, or even do a step mash. A little Victory malt may help as well.

matc said:

All right thanks for the tips guys !

As for the grain types, isn't maris otter known for its malty taste ? This recipe was a clone of the fuller's esb , which I like very much so I know what to expect !

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Yes, MO or virtually any UK pale malt has a nice, malty flavor compared to typical North American varieties. So whatever shortcomings you are experiencing in the beer are not the fault of the malt. At this point I would suggest some tweaking of that recipe. The MO is fine but I'd eliminate that dark 120L crystal and up the medium crystal a bit. To get the darker copper tone of Fuller's use just a tiny bit of dark roasted malt like chocolate or Carafa. The recipe I use below makes a very respectable version of Fuller's ESB, which is also one of my favorite beers. While it is based on an older version of the brew which had some adjunct content it could be easily modified to replace that with an equal amount of pale malt. I've made this beer a number of times with everyday UK pale malt from Munton's, Baird's and Crisp and with a couple of MO offerings. They are all good and all make what I would describe as a malty beer. The color is just about spot on for Fuller's.

Fuller's (style) ESB

10 Gallons US; Est OG 1.056 IBU 38

16.25 lb UK pale malt
.5 lb Crystal 55L
1.25 lb flaked maize
1 oz chocolate malt

90 minute hops:
1 oz Northern Brewer
1 oz Challenger

15 minute hops:
1.5 oz East Kent Goldings

The recipe is not dramatically different than yours which again makes me wonder why your beer is not "malty". If you brew this again before getting all your water info compiled try adding 3g each of Calcium Sulphate and Calcium Chloride to the batch. While the ESB yeasts WLP002 and WY1968 are supposed to be the Fuller's strain and lots of homebrewers like them, I don't. Try a London WLP013/WY1028 or Edinburgh WLP028/WY1728 on a future batch.

"As for the grain types, isn't maris otter known for its malty taste ? "

It is known as a malty pale malt. It's not an over the top "wooo that's malty" grain though. It's a nice, well rounded, all purpose malt.

If you love this style, it would be well worth it to buy a bit of each of those malts - smell them, taste them... A side-by-side comparison is a really quick way to zero in on the tastes and smells you would really like in your brew.

Clone brew recipes are a great jumping off point, but they are just someones opinion of what that beer tastes like. If it doesn't taste right to you, then you get to tweak the recipe until it does. That is one of the great things about homebrewing.

I would agree with BigEd that considering your recipe this should end up as a malty british beer.

I'm actually drinking my own esb right now that I brewed 1/21/13 and my recipe is VERY close to yours. I was just commenting to my wife that this beer has been continuously changing and is really rounding out very nicely; still having noticeable changes in the past few days. I would consider my ESB plenty malty for an ESB.

Regarding your grainbill, you have 2 oz more dark crystal than I used, and I home toasted 2 lbs of my MO. My hop schedule is fuggle/goldings (20/10/2 mins), and my final ibus are 41.1 (I went with willamette for bittering to conserve on EKG). I used notty at the higher end (68-70) to coax some fruitiness from it, though it probably pails in comparison to what I'd achieve with 1968.

I mashed at 157F for 45 min at about 0.95:1 water:grist ratio, infusion mashout at 168F for 10min. Fermented 10 days in primary and directly into keg to "lock in" all that goodness.

I found the thread below to be VERY informative regarding brewing british beers with lots of great ideas from folks who have put lots of time into this style of beer. I won't lie and say I've read all pages of this thread but I got a good half way. I intend on finishing it at some point too

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/b...on-temps-profiles-cybi-other-thoughts-221817/

Okay thanks for all your help !

Well I transfered this yesterday because I wanted the yeast to pitch into a new batch2.

reading THIS thread and the OP is talking about the fermentation temp schedule in his ESB clone and how he is having the same problem that you're experiencing

Then I listened to the Fuller's brew and rebrew episodes on Can You Brew It? and learned that Fuller's (and perhaps other British brewers?) are using a very regulated fermentation temp profile that the CYBI? folks discovered makes a big difference in malt expression of the final beer. Essentially, you pitch on the cool side (I guess to reduce fusels and other bad stuff), allow the temp to rise slightly in the first 12 hours or so (to get some esters and possibly reduce some diacetyl), then when the beer is about halfway attenuated you cool it back down to about pitching temp (to somehow help the malt character?) and then when the beer is at 1/4 to 1/5 OG to rapidly chill it to a cold temperature (to prevent the beer from cleaning up all the nice flavors it has created I guess).

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Why not try using a bit of distilled water and the appropriate amount of Burton-on-Trent premix salt?

Failing that, I'd definitely try upping your CaCl levels by about 50ppm for a test batch. it plays a rather large role in both malt and hop flavor.

RonPopeil said:

english beers are low temperature tight mashes. try mashing around 150F with 1qt of water per lb of grain. batch sparge @ 168 english yeast kept in lower 60's.

should get you in the ballpark.

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Daniels in Designing Great Beers recommends this as Keys to Success in brewing Bitters & Pale Ales

thick mash: 0.9 to 1 qts/lb
low mash temps: 149 to 154° F

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also

"Burtonized" water, high in gypsum
5 to 8% crystal 40
up to 5% Munich, Vienna, aromatic, biscuit, Victory or toasted malt

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RonPopeil said:

english beers are low temperature tight mashes. try mashing around 150F with 1qt of water per lb of grain. batch sparge @ 168 english yeast kept in lower 60's.

should get you in the ballpark.

Click to expand...

Another vote for mashing at 150F with a thick mash (1 qt / lb).
I tried a thinner mash a few times, and each time, it resulted in a very thin tasting beer.

-a.

all right so next batch, I'm trying the thick mash for sure along with adding cacl.

I'd be tempted to reduce the flavor and aroma hops a little. I've been thinking about bitter vs malty, and am starting to think more along the lines of malty vs hop aroma and flavor.

I was drinking a pilsner urquell and was noting how malty it is, yet is still quite bitter. Then I got to thinking that bitterness is tasted on your tongue, but most of the malty and hoppy (non-bittter) flavors are actually sensed in your nasal cavities. So then it seems that you can have bitter AND malty, as those are perceived in two different ways. However hoppy flavor and aroma will compete with maltiness in the nasal cavity. So that would suggest either reduce the competition (hops) or up the malty flavored ingredients.

What I don't know is where all of the information from the nose and tongue ends up in the brain. Ok, did a quick look and it looks as though taste and smell, which make up the overall flavor, can be separated in the brain. People can lose just taste, or just smell, or both.