Forgot to buy specialty grains, do I need them?

So I went into the LHBS with a list... one for a pale ale and one for a lager (Harp clone in Clone Brews) figuring my small LHBS doesn't always carry much so I should have a backup. But I completely forgot to pick up the 10 oz of 10L crystal malt for specialty grains after deciding on the lager. The question is:

Is it worth driving the short distance back there for the crystal malt or not? Would I notice it?

I don't have Clone Brews, so without the recipe it's hard to say, but I think the specialty grains make a huge difference. Granted 10L crystal is pretty light, but the flavor that it would add would be pretty big. I wouldn't make any beer without the specialty grains.

I would say hop back in your car and improve your beer many thousand times over. If a style calls for a particular specialty grain, you would be WELL served to pick it up. It will give you some color, flavor, aromas, and body.

Consider: If you are making Guinness, the only thing you really need to add to basic malt extract are the right hops, and 1 kind of specialty malt.

(This case study has been exaggerated for the purposes of instruction).

Do it. It's worth it, man.

Get the grains! Do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight back to the LHBS and get the remainder of your ingredients. Likely, they will crush the grain for you for free!

Yuri_Rage said:

Get the grains! Do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight back to the LHBS and get the remainder of your ingredients. Likely, they will crush the grain for you for free!

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Got the grains, they do not crush them, no need to even ask, as the only sell grains in pre-packaged allotments. Now I need to figure out how to crush them. Perhaps, if I clean out my coffee grinder... sounds dangerous though... I don't really want a coffee flavor in this beer.

NO!!! Don't use the coffee ginder. This would crush them WAY too fine.

All you really need to do is break open all of the husks. A roling pin and some elbow grease are going to serve you much better than grinding them up which would be worse than not having them at all.

Levers101 said:

Got the grains, they do not crush them, no need to even ask, as the only sell grains in pre-packaged allotments. Now I need to figure out how to crush them. Perhaps, if I clean out my coffee grinder... sounds dangerous though... I don't really want a coffee flavor in this beer.

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Maybe this makes me a bad person or something but...

if they won't crush specialty grains (even for a charge)=time to shop somewhere else

Beerrific said:

Maybe this makes me a bad person or something but...

if they won't crush specialty grains (even for a charge)=time to shop somewhere else

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Ya like the WWW
JJ

Beerrific said:

if they won't crush specialty grains (even for a charge)=time to shop somewhere else

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Hell yeah! one of my 2 LHBS's will at least let me use their mill to crush myself...and charge me $0.10 per lb for doing their work. That's still better than your deal!

I agree with the coffee grinder insight. I was going to hit the button once and rotate in new grains, but its probably better not to even touch the grinder. I'll probably have to use a beer bottle as a rolling pin since I don't do any baking (cooking though I do cook well enough).

I do shop elsewhere for everything else, but this weekend I wanted to get a brew in the fermenter, thus I had to do with whatever ingredients I could scrounge at this liquor store and "home brew shop". Iowa City isn't exactly bursting with homebrew shops. And I also try to keep buying stuff there because if they were to stop carrying things like bottle caps, I'd be SOL because I've completely forgot them before and had to make a frantic dash to this place for caps. Overall, I'm not 100% happy with using a dry lager yeast (Saflager S-23) for this "Harp clone" but it will have to do as it was all they had in the lager category. Also, the grains turn out to be 20 deg. L crystal. So its going to be darker than I want it, but I always end up with darker beers than I want due to being limited to boil sizes <3.5 gallons. Mostly it is poor planning on my part. Heck, I didn't even notice it until today but I've been lagging on actually drinking my own beer, as I only have 38 empty bottles and a 120 or so still bottled waited to be consumed. This is a definite sin... I need to keep putting off having friends over.

Saflager S-23 works quite well, very clean.

Levers101 said:

Got the grains, they do not crush them, no need to even ask, as the only sell grains in pre-packaged allotments. Now I need to figure out how to crush them. Perhaps, if I clean out my coffee grinder... sounds dangerous though... I don't really want a coffee flavor in this beer.

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Are you sure they don't have a crusher. My LHBS sells the grains in pre-packaged uncrushed amounts but if you ask you can use the grain mill in the back room to crush them yourself. However as they are a big beer store with a small homebrew section the person behind the counter usually doesn't think to ask whether you need them crushed or not. Ask next time you are in the store. If they don't crush them, either get yourself a mill or a new LHBS (maybe both).
Craig