Can you recreate Maris Otter/ESB malt with 2-row+some melanoidin/victory malt?

[MrSnacks]

Maris Otter/ESB malt is almost twice the price of 2-row in bulk and more often than not I need 2-row not MO. Can I get something close to the same taste with 2-row and a bready malt?

 

[sandyeggoxj]

Where do you live? I buy it from my brewery for $0.82/# plus my share of freight. Usually $4/bag. So about $49/ bag. Might want to look I to that?

 

[MrSnacks]

Where do you live? I buy it from my brewery for $0.82/# plus my share of freight. Usually $4/bag. So about $49/ bag. Might want to look I to that?

Northern Brewer, as ambivalent as I am about it, is local to me so I buy bulk from them. A 50# bag of Rahr two-row is 35 bucks, a 50# bag of Maris Otter is 65.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

Good price on rahr at least... Interested to see if you can recreate the maris flavor. Have you tried any of the nw pale malts? It can't be the same as it is a different strain of barley, but maybe close enough for what you are brewing?

 

[giraffe]

Not really. Maybe if your base was a domestic vienna malt... Then again it depends on what you are trying to make, a darker english style you may notice less (well, yes, and no), than a special bitter. You can always call it an "american special bitter" and move on, but it general it will be hard to duplicate the subtle complexity of a base malt, with another.

That said, many american microbreweries take your approach due to cost. And while redhook esb, for example is a good beer, it is a different beer than say fullers esb.

 

[MrSnacks]

Not really. Maybe if your base was a domestic vienna malt... Then again it depends on what you are trying to make, a darker english style you may notice less (well, yes, and no), than a special bitter. You can always call it an "american special bitter" and move on, but it general it will be hard to duplicate the subtle complexity of a base malt, with another.

That said, many american microbreweries take your approach due to cost. And while redhook esb, for example is a good beer, it is a different beer than say fullers esb.

I'm trying to make a Hair of the Dog Adam clone. It calls for 25 pounds of ESB/MO and I'd rather use 2-row, but I'm not sure how critical it is in this context.

 

[giraffe]

I think you will be fine. The peat smoke (eww.) will cover alot up, as will the dark malts. You could add like 2% amber malt or 4-5% victory/biscuit to compensate, though Gambrinus ESB malt is fairly mild.