Comparisons of base malts between malt brands

[CyberFox]

I'd like to get everyone's input on the comparison of different malt brands for regular 2-row, Pale Ale Malt, and White Wheat Malt. While I have tried some of these, I'd just like to hear what others have to say about the following:

1) How would you compare regular 2-row from Briess, Great Western, and Rahr?

2) How would you compare Pale Ale Malt from Briess, Great Western, and Rahr?

3) How would you compare Pale Ale Malt from Briess, Great Western, and Rahr to English 2-row such as Thomas Fawcett Pearl?

4) How would you compare White Wheat Malt from Briess, Great Western, and Rahr?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Franktalk]

1. I haven't tried Rahr, but I like Great Western over Briess--they're both okay, but GW wins by a head.
2. GW is way better on the pale--much fuller, almost like a Maris Otter, good stuff!
3 GW is in the ballpark.
4. Both are good, though I favor GW.

 

[Dog House Brew]

I find GW and Rahr pretty interchangeable. Briess is my least favorite base.
I’ve only used Rahr pale, thought it was fine.
I don’t find huge differences in wheat.

 

[AlexKay]

Fellow Indiana-an! Try base malts from Sugar Creek … their pale ale (and darker kilned Ye Olde Pale Ale) is just great stuff. White wheat is good too.

 

[Dog House Brew]

Fellow Indiana-an! Try base malts from Sugar Creek … their pale ale (and darker kilned Ye Olde Pale Ale) is just great stuff. White wheat is good too.

Every time I’ve tried to pickup a sack they have been out. Want to try all their stuff.

 

[bracconiere]

I'd like to get everyone's input on the comparison of different malt brands for regular 2-row, Pale Ale Malt, and White Wheat Malt. While I have tried some of these, I'd just like to hear what others have to say about the following:

1) How would you compare regular 2-row from Briess, Great Western, and Rahr?

2) How would you compare Pale Ale Malt from Briess, Great Western, and Rahr?

3) How would you compare Pale Ale Malt from Briess, Great Western, and Rahr to English 2-row such as Thomas Fawcett Pearl?

4) How would you compare White Wheat Malt from Briess, Great Western, and Rahr?

Thanks in advance!

i just got an email from beersmith about this today....

BeerSmith Home Brewing News BeerSmith.com/Blog​ ​ Sensory Evaluation of Grains for Brewing The New ASBC Method This week I take a look at the new ASBC method for doing sensory and flavor evaluation of malts for brewing beer. This new "hot steep" technique published last fall by the American Society of Brewing Chemists provides a standardized method to do a sensory (taste) analysis of malts and is a great way to get familiar with the individual flavors that come from various malts. The basic technique involves making a "hot tea" with finely crushed malt and then filtering it with filter paper (or a coffee filter) to extract a hot tea you can sample for flavor. Since the process does take some time, it is best done for a few malts at a time and would also be a great group project for a homebrew club to brew and sample many malts. The ASBC Hot Steep Malt Sensory Method The technique below is adapted from the Breiss web site description here. Weigh a sample of 50 grams (1.75 oz) of base malt. If evaluating specialty malts, instead use 25 g (0.88 oz) of specialty malt blended with another 25 g (0.88 oz) of base (pale) malt. For dark roasted malts, use 7.5 g (0.25 oz) of roast malt with 42.5 g (1.5 oz) of base (pale) malt. Obviously you can double or triple the amount of malt and water if you need a larger sample for a group to evaluate. Mill the grains in a clean electric grinder for about 10 seconds. A coffee grinder works well for this as you want a coarse flour consistency - which is finer than you would typically use for brewing. Next heat 450 ml (1.9 cups or 0.95 pints) of water to 65 C (149 F) and combine it in with the crushed grain sample in an insulated thermos or growler and shake it for 20 seconds to mix the grain and water. Let the mixture stand for 15 minutes. While the mixture is steeping, place some filter paper (Alstrom 515) at the top of a clean beaker or glass. A coffee filter is a suitable substitute if you don't have access to lab paper filters. Wet the paper with some deionized water. Swirl the thermos/growler to bring the particles back into solution and pour the mixture into the filter. Draw the first 100 ml (just under 1/2 cup) off the collected wort and pour it back into the thermos to collect any remaining grainsm then pour that also into the filter. Allow the filter to drain completely leaving your liquid sample. Let the sample cool, and do your sensory evaluation when it has reached room temperature, within four hours of filtering. The actual sensory evaluation is done by sipping the resulting wort. Look for common malt flavors such as bready, malty, grainy, toasty, nutty, grainy, plums, raisins and of course the variety of coffee, roasted, burnt flavors that come from darker malts. As I mentioned you can get together with fellow brewers or your brew club and do a group-sampling of many malts to learn more about the flavors involved. Also some maltsters such as Briess have started publishing "spider charts" for their malts based on sensory analysis that can serve as a good guide of the flavors you might expect from a given grain. Hopefully you enjoyed this week's article on malt sensory testing. Thank you again for your continued support! Brad Smith BeerSmith.com Follow BeerSmith on Twitter and Facebook ​ Copyright 2017 BeerSmith LLC, All Rights Reserved View this email online if it doesn't display correctly​

BeerSmith, 12606 Clifton Hunt Lane, Clifton, VA 20124, United States​ You may unsubscribe or change your contact details at any time.​ Powered by: ​

 

[RM-MN]

At my "LHBS" (does 90 miles away still count as an LHBS?) my choices of malts are Briess or Briess. Hard to make a comparison.

 

[pvtpublic]

I won't post the full post, but @bracconiere has the method that the universities use to evaluate malts. I sat through a malt presentation put on by the Barley Malt Quality Research Lab of Montana State University. And that is what we did with five different pilsner malts. The difference was mind blowing. No two malts even closely resembled each other, aside from two of them having similar color.

 

[GoodTruble]

Also, even the same brand can vary from year to year, making hard to definitely rank them.

 

[AlexKay]

Every time I’ve tried to pickup a sack they have been out. Want to try all their stuff.

According to their website (which I've found to be mostly but not completely accurate), their base malts are in stock right now, other than white wheat. They are out of some of their really good specialty malts, though: lavender-smoked, Stjordal, crystal rye. I hope this means they're doing well by selling all their inventory. I honestly don't know what would happen to my brewing if they shut their doors.

Sometimes Great Fermentations will have stock of one of their malts even though they're sold out at the malthouse.

 

[Komodo]

Every time I’ve tried to pickup a sack they have been out. Want to try all their stuff.

@Dog House Brew and @AlexKay
I’ve never been up to Sugar Creek (I’m in Bloomington), but wanted to go soon. Do they have any kind of tour to see their operation, also can you taste all of the grains? I can’t really get a good sense of some of their malts without tasting them.

When I emailed them it sounded like they just have grain pickup on Fridays after you order it online.

 

[Steveruch]

Fellow Indiana-an! Try base malts from Sugar Creek … their pale ale (and darker kilned Ye Olde Pale Ale) is just great stuff. White wheat is good too.

Sugar Creek ye Olde pale ale malt, White wheat malt, munich malt, and crystal 60 malt.

 

[Wayne1]

Personally, I prefer the Rahr blends to those of Briess and Great Western. Most of the North American malts are blends of different barleys and even different crop years. If you have the lot numbers from the bag the malt came from, you can look up the Certificate of Analysis at Brewer's Supply Group (Rahr) or Country Malt Group ( Briess and Great Western)

Most of the smaller malt houses use a single barley. I do use a fair amount of Root Shoot, which uses Genie barley, grown and malted in Loveland, CO.

For flaked grains, Briess is my favorite.

 

[CyberFox]

I actually tried the malt steep technique on at least a dozen different malts and, maybe I didn't do it correctly, but I couldn't get a gauge on what they might taste like in a finished beer due to the sweetness. There were definitely big differences between malts, but the sweetness just threw me off.

It's good to hear others' opinions because it saves me some effort in the long run. It takes me at least 2 months to go through a keg of beer, so if I try all of the different brands of malt within each type (regular 2-row, wheat malt, munich, roasted barley, etc.), it would take me forever.

I found out that my favorite malt taste in an IPA comes from white wheat malt (bready, crackery, etc.). I have to figure out how much to use to give me the taste I want (25%? 50%?), then I have to decide if I want to use a regular 2-row with it or a pale ale malt, and then I have to decide which brand! Same goes for any beer: which type of malt, which brand, what percentages, etc. Either way, I'll obviously have to make quite a few test batches to narrow down my favorite combos. At least I'll have good beer while I do it.

 

[faithie999]

Every time I’ve tried to pickup a sack they have been out. Want to try all their stuff.

you probably know, but just in case, Great Fermentations carries Sugar Creek grain by the pound and by the sack.