Underrated Homebrew Ingredients

[Bosh]

What homebrew ingredients do you think are unjustly maligned or ignored? Here's three for me:

Carabrown Malt The biggest obstacle this malt faces when it comes to getting recognition is its horrible name. It's not a crystal malt at all but rather a light brown malt. I started using it instead of more well-known brands of brown malt since it's the only brown malt I can find in Korea and I've been really pleased with it. Absolutely zero bitterness or astringency, just a lot of rich toasty malt flavors. Sweet but not overpoweringly so. One of my most popular beers was a a low gravity (3.5% ABV) beer with US-04, all light (Weyermann) Munich base malt, a pound of this and a bunch of late addition EKG. Highly recommend it for brown ales, milds and the like. Could also see it being paired with Midnight Wheat to make a "stout for people who don't like stouts" or any kind of dark beer for a bit more toasty richness without adding any burnt flavor.

Caraaroma Malt this one isn't as obscure as Carabrown but still deserves more love. Easily my wife's favorite malt and it's potent as **** so a little goes a long way. What I like doing with it and what I don't think I've seen anyone else do is add just a little bit to the grainbill of pale ales and similar beers to get some nice flavor without adding much sweetness. You can taste just 1% of this in the grainbill of a lighter beer and that small of an amount can't make a beer sweet. Got a pale ale brewing right now with 96% 2-row, 2% this and 2% Caramunich II.

Bravo Hops Bravo hops aren't anything special but they're dirt cheap (right now the cheapest 2015 hops for sale at yakimavalley.com by a wide margin) and works great for bittering. Pretty boring for anything else but they're perfect for their intended purpose and are, again, dirt dirt cheap.

 

[Elduder]

I love bravo for bittering, and I bought 2 lbs of caraaroma awhile back to use in my dark winter beers. You are definitely correct when you say a little goes a long way, but it gives such a rich, almost-burnt raisin sweetness that really adds to any malty flavor profile.


I'll have to source out some carabrown. I am about to make the brown porter recipe from BCS which calls for a significant addition of brown malt. I bet I could sub in some carabrown to smooth it out quite a bit.

 

[GHawk]

I light of the current season.....(can't help myself )

Pumpkin Pie Seasoning.

If you have a good darker base Pale Ale recipe with a good malty flavor and low IBU's, hit it with about 1 tsp at flame out. Of course, I have a full on seasonal recipe I do every year but.... just sayin'
Going for the Halloween and Thanksgiving/ Christmas cheer!

 

[d3track]

Wood varieties

 

[GHawk]

Wood varieties

OMG!
The difference in Hickory and Apple woods in a Smoked Rye!

 

[Bosh]

I love bravo for bittering, and I bought 2 lbs of caraaroma awhile back to use in my dark winter beers. You are definitely correct when you say a little goes a long way, but it gives such a rich, almost-burnt raisin sweetness that really adds to any malty flavor profile.


I'll have to source out some carabrown. I am about to make the brown porter recipe from BCS which calls for a significant addition of brown malt. I bet I could sub in some carabrown to smooth it out quite a bit.

Caraaroma is great stuff. Like 200 grams or so of it in a dark ale with plenty of roast malt to balance it out so it doesn't overwhelm the beer.

If you like it you should try adding just a tiny bit (start at 1% of the grain bill) to pale ales. In small amounts I seem to taste more dark honey than the burnt raisins you get in larger amounts.

It seems to me that while caraaroma is sweet it has a much higher flavor:sweetness ratio than lighter crystal malts. So if you want crystal malt flavor but not too much sweetness you can throw a little into the grainbill, taste its presence and still get a nice dry beer