How much 2 Row to convert 2 lbs of Brown Malt? (partial mash)

Working on a modern version of a recipe for an 1850 porter but, unfortunately, don't have the wherewithal to go AG just yet.

The recipe calls for 2 lbs of Brown Malt which is readilly available at my LHBS. I'd like to do a partial mash and want to know how much Two Row I would need to use to supply enough enzymatic action to convert the two pounds of brown.

Maybe Six Row would work better in this application due to its higher enzyme content?

 

I'd go 1:1.

Is it the London Whitbread recipe from the Durden Park Circle book?

 

Did the date give it away? For a moment I thought you were psychic!

 

I've made that recipe once before and it is superb. I scaled the proportions for a 5 gallon batch.

For the fun of it, I toasted MO to make my brown malt.

 

Niiice! :rockin:

Here's my partial mash recipe:

1850 London Whitbread Porter (5.5 gallons)

5 lbs 3 oz Light DME
2 lbs Two Row Pale Malt
2 lbs Brown Malt
12 oz Black Malt

4.5 oz EKG - 60 minutes

Wyeast Whitbread Ale (1099)

...I plan on maturing for 4-5 months like the recipe suggests.

 

The only change I would make would be substituting a higher AA hop (I believe I used Galena or perhaps Magnum) to reduce the sheer amount of vegetal mass in the kettle.

 

Good idea! I just got a pound of Galena from Hopsdirect that I haven't broken into yet.

Cheers!

 

Okay, so with almost five pounds of grain, how much mash water do I use? 7 quarts?

I found something that said 1.4 quarts / pound of grain - about right?

 

I do six lb. PM's with 8qts. of H2O and always have excellent results. I also sparge with the same amount. I use the 3gal. water cooler method.

I'm curious as to what you mean by "brown malt"? My store don't carry a "brown malt " by name but they do carry many malts that are brown in color, i.e. chocolate, special B., but these do not require any enzymatic help seeing as they have very little starch's for conversion to begin with.

kinda a NewB, i've only brewed 15 batches, of which my first three were extract, before discovering the PM method.

 

Brown malt is an English malt that was traditionally made by kilning over flame to about 65L.

It was a traditional ingredient in porter, and adds a nice toasty/roasty flavor that is quite different from chocolate and roasted barley.

 

One should bear in mind that modern brown malt is NOT the brown malt used by Whitbread. Totally different animal.

More later. Time crunch.

 

QFT! Hence the reason I made me own.

 

Okay. Back now.

Brown malt historically was simply excessively-kilned pale malt. We think it had about as much diastatic power as modern Munich malt. Modern brown malt has no enzymes to speak of, because of the modern method of kilning.

Modern malts are, except for a very few quaintly traditional British floor maltings, produced by kilning in a drum roaster. Until the drum roaster was invented in the early 19th century, all malt was kilned on the floor.

Brown malt was much less expensive a raw material than pale malt. Brown malt took less care to produce and could be gathered from the leavings of pale malt production. Porter brewers, with their immense production pressures, wanted to keep the bottom line as low as possible. Thus Porter and Stout brewers tended to use Brown and Amber malts exclusively in their grists.

The London & Country Brewer tells us (in 1736):

Anyway, it still had sufficient diastase to convert itself. The bulk of the grist would have been pale malt. By 1850, brewers had realized that the increased extract from pale malt more than made up for the higher per-unit cost. Combined with highly-roasted malts then becoming widely available through drum-roasting, and Porter as we know it today became possible. For example, the Barclay-Perkins Porter grist from 1851 was 85% Pale Malt, 12.12% Brown Malt and 2.88% Roast Malt, to OG 1057, and hopped at a rate of 3.25 lbs per bbl. The apparent extract of the 1851 beer was ~82%, compared to the 1805 Porter at ~64%; the 1805 beer had 56.23% Pale malt and 43.77 Brown Malt. See the difference in extract percentages?

Anyway. Historical brown malt is not commercially available. You really do have to make your own to replicate historical beer. That is not to say your beer is going to suck! It just won't be as meticulous as a nutjob like me would brew. But then again I make my own essentia bina when I brew Porter...

Bob

 

Understood. The original brown had enough diastatic power to convert itself...which is why I'm asking how much Two Row to use.

Essentia bina is easier to make from scratch than Brown Malt IMHO.
Besides, I've already bastardized the recipe by making it a partial mash.

Regardless of the above, I'd like to think I'll still get a little taste of that "1850 flavor". Then again, I'm not brewing this one immediately...maybe I could take the time to make some pale into brown.

BTW, NQ3X, you'd love the Durden Park Beer Circle's book "Old British Beers and How To Make Them".

Thanks for your comments and the additional insight!

 

Damn you guys!

The more I think about it, the more I'm really liking the idea of making my own brown malt. There's a good instruction in Mosher's "Radical Brewing" - it's nowhere near as bad as I thought. 2 lbs is not that much really...

Cheers!

 

I'm on my third copy. When the book starts shedding pages every time you pull it off the shelf, it's time to get a new copy.

Regardless of what pedants like me say, you should brew what suits you. On an internet board like this, you're bound to encounter some snarks who are really really CDO* about their narrow field of interest. We're useful; mine us. Separate the wheat from the chaff - the useful info from the proselytizing and the snark - and you can really get a lot of help.

Anyway. I'm off to curl up with my copy of Bennett's Ale, Beer & Brewsters in England.

Bob

 

If I roast my own Brown, in addition to the extra enzymes, it'll probably just taste that much better.

I'm probably nowhere as OC about my brewing as some of you are but, thanks to this forum, I'm getting there!

 

I lurve that book! :rockin:

James - 'tis true, I definitely geek out on historical brewing, traditional ingredients/processes and the rest - but it's all in the pursuit of a damn fine beer.

If you've not yet brewed some medieval ale, I'd recommend it highly - I found it to be quite refreshing, despite my earlier reservations. I started a thread on the topic a while back.