Confused on buying grains

[Will_the-new-brewer]

So I am getting into AG brews so time for me to learn some more about brewing beer and the ingredients required.

Let's start with grains--
In many recipes I will see 3 or 4 different types of grain. When I go to buy it, it isn't listed the same as the recipe shows it. My first experience was buying 2-Row...you guys remember being a home brew newb and trying to figure out what 2-row or brewers malt (I just learned that those are the same...I think). The point I am getting at is that one recipe will say 2-row and another will say brewers malt and another will say something else when they are really just saying brewers malt.

I tried reading through Palmer's book, but couldn't find my answer. Where do I go to find all this data?

From talking with people, this is what I have figured out so far:

Barley
- Feed Barley
- Malting Barley (beer stuff)
-- 6-Row
-- 2-Row
--- Mash Required (converts starches to fermentable sugars)
--- Mash Not-required/Specialty Malts
---- Sometimes still included in mash

More specifically, a recipe calls for Pale Malt, 2 different types (Maris Otter and Bel) and calls for Aromatic Malt. Another recipe calls for Caramunich Malt, Caramel Crystal Malt, Abbey Malt (do I really need Castle Chateau Monastique?), and Brewers Malt.

How do I know what to buy when I go online or to the store?

 

[RM-MN]

A recipe is a record of what someone else did. Follow it exactly and you may get the same results. Make any changes and it isn't their recipe anymore, it is yours.

Slight changes won't matter much. Don't go radical unless you have experience or are willing to suffer the consequences.

To brew all grain requires that you have a grain that has the enzymes to convert the starches to sugars. The various grains that can do so also contribute to the flavors of the resulting beer. Some of those changes are so subtle that I can't notice them. From light to dark the grains to look at are Pilsen, brewers, pale malt, pale ale malt, Munich, and finally Vienna. Those malts can all be made from 2 row or 6 row and may have slightly different flavors depending on the strain of barley they are made from. 6 row will inherently have more enzymes but the current 2 row has plenty.

Specialty malts vary with the malting house. Crystal is a trademark that is the same as caramel malt. That difference was confusing to me. I use this chart when ordering as a guideline.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Malts_Chart

 

[Tribe Fan]

1. Talk to whomever buys the grain from distribution in your local home brew store. They will know the local market, what is readily available, what is not and why that is.
2. google is really your friend here. You can get simple explanations like this:
https://thebrewhut.com/blog/understanding-grains-malting/
or white papers on the diastatic power of certain malts.
3. Try a variety of base malts and see which ones you like. American, English and European base malts are very different, and within those categories there are huge differences. Brew the exact same beer with 2 row, 6 row, Marris Otter, Vienna, Munich or Pilsner malted barleys and you get very different beers.
4. Keep initial recipes simple, and eliminate the variables. If you brew a stout with 5 different grains and 2 or 3 adjuncts it may well turn out fantastic, but you may have problems understanding what proportions actually contribute to the flavor profiles.
5. Focus on process. Like cooking, learn to do the simple things right and build upon that.

 

[Bobby_M]

It is confusing and probably always will be. Similar grain types are also differently named across several maltsters. One example is dextrine malt which is like Briess Carapils or Weyermann Carafoam.

Some recipes list exactly which product brand was used; "carapils" and others; "dextrine malt" the latter of which was written by a more conscientious author.

Most of the time you can use a combo of the listed malt AND the lovibond or EBC (color) to figure it out. Example, chocolate malt at 350L is distinctly a Briess product as far as I can tell.

Bare in mind that even if you can find the exact ingredients down to the brand, the beer will be different from brewer to brewer because process carries a heavy weight.

 

[Soulshine2]

So I am getting into AG brews so time for me to learn some more about brewing beer and the ingredients required.

Let's start with grains--
In many recipes I will see 3 or 4 different types of grain. When I go to buy it, it isn't listed the same as the recipe shows it. My first experience was buying 2-Row...you guys remember being a home brew newb and trying to figure out what 2-row or brewers malt (I just learned that those are the same...I think). The point I am getting at is that one recipe will say 2-row and another will say brewers malt and another will say something else when they are really just saying brewers malt.

I tried reading through Palmer's book, but couldn't find my answer. Where do I go to find all this data?

From talking with people, this is what I have figured out so far:

Barley
- Feed Barley
- Malting Barley (beer stuff)
-- 6-Row
-- 2-Row
--- Mash Required (converts starches to fermentable sugars)
--- Mash Not-required/Specialty Malts
---- Sometimes still included in mash

More specifically, a recipe calls for Pale Malt, 2 different types (Maris Otter and Bel) and calls for Aromatic Malt. Another recipe calls for Caramunich Malt, Caramel Crystal Malt, Abbey Malt (do I really need Castle Chateau Monastique?), and Brewers Malt.

How do I know what to buy when I go online or to the store?

May I direct you to a handy little book if you dont already own it. I was lucky enough to have it given to me by a great friend who gave me my brewing equipment, his being more a drinker than a brewer.
The Joys of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian .
Ive read mine cover to cover a few times and i just like to pick it up and read a few things when I cant find the information in here. It is very informative and in laymans terms and the author has brewed many gallons of beer in the simplest methods. Buckets and pitchers. Once you get the basics down ,can you appreciate and find your way to and through an automated personal system. Relax ,don't worry ,and have a homebrew.

 

[cloudybrewer]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Malts_Chart

I didn't know that existed. Thank you!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Well, if you really want the definitive story, then read Malt by John Mallet (ISBN: 978-1938469121). A more general and less detailed (but still good enough) book, that's kinda old now but still relevant is Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles by Ray Daniels (ISBN 978-0937381502).

But just to steer you in a better direction. There's no such thing as brewer's malt - or rather everything we use is brewer's malt, but it's such a general term that it is only used by non-brewing sources. If you find someone actually selling "brewer's malt" then they probably don't know what they're selling, it's a meaningless term, you need more detail if you're actually going to brew with it.

Feed barley and malting barley are terms that don't really come into brewing, they're farming terms. Also they mean different things to different people. A plant breeder will sell feed and malting varieties - the feed variety will have higher yields of a lower-quality grain, the malting variety is bred for higher quality at the expense of quantity. A farmer may accept that trade-off in the hope of the higher prices paid for malting-specification grain. However, if he messes up or the weather is unkind, then even malting varieties will fail the specification and have to be sold (at lower prices) for feed.

There are two main kinds of barley, named after the number of rows of grain in each head. Most European barley is 2-row, which is better for malting but which historically didn't grow well in North America. So American brewers used 6-row, which doesn't malt as well (the grain size is smaller and more variable) but which does have more enzymes, so is good when brewing with unmalted grains like rice, maize etc. Hence Budweiser. These days, new varieties of 2-row can be grown in North America so even there the assumption is that any barley is 2-row unless it's explicitly described as 6-row. So don't sweat if a recipe specifies 2-row, it's just "normal" malt.

Normally the plant breeders come up with new and improved varieties of 2-row every few years, so it's pretty unusual to see individual plant varieties mentioned. The only ones you are likely to see are heritage British barleys - Maris Otter, Golden Promise and Chevallier. Otter and Promise are still quite widely used by smaller commercial brewers in the UK, and in my view the flavour is well worth the 10-20% premium they command over ordinary 2-row. At least here in the UK - you will probably pay rather more in other countries. But you can't really go wrong if you're looking for a better malt flavour -part of it is the plant, part of it is British maltsters kilning their malt a little more than in other countries.

Then there's a whole load of names for 2-row once it's been put through different kinds of malting process - some names are generic and used through the industry, some are specific brands from a single company. Names like Carapils are even more confusing as they are registered by different companies in different countries, to refer to slightly different products.
Aromatic malt - see https://beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/6otdyOWwG8/aromatic-malts/
Caramel malts are made by heating malt. Crystal malt is made only in rotating roasters, which is a consistent process that treats all the grains the same. All crystal is a caramel malt, but not all caramel malts are crystal, as caramel malts can also be made by kilning grain at a lower temperature without rotating it, which leads to a mix of grains, some closer to true crystal, some more like Munich. British and Belgian maltsters generally only produce crystal, but German and US maltsters generally talk about caramel malts (and put Cara- on the front of the name, eg Caramunich) and retailers in North America may use the terms interchangeably without appreciating the difference. Let the style of beer be your guide, use German caramalts for German beers and so on.
Abbey malt is a specific aromatic malt that is a Weyermann trademark.
No idea what Bel malt is - Google suggests it's a malt drink from Ghana?

As others have said - just because a recipe specifies a specific brand, you don't have to follow it slavishly as long as you use something similar. In particular, beware older recipes that have translated foreign ingredients into something that was available back in the days when there was a lot less choice of ingredients. These days, you can get hold of all sorts of things that had to be approximated back in the day. I've seen Brits get in a real mess trying to replicate a recipe for a British beer which had been translated into US ingredients that were not available in the UK, but had only been used because the recipe writer was trying to approximate British ingredients that he couldn't get hold of.

These days you should be able to get specialist ingredients and it's easy to use Belgian ingredients for Belgian beers, British ingredients for British styles and so on. So do that. But at the same time don't sweat too much if you have to approximate them.

 

[VirginiaHops1]

I recently got into grain BIAB. Most of the recipes I've come across use a base(2 row, golden promise, maris otter, pilsner) or some combo of them and then a crystal(20L, 40L, 60L,etc) and sometimes carapils for head retention. My first couple were mostly just 2 row, and I have one fermenting now that's a combo of 2 row and golden promise. I bought some maris otter and plan to do a beer with just that so I can learn how it tastes. It doesn't have to be too complicated although it can be. I've only done IPAs so far and I know when I branch out to other styles there will be other grains I'll have to use. I would just keep it simple at first and as you brew more you'll be more comfortable doing more intricate recipes.

 

[Velnerj]

I use this very often when comparing different brands.

https://www.brew.is/files/malt.html

 

[Lefou]

Try this reference as well ...

https://www.brew.is/files/malt.html

LOL scooped

 

[Velnerj]

Try this reference as well ...

https://www.brew.is/files/malt.html

LOL scooped

Great minds think alike

 

[Lefou]

I use that chart because my brewshop carries a wide variety of domestic and imported Continental grains.
Dingemans, Weyermann, Avangard ... it can be confusing sometimes trying to figure out how to mash some of that stuff especially if you read labels and specs like I do.
I also use a mobile app that allows editing of malt color, hop AAU levels, and sugar gravity. Half the fun is getting the damned recipes straight, hoping it fits a BJCP style I chose.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Where do I go to find all this data?

In the last couple of years, I have found maltster web sites to be a valuable source of current information.

Briess production information is here: http://brewingwithbriess.com/Products/Default.htm and when you "drill down" into their product information sheets (like http://brewingwithbriess.com/Assets/PDFs/Briess_PISB_BrewersMalt.pdf) you'll often see an "aroma/flavor" wheel.

Weyermann has "The Weyermann® Malt Aroma Wheel®" (https://www.weyermann.de/eng/gelbe_seiten_en.asp?go=mr&sprache=2 or do a web search on it).

There is a lot of related information if you explore each of their web sites.

Briess also has their "Brewing with Briess" web site (http://brewingwithbriess.com/) and blog (http://blog.brewingwithbriess.com/) - which are two additional resources.

And yes, I use this - https://www.brew.is/files/malt.html - as well.

 

[Hopalong]

There are two types of base malt, under modified which is brewers grade malt and fully modified which is distillers grade malt.

In under modified malt the enzyme that causes conversion, Beta, is not denatured and during a rest at 140 to 145F conversion will occur. Beta converts glucose into maltose and maltotriose, types of complex sugars needed in ale and lager.
To make ale and lager with fully modified malt an Alpha-Beta enzyme is added and the mash is rested at 140 to 145F.
The higher the modification number (Kolbach, SNR numbers) the more beat to death the enzymes are. Brewers grade malt modification is below 40 Kolbach. Homebrew/distillers malt is 42 to 46 Kolbach. The higher the modification the closer the seed is to becoming a plant.
Marris Otter, Halcyon and Golden Promise were originally used for making whiskey until homebrewing came along. When the malt is used with single infusion the beer will be similar to Prohibition style beer.

Check out the recipes on Weyermann Malt website. Check out Skagit Valley Malting and Pioneer Malting. They sell to homebrewers.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Marris Otter, Halcyon and Golden Promise were originally used for making whiskey until homebrewing came along.

The bulk of the Golden Promise crop, being grown in Scotland and Northern England, went for distilling (into whisky, not whiskey!) but was also used for brewing from the start, Otter and Halcyon were grown in England and always primarily commercial brewing malts. Another Otter offspring, Pipkin, is a particular favourite of the distilling industry as it doesn't produce epiheterodendrin, a cyanide-forming glucoside that is a particular problem in distilling.

 

[Sbe2]

Well, if you really want the definitive story, then read Malt by John Mallet (ISBN: 978-1938469121). A more general and less detailed (but still good enough) book, that's kinda old now but still relevant is Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles by Ray Daniels (ISBN 978-0937381502).

But just to steer you in a better direction. There's no such thing as brewer's malt - or rather everything we use is brewer's malt, but it's such a general term that it is only used by non-brewing sources. If you find someone actually selling "brewer's malt" then they probably don't know what they're selling, it's a meaningless term, you need more detail if you're actually going to brew with it.

Feed barley and malting barley are terms that don't really come into brewing, they're farming terms. Also they mean different things to different people. A plant breeder will sell feed and malting varieties - the feed variety will have higher yields of a lower-quality grain, the malting variety is bred for higher quality at the expense of quantity. A farmer may accept that trade-off in the hope of the higher prices paid for malting-specification grain. However, if he messes up or the weather is unkind, then even malting varieties will fail the specification and have to be sold (at lower prices) for feed.

There are two main kinds of barley, named after the number of rows of grain in each head. Most European barley is 2-row, which is better for malting but which historically didn't grow well in North America. So American brewers used 6-row, which doesn't malt as well (the grain size is smaller and more variable) but which does have more enzymes, so is good when brewing with unmalted grains like rice, maize etc. Hence Budweiser. These days, new varieties of 2-row can be grown in North America so even there the assumption is that any barley is 2-row unless it's explicitly described as 6-row. So don't sweat if a recipe specifies 2-row, it's just "normal" malt.

Normally the plant breeders come up with new and improved varieties of 2-row every few years, so it's pretty unusual to see individual plant varieties mentioned. The only ones you are likely to see are heritage British barleys - Maris Otter, Golden Promise and Chevallier. Otter and Promise are still quite widely used by smaller commercial brewers in the UK, and in my view the flavour is well worth the 10-20% premium they command over ordinary 2-row. At least here in the UK - you will probably pay rather more in other countries. But you can't really go wrong if you're looking for a better malt flavour -part of it is the plant, part of it is British maltsters kilning their malt a little more than in other countries.

Then there's a whole load of names for 2-row once it's been put through different kinds of malting process - some names are generic and used through the industry, some are specific brands from a single company. Names like Carapils are even more confusing as they are registered by different companies in different countries, to refer to slightly different products.
Aromatic malt - see https://beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/6otdyOWwG8/aromatic-malts/
Caramel malts are made by heating malt. Crystal malt is made only in rotating roasters, which is a consistent process that treats all the grains the same. All crystal is a caramel malt, but not all caramel malts are crystal, as caramel malts can also be made by kilning grain at a lower temperature without rotating it, which leads to a mix of grains, some closer to true crystal, some more like Munich. British and Belgian maltsters generally only produce crystal, but German and US maltsters generally talk about caramel malts (and put Cara- on the front of the name, eg Caramunich) and retailers in North America may use the terms interchangeably without appreciating the difference. Let the style of beer be your guide, use German caramalts for German beers and so on.
Abbey malt is a specific aromatic malt that is a Weyermann trademark.
No idea what Bel malt is - Google suggests it's a malt drink from Ghana?

As others have said - just because a recipe specifies a specific brand, you don't have to follow it slavishly as long as you use something similar. In particular, beware older recipes that have translated foreign ingredients into something that was available back in the days when there was a lot less choice of ingredients. These days, you can get hold of all sorts of things that had to be approximated back in the day. I've seen Brits get in a real mess trying to replicate a recipe for a British beer which had been translated into US ingredients that were not available in the UK, but had only been used because the recipe writer was trying to approximate British ingredients that he couldn't get hold of.

These days you should be able to get specialist ingredients and it's easy to use Belgian ingredients for Belgian beers, British ingredients for British styles and so on. So do that. But at the same time don't sweat too much if you have to approximate them.

Great post

 

[Will_the-new-brewer]

Awesome! Thanks a lot for all the input...I haven't been able to stop by here the last few days and have some research to do with all this data. As always, this is a great community with endless resource! Thanks again!