Favorite malt for single malt batches?

[damdaman]

Thinking about doing a single malt batch to go with my hop harvest (so I'd have a SMaSH with homegrown hops) and looking for suggestions on which malt to use. I'll be using fresh, homegrown willamette hops.

 

[giraffe]

Thomas Fawcetts Maris Otter. Or weyermanns floor malted pils. Depends on your yeast choice? You only got one malt, It should have character.

That said, the point of a smash is to learn about the flavors of the hops and the malt (and/or the yeast too). Choose a base malt you have never used before.

Then again, if you are going to add a truly ridiculous amount of hops to it, and make it 1.080+ DIPA style, just use generic two row.

 

[jfk69]

I agree on the Maris Otter, it is a great malt and quickly becoming my favorite.

 

[icebob]

Maris Otter here too...

 

[W0GWT]

Maris Otter.

I have a friend who makes a Munich SMaSH. It's pretty decent.

 

[mlafnitzegger]

Everyone always says use Marris Otter. Are there any other good distinct malts out there for a decent SMaSH? ipe:

just noticed the munich possibility.

 

[giraffe]

Sure, Special Aromatic, Weyermann Vienna, Munich I, Munich II, Weyermann Floor malt pils, Any continental Pils really, red-x, Optic, Pearl, Halycon, Golden Promise, or even Rauch malt, or Oak smoked wheat malt, are all quite good options and have character. And even with marris otter, theres a lot of differences between maltsters. Crisp and Bairds are very different.

 

[icebob]

it really depends on the purpose of the SmasH, learn malt or hop... for me it's playing with hop and yeast and found that maris otter is a more interesting malt than 2 row...

 

[Davemci]

Colorado malting company malts are very good. I've done a few 1 gallon smash beers with it and my next 5 gal is goin to be CMC smash with Sorachi ace.

 

[mlafnitzegger]

Awesome guys. Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

[Talgrath]

I'm personally a big fan of Munich or Vienna malts, but then again I'm a big German beer fan.

 

[houndsbreath]

I just did a kolsch smash with a kolsch malt from AHS. It seemed slightly breadier than pils malt to me. I think of pils malts as being cracker-like. Hopped with Tradition and it came out nice although strong at 5.7 ABV.

 

[thegreatmaibockaddict]

I love quality floor malted Maris Otter. Never need any specialty grains to get good malt flavors. I have used TF, Crisp, GlenEagle (high end Crisp), and one other who's identity was withheld for privacy reasons that may have been the best malt ever (dang brewers and their secrets!). Floor malting is key.

Avangard Pils or Pale Ale (and Munich) malts are also very good as base malts with nice character.

 

[Wolfbrau]

Ashburne Mild, Cargill Special Pale and Great Western Northwest Pale Malt are great choices. German Pale Ale malts are awesome and underused.