I think I have a problem with overly complex grain bills

[kanzimonson]

Some of my recipes have been getting ridiculous lately. Mostly I'm talking about Belgians and roasty beers - I have this tendency to add small amounts of lots of different grains. For example, I just made a Chocolate Belgian Stout that had 10 malts in the grain bill: MO, Munich, Wheat, Oats, C120, Special B, Caramunich, Chocolate malt, Roast Barley, and Aromatic. And also cocoa powder and granulated sugar.

In this case, everything was added for a reason, and they were small quantities. If you lump things together, it had 73.5% base grains (incl wheat and oats), 9% crystal, 7.5% roast, and 5% aromatic. So those percentages don't sound outrageous, but I see people complaining about ruddy grain bills with overly complex flavors.

Anybody have some advice when it comes to toning down grain bills? My problem is I look at each malt, think about what it's going to add, and then say, "Yes, I should keep that in." I feel like by reducing the variety of malts I'm reducing the variety of flavors.

 

[ArcaneXor]

You have quite a bit of overlap in your grain bill. Aromatic malt is essentially a darker version of Munich. Wheat and oats add similar characteristics to beer when added in small amounts. C120 and Special B are similar C-malts.

Ultimately, let the beer speak for itself. Ask yourself if you can identify the flavor, aroma and mouthfeel contributions of each ingredient. If you can't, just leave it out next time. I have had lots of luck that way. For instance, I used to color my brown porter with chocolate malt, Carafa Special III, Debittered Black and Black Patent. I ultimately decided that the combination of chocolate and Carafa Special III did the job just fine and dropped the black malts. Nobody could taste the difference.

Similarly, in my everlasting quest to produce an authentic Koelsch, I at one point had six grains in my grainbill because I was chasing what turned out to be the decoction flavor of the beer. I started over and now only use three malts (and could probably get down to two), and it did turn out that the decoction was the missing "ingredient".

 

[BigB]

I feel like by reducing the variety of malts I'm reducing the variety of flavors.

Actually quite the opposite. By having a huge variety of malts, the flavors get confused- particularly when they are all small amounts. Many brewers think the only way they can make a good Belgian beer is by using lots of different grains, but do a little bit of research into Belgian beers and you will quickly find that nearly every great Belgian beer has a rather simple grain bill. Just by looking at the small example above, do you really need wheat & oats? Rather than trying to everything out of one beer, why not celebrate one particular flavor? Although Gordon Ramsey is a chef and not a brewer, I think that his approach to cooking compares nicely to brewing: Keep it simple.

EDIT: Well said Arcane

 

[Revvy]

I think we all spike into that ballpark in our brewing careers. We start kitchen sinking our grain bills. Even if we've been brewing for awhile. I think it's good that you caught it.

A couple ideas that come to mind is to play with SMaSHes and variations of single malt/single hops recipes. You can surprisingly get a lot of flavor from even a simple base grain, some of my favorite IPAs are just Marris Otter and 1 or 2 hops. And then look at adding in only one or 2 additional grains/adjuncts.

There's also a handful of grains that can be used as base grains that we don't think of normally. I think someone mentioned aromatic malts, but even vienna can be a base. You might want to play with those as well.

Speaking of Vienna, ne of the things that helped me "tone it down"in my brewing was deciding to brew a vienna lager, I did a lot a research and saw a lot of "kitchen sink" versions our there, but then I came upon these sources, and talked about the KISS principle in brewing them;

The recipe was created while listening to this Basic Brewing episode;

December 29, 2005 - Vienna Lagers
We talk to Chris Colby of Brew Your Own magazine about Vienna Lagers, a style favored south of the border. Chris takes us through the style and how to make great Vienna lagers at home.

Click to listen-MP3

There's also some good articles as well.

http://***********/component/resource/article/1935-vienna-lager-tips-from-the-pros

http://***********/component/resource/article/1597-vienna-lager-in-exile

And then I came up with my version that is in my recipe pulldown, which is really flavorful for such a tiny variety of grains.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

 

[kanzimonson]

Good stuff.

I'll say that my other beers are pretty simple - most have 4 malts or less. I don't make a lot of light colored beers, except for American wheat and that's just 2 or 3 malts.

Regarding this Chocolate Belgian Diarrhea, I used to think that oats and wheat were the same but I've found that oats really only add this smoothness to a mouthfeel but they don't really thicken the beer and give it a nice head like wheat. That's an example of some of the logic that goes into creating these malt bombs of mine.

Thanks for the smash advice revvy, but what I think I really need to do is create a beer that I would usually load up with malts, but instead make it with as few as possible... like a quad made with pils, munich, caramunich, and sugar. I'm cringing now as I ask myself where all the flavor will come from but I guess that'll teach me!

 

[Revvy]

Thanks for the smash advice revvy, but what I think I really need to do is create a beer that I would usually load up with malts, but instead make it with as few as possible... like a quad made with pils, munich, caramunich, and sugar. I'm cringing now as I ask myself where all the flavor will come from but I guess that'll teach me!

But that's what I'm talking about by building up from a smash...from a simple base malt then trying to get what you want with the fewest possible. The Vienna that I talked about is pretty much getting a very tasty beer with only three grains.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. But I'm saying the way to get simple is to start simple. And one of the ways is to see just how flavorful a single grain beer can be. Then a couple grains.

 

[Oldsock]

If you like your results there is no reason to simplify for simplicity’s sake. Sometimes I do a big stout with eight malts, sometimes I do a stout with two (I just brewed a Scottish stout with just MO and Roasted barley). The more malts you use, generally the more time and skill is required, but when built correctly a complex grain bill can result in a great beer (for example the Portsmouth Kate the Great recipe called for 11 different malts).

 

[permo]

I also went through this phase, with as many as 8 crystal or specialty grains. Now I like to keep my grain bills much more simple. I typically limit to two different crystals and two specialty grains, maximum. This is just as a general rule. Out of my 30+ batches of beer, the ones with simple grain bills typcially are the best. However, I brewed a hoppy brown ale that had 9 malts and that was very, very good.

 

[KingBrianI]

...I think I really need to do is create a beer that I would usually load up with malts, but instead make it with as few as possible... like a quad made with pils, munich, caramunich, and sugar. I'm cringing now as I ask myself where all the flavor will come from but I guess that'll teach me!

I made a westy 12 clone with two malts: belgian pale and pils. Decocted it and used candi sugar and syrup in the boil (next time I'll just use the syrup). It's one of the more complex beers I've had.

 

[kanzimonson]

Holy crap. Sometimes I can't believe how much flavor the various sugars can add to a beer, although I guess you gotta give credit to the yeast as well when it comes to Belgians.