So I just finished reading Historical German Beers for the Homebrewer. One of the things I don't really care for about the book is the correlation between modern malt and historical malt. He equates:
Pale/yellow/white malt = pilsen
amber malt = vienna
brown malt = munich
I have never experienced a 100% vienna beer or a 100% munich beer that I would consider amber or brown respectively. I would describe vienna as gold and munich as amber.
So in an effort to slightly improve historical accuracy, I am curious about toasting my own malt at home to achieve a little more color. He does point out the fact that these historical malts were apparently able to self-convert, so the must have had some diastatic power remaining. This was his reason for choosing these particular modern malts. I can't help but feeling that the historical malts were darker than these modern ones.
My question is: if I were to toast some vienna malt in my oven, at say 250F, would I completely destroy its diastatic power? Does anyone have any experience with this?
Pale/yellow/white malt = pilsen
amber malt = vienna
brown malt = munich
I have never experienced a 100% vienna beer or a 100% munich beer that I would consider amber or brown respectively. I would describe vienna as gold and munich as amber.
So in an effort to slightly improve historical accuracy, I am curious about toasting my own malt at home to achieve a little more color. He does point out the fact that these historical malts were apparently able to self-convert, so the must have had some diastatic power remaining. This was his reason for choosing these particular modern malts. I can't help but feeling that the historical malts were darker than these modern ones.
My question is: if I were to toast some vienna malt in my oven, at say 250F, would I completely destroy its diastatic power? Does anyone have any experience with this?