Marris Otter applications?

[Keith Adams]

How’s it everyone, just used Marris Otter for the first time in a blonde ale. After bottle conditioning for just over a week I thought I’d crack one open and see where it was at. Perfect carb after one week! I poured it out to have a taste and it was really the first time I have ever been able to discernibly pick out the “biscuit” flavor in a beer.

This had me wondering what are other applications you all have tried or heard of for this specific malt. Thanks for the info!

 

[Steveruch]

Most British styles.

 

[Denny]

Keep in mind that Maris Otter is simply a barley variety. How each individual maltster treats it is what makes the difference.

 

[McKnuckle]

Maris Otter (and Golden Promise, the Scottish variant) is the essential de facto British base malt. It's good for just about any kind of English or American ale, and really anything other than authentic continental styles from Germany or Belgium. Not that it would be bad in those per se, just not "correct." And it's kilned slightly higher (~2.5L) than you'd want in a very delicate, pale beer.

I view M.O. as a versatile base malt with personality.

 

[Jag75]

I use it in my stout

 

[Jayjay1976]

Of course there are otter uses for it!

Sorry couldn't resist, the urge was too strong.

 

[Gduck]

It’s a base malt (Thomas Fawcett Maris Otter) I use in pretty much any ale I brew. Just the other day I did a SMaSH beer with it, featuring the HBC-692 hop. Even in my hoppy beers I generally prefer at least a bit of a malt backbone. Though a good majority of my brewing skews towards English styles, especially the darker brews.

 

[hopkincr]

I’ve made a Marris Otter and Willamette SMaSH that is one of my favorite beers (Wily MO (Pena) Pale Ale - named after the baseball player).

 

[Keith Adams]

It’s a base malt (Thomas Fawcett Maris Otter) I use in pretty much any ale I brew. Just the other day I did a SMaSH beer with it, featuring the HBC-692 hop. Even in my hoppy beers I generally prefer at least a bit of a malt backbone. Though a good majority of my brewing skews towards English styles, especially the darker brews.

So M.O. will typically come forward in flavor every time? So don’t use it if I’d like the malt to fly under the radar?

 

[Gduck]

So M.O. will typically come forward in flavor every time? So don’t use it if I’d like the malt to fly under the radar?

it’s not so forward a flavor that I think it’s going to compete with a very hop forward beer, but if you were aiming something where the beer was about the hops and nothin but the hops I’d tend towards things like an American 2 row that tends towards a more “neutral” malt flavor.

 

[Jayjay1976]

I've never brewed with MO before but I'm about to brew an IPA with golden promise which is close... I wanted to pick up a sack of Crisp MO when my LHBS had it in stock but it was $$$ so I went with another sack of avangard pils. Are there other domestic or continental malts that compare with MO? Vienna or Munich light, or what would be the equivalent? Does Briess make something MO-like?

 

[Gduck]

I've never brewed with MO before but I'm about to brew an IPA with golden promise which is close... I wanted to pick up a sack of Crisp MO when my LHBS had it in stock but it was $$$ so I went with another sack of avangard pils. Are there other domestic or continental malts that compare with MO? Vienna or Munich light, or what would be the equivalent? Does Briess make something MO-like?

Maybe something like Great Western Pale ale malt (I think Briess has one called pale ale malt or something very similar). They are kilned slightly differently than the standard two row and might have a little more of that toasty/bready character. I’ve never tried the pale ale malts so can’t speak from experience, but going from the Great Western description it sounds like it might come close.

 

[kevin58]

For a long time MO was all I used for nearly everything I made. British ales, Scottish ales, American pale ales and IPA's. There are no hard and fast rules.

 

[tellyho]

I've never brewed with MO before but I'm about to brew an IPA with golden promise which is close... I wanted to pick up a sack of Crisp MO when my LHBS had it in stock but it was $$$ so I went with another sack of avangard pils. Are there other domestic or continental malts that compare with MO? Vienna or Munich light, or what would be the equivalent? Does Briess make something MO-like?

You can mimic the flavor of MO in a beer by adding some specialty malts to basic 2row. I seem to remember using Vienna and Biscuit to do this, but it's been a while. Now I just buy MO.

 

[Immocles]

+1 to biscuit malt.

I don't remember the % I used, but I had pretty good luck replicating a pale ale that I used MO the first time, and 2row/biscuit the second. I still preferred the MO though. Might have to try Vienna next time and compare. Thats more of a staple for me.

 

[Denny]

I've never brewed with MO before but I'm about to brew an IPA with golden promise which is close... I wanted to pick up a sack of Crisp MO when my LHBS had it in stock but it was $$$ so I went with another sack of avangard pils. Are there other domestic or continental malts that compare with MO? Vienna or Munich light, or what would be the equivalent? Does Briess make something MO-like?

Again, GP is just a barley variety. I find a great difference between Crisp and Fawcett GP.

 

[AzOr]

Great timing- I was just doing an inventory on my grains and had about 3lbs of MO in a sealed bucket. I purchased 10 lbs of 2 row and just poured it over and mixed with the two varieties.
I as well view MO as a flavorful booster and may just use this as my house grain unless doing a pilz or other lighter style.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Again, GP is just a barley variety. I find a great difference between Crisp and Fawcett GP.

Again, I'm looking for something with a flavor profile in the neighborhood of a good example of GP or MO, but perhaps more competitively priced.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

This is just speculation, as I haven't actually tried it yet, but I would think that if a pound or two of Pilsner malt was spread thin on a cookie sheet and placed into an oven preheated to 250 F. (121 C.) for 7 minutes it would take on roughly the color of MO and also receive some of the toasted/biscuit flavor of MO. My greatest concern would be in regard to having no idea as to how much the 7 minutes of relatively high temperature treatment would damage the diastatic power of the malt.

I've used 60 minutes at 250 degrees F. to make nice biscuit type malt of ~25L. You can see an example of it in my avatar, where I'm checking its DI_pH. It has a nice biscuit malt color as can be seen in the image of the glass with the pH probe in it. DI_pH is 5.07. And the flavor is fantastic!