What's your favorite malster and why?

[Beer-lord]

I like to try as many different brands of malt that I can. It's cost me lots of money to purchase sacks of grain from different companies but i do enjoy trying them.
So far, I really like (as well as others I share my beer with) Mecca Grade Lamonta. Their Munich, Vienna and Pislen are good as well. I am also a fan of Proximity Malt. They've made me very good beers the last 3 years.
Of course, I still use Rahr, Great Western and others that I can get at my LHBS but trying boutique maltsters has been fun. I can tell the difference in my Pales and IPA's but not so much my stouts. I can't tell the brand but I can tell when I've used these more expensive malts.

What's your favorite and why.

 

[rgregoryirving]

Have you brewed with Avangard? I would be curious how they compare. I use them exclusively for my base malts since I am able to get it from a brewery at cost.

 

[Beer-lord]

I used their pale malt once, only 10 lbs but didn't get good efficiency which is what I've sometimes read about. Of course, it's always a YMMV type of thing but the beer tasted fine. I think I'll give them another try. I normally buy by the sack to save some money and the LHBS only stocks a small variety of sacked grain.
I wonder what the local breweries would say if I asked to buy grain from them, never have but they certainly are aware and friendly with the owner of the one and only LHBS.

 

[Golddiggie]

I'm currently using malts from Simpson and Crisp. I've used Bairds and TF in the past as well. I like all four of those. I'm only getting my base malt (Maris Otter) by the 55# sack. Everything else is typically 5-10# purchases from the LHBS. Since the LHBS has all the additional malts I'm using, it's a win-win. Plus I've been able to get them to order me things that would have cost me more with shipping.

As for why I use these maltsters... I simply like what they produce. Crisp No 19 is a very nice base malt. Simpson produces the majority of the other malts I use. Not needing to hunt around to find a malt my recipe calls for is no minor thing. Plus, sticking with malts produced by the same company lends to a level of stability for your recipe. Knowing that these are grown items, with humans in the process, so small variations can happen. My end product has all been within acceptable parameters.

 

[rgregoryirving]

I used their pale malt once, only 10 lbs but didn't get good efficiency which is what I've sometimes read about. Of course, it's always a YMMV type of thing but the beer tasted fine. I think I'll give them another try. I normally buy by the sack to save some money and the LHBS only stocks a small variety of sacked grain.
I wonder what the local breweries would say if I asked to buy grain from them, never have but they certainly are aware and friendly with the owner of the one and only LHBS.

I have struggled to get my efficiencies from the low to mid 60s......I've tried all kinds of modifications to my process to try and help too, never once did I consider it was the malt itself....

 

[RM-MN]

If I order from the nearest supplier of brewing grains, I get Briess. If I go to the next nearest shop, I get Briess. If I order online from my favored supplier, I get Briess. I guess my favorite maltster is Briess. It must be nice to have choices.

 

[MaxStout]

Briess for domestic malts, Weyermann for German malts, Dingemans for Belgian, Crisp or Simpson's for British.

 

[Wayne1]

For inexpensive base malt, I use Rahr Standard 2 row. For lagers, I use Weyermann Barke. For English malts, I am really liking Crisp Chevallier. For locally grown and malted grains, Root Shoot is my favorite.

 

[AlexKay]

Sugar Creek is local here in Indiana. They make a mean English pale malt, as well as good Munich and Vienna. Their range and quality of smoked malts is what sets them apart, though. Traditional German rauchmalz and Grodziskie malts are much more intense and characterful than, say, Weyermann, plus they've got Nordic smoked malts (alder and birch woods), and they're the only source I've found for lavender-smoked malt. That, I used in a lavender-smoked helles eisbock, which is possibly my favorite beer I've ever brewed.

 

[day_trippr]

Simpson for Golden Promise, Weyermann for their pilsner malts, and Briess for domestic two-row...

Cheers!

 

[duncan.brown]

Simpson for Golden Promise, Weyermann for their pilsner malts, and Briess for domestic two-row

Same, plus Crisp for Maris Otter.

 

[Dog House Brew]

Simpson GP, Best for German, Dingemans for Belgian, GW or Rahr for domestic. Weyermann is interchangeable with Best really.

 

[mistertinkle]

I really try to support local maltsters, and I'm lucky to have a couple near by. So, I tend to purchase base grains from either Root Shoot malting or Proximity. For other specialty grains, I'll try to purchase US grains for my miniscule support to reduce shipping impacts from other countries, but sometimes I just want to have a specific malt. I really like Simpsons DRC so I keep that in stock.

 

[bracconiere]

i malt my own, so pretty much just use 6-row. kilned to suit my mood at the time.

 

[bwible]

I buy Breiss 2 row in a 50lb sack and I use that for the majority of American styles. For British styles I buy whatever Maris Otter I can get. Lately the shops I buy from have Crisp. Or I have used Fawcett Golden Promise.

For lagers I bought a sack of BestMalz pilsen from the local brewpub who I am grateful to for selling it to me. He’s my neighbor. I really like this malt. It even came pre-crushed because thats how he buys it. I was leery of that at first but it worked out well.

I haven’t brewed with malts from too many different maltsters. When I had my store I used to be able to get floor malted Warminster Maris Otter but that was ages ago.

In the end we can only buy what our stores sell or whats available online from the big places. And its hard to buy sacks online when free shipping doesn’t apply.

 

[BrewMan13]

Usually it's Rahr for base malt, whatever my LHBS has for specialty, and Weyermann for German stuff. Avangard was mentioned earlier, so just throwing out that it's Russian owned, if you care about that sort of thing.

 

[Dog House Brew]

Usually it's Rahr for base malt, whatever my LHBS has for specialty, and Weyermann for German stuff. Avangard was mentioned earlier, so just throwing out that it's Russian owned, if you care about that sort of thing.

I didn’t know that, even though, I never liked it much. I always thought German. I’d love to find a domestic Pils that I really liked.

 

[BrewMan13]

I didn’t know that, even though, I never liked it much. I always thought German. I’d love to find a domestic Pils that I really liked.

Yeah, same, always preferred Weyermann anyway. It is made in Germany, just owned by a Russian businessman: Kirill Minovalov - Wikipedia

 

[Franktalk]

For domestic beers, I love Great Western malt. Consistent flavor, yield, and quality all around!

With that said, I use Weyerman for my continental beers, and either Bairds' Maris Otter or Simpson's Golden Promise for UK beers.

I buy all my grains at Morebeer in ten-pound bags.

 

[duncan.brown]

I'll also give a shout to Swaen Pilsner. It's from the Netherlands, but I like it for Kolsch's and it's a great base for Belgian Dubbels.

 

[bleme]

My favorite maltster is Rahr because they gave me a free hat.

I am also a big fan of Gabrinus Honey Malt. If I am going to tweak a grain bill, it will probably involve this malt.

The malt with the biggest wow factor though is Mecca Grade Opal 44. If it wasn't so cost prohibitive, I would eat a heaping bowl of it every Sunday.

 

[micraftbeer]

I use a fair amount of Munich in my recipes, including the occasional all-Munich malt brew. After years of just buying it one recipe at a time, I bought a sack of it, and got Avangard. But then I found several of my beer recipes did not taste the same, they were too sweet. So I gave away what was left of the sack and bought Weyermann. So far, so good.

 

[sibelman]

Like @Franktalk I'm big on Great Western, and (for darker malts) Briess. GW base malt is clean and plump. I also choose these because I like supporting organic agriculture.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Are others seeing pretty massive price hikes on sacks of malt? There is a local shop near me that I have always expected to have a pretty solid selection of malt at reasonable prices. Just looking, it seems that some of the American brands are up maybe $5 a sack (Briess is $60 vs $55) but many of the European malts seem to be up about $15 per sack. Crisp Marris Otter $80, Dingemanns Pilsner $85, Weyermann Floor Malted Pils $90!

Luckily have have enough Maris Otter (Crisp) and German Pils (Avangard) to last for several months. I probably need to grab a bag of American 2-Row soon. I have been pretty happy with Rahr (now at $65 for 55 lbs). I am a little curious about the Montana American 2 Row Brewers Malt that is $60 for a 55 Lb sack. I see another thread on that malt and people were getting it for $35 to $46 per sack (though I live in a very high cost of living area, so nothing around me is dirt cheap).

 

[sibelman]

Oh yes.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/grain-prices.697721/

 

[tripelthelightfantastic]

If in stock Dingemans, otherwise Swaen Pilsner

 

[Dr_Jeff]

Canada Malting Company is what I usually get from a brewery.

I have special ordered Franco-Belages Pilsen malt for my Belgian beers and I thought that they came out better with it, but it might have been in my head. I had thought that there was "just something missing" with my Belgian beers and then thought, "What malt would the Belgians most likely use?". I ordered a sack of it and thought that those batches turned out better.

 

[sibelman]

Canada Malting Company is what I usually get from a brewery.

I have special ordered Franco-Belages Pilsen malt for my Belgian beers and I thought that they came out better with it, but it might have been in my head. I had thought that there was "just something missing" with my Belgian beers and then thought, "What malt would the Belgians most likely use?". I ordered a sack of it and thought that those batches turned out better.

I've heard people state with great authority that their (German or Belgian) beers require (German or Belgian) malts to yield excellent results. I appreciate the more skeptical evaluation you've offered.

I used malts for my first-ever Belgian style beer and was pleased by the results, which at least remind me of Chimay Red. What if I hadn't used Dingemanns...? I'll never know.

I used British malts for years for my main styles but haven't much looked back since going almost all American. Last year I bought a sack of Maris Otter and mostly noticed the ferocious dough balls at mash-in. My palate may not be sensitive enough to justify shipping malt across the Atlantic.

Cheers!

 

[monkeymath]

It's really cool how many smaller maltsters you have in the US. I mean, I'm sure there are lots in Germany as well, but there's no way to buy from them at the homebrew level.

We don't really have a lot of homebrew stores in Germany, so I usually buy my malts online. Most online stores stock Weyermann, so that's my "default maltster". I ordered a 25kg bag of Crisp Maris Otter once, that was great. Crisp Crystal 120 EBC is by far my favourite crystal malt, so much better than CaraMunich that I always sub out any other crystal malts by this one.
Then I got a bag of Bestmalz Pilsner; can't say I could tell a difference between that and Weyermann, although I haven't done a side-by-side tasting. Same goes for Dingemans... I think the differences between regular base malts from different maltsters are usually going to be miniscule in the final product, but honestly I'd like to be wrong about that.

What I'd like to find is a slightly undermodified malt. It's often claimed that e.g. Weyermann Floor Malted Bohemian Pilsner was undermodified, but looking at the specs, that's just clearly not the case.

Very recently I discovered there was an animal feed store nearby that actually makes and sells their own pilsner malt, made from regional barley. So that intrigued me. The area surrounding Munich is geologically interesting (it's basically gravel brought in by glaciers during the ice ages), don't know if and how that is reflected in the barley.

The malt has a deep, bready taste, and appears to be a shade darker than Bestmalz pilsner, which is very light tasting and a bit one-dimensional in comparison. I'd say the taste is somewhere in between a pilsner and a munich malt.

I've now brewed my first beer (a Czech pilsner inspired lager) with it and while it's still very young, the flavour is quite close to what I had expected from tasting the grains. I regret having added a small dose of CaraHell, since the base malt already has so much character. I'll brew a similar beer without the CaraHell to see more clearly what the malt is like.
Sorry for rambling on about this; I'm just very excited about it.

 

[bwible]

It's really cool how many smaller maltsters you have in the US. I mean, I'm sure there are lots in Germany as well, but there's no way to buy from them at the homebrew level.

We don't really have a lot of homebrew stores in Germany, so I usually buy my malts online. Most online stores stock Weyermann, so that's my "default maltster". I ordered a 25kg bag of Crisp Maris Otter once, that was great. Crisp Crystal 120 EBC is by far my favourite crystal malt, so much better than CaraMunich that I always sub out any other crystal malts by this one.
Then I got a bag of Bestmalz Pilsner

I’m finishing up a sack of BestMalz Pilsener. Only a couple pounds left. I got that sack from my neighbor who owns a brewpub in town. First time I used it and I really like it.

I’m driving far to a homebrew store here early next week to pick up 2 sacks. I’m getting Breiss 2 row and Simpson’s “Best” malt which is a UK malt I plan to use in British recipes where I would use Maris Otter. This will be my first time trying this one.

https://www.simpsonsmalt.co.uk/our-malts/best-pale-ale-malt/
And yes, prices are up everywhere