Jug Score and Homebrewing Dog
brewchez wrote:
Crabnut wrote:
Brewchez, you are making me ill. I don't think I have used more than 8 to 10 specialty grains in the whole time I have been brewing. In fact, I have what I think of as a pretty good LHBS, and I would have a hard time coming up with 20 different specialty grains down there I would even dream of using. You will probabily brew more in your "not a lot of brewing" year, than I will going full steam. @#*&&%^%
Funny. Here is the list of malts I plan to test with. My wort will be made from DME just for ease of process.
And just to make Crabnut more crazy, I put an astrick (*) next to each one that I usually keep on hand at all times in my brewhouse.
Base Extract *
Crystal 15L *
Crystal 40L *
Crystal 60L *
Crystal 80L *
Crystal 120L *
Chocolate Malt *
Black Patent *
Roasted Barley *
Special Roast *
CaraBohemian
Wheat (steep) *
Victory *
CaraPils
Oats (steep) *
Pale Chocolate *
Munich
Aromatic
Buiscut
CaraMunich
Never really thought about what different grains I've used but looking at your list I've useed 16 at different times. Most I've used in one beer is nine.
DC
thirsty wrote:
If you like to read, I highly suggest the late Greg Noonan's New Brewing Lager Beer. It isnt just about lagers, it covers EVERYTHING.
Thanks Thirsty. I will have a read as soon as I can locate a copy. Not as good as getting the experience like Brewchez is planning, but who has that kind of time? Even he is now a bit limited...
brewchez wrote:
Crystal 15L *
Crystal 40L *
Crystal 60L *
Crystal 80L *
Crystal 120L *
Chocolate Malt *
Black Patent *
Roasted Barley *
Special Roast *
CaraBohemian
Wheat (steep) *
Victory *
CaraPils
Oats (steep) *
Pale Chocolate *
Munich
Aromatic
Buiscut
CaraMunich
I'll +1 Thirsty's suggestions for Melanoiden and Special B and might I also add Vienna and Dark Munich. I'd like to see how what kind of differences there may be between Munich and Dark Munich.
What beers do you use Pale Chocolate in? And what percentage of the grain bill does it make up?
thirsty wrote:
Crabnut wrote:
I have to ask questions and rely on other's Brewing Knowledge Base.
If you like to read, I highly suggest the late Greg Noonan's New Brewing Lager Beer. It isnt just about lagers, it covers EVERYTHING.
This inspires me to pose a good query for brewchez. You plan on testing the diferences of levels of crystal malts, but how about the comparison to their sisters of caramel malts? I always thought they were the same, however Greg Noonan describes in his book that they are not and should not think of them as even interchangeable.
Although similar in color, they do undergo a difference in process. Caramel malts have a higher moisture content, and are brought to there kilning temperature without ventilation to caramelize the endosperm. While crystal malts are allowed to completely saccharify. Crystal malts were more applied to British ales, and became more popular, while true caramel malts are more for continental applications. (at least thats what the book says)
So from your expanation it seems that caramel malts would be slightly sweeter than crystal malts of same color?
DC
To Thirsty and FPB.
Yeah, I realized last night too I should try some melanoidin, Special B too. I was also thinking about trying some flaked rye. Suddenly the list starts to grown again. I hope that my neighbors are actually alcoholics, so that when I swing by next week there will be more jugs in their bin.
And to Thirsty alone regarding Caramel Malts....
YOU BASTARD!!!! Now the list really opens up. I am aware of the caramel and crystal difference, I have a copy of noonans book, good read indeed. Underated book.
I don't usually see caramel malts at my local shop, so I tend to use crystal malts much of the time.
However, I could see repeating an experiment with matched caramel and crystal paired by Lovibond side by side. I may never brew a 5 gallon batch of beer again.
So let me pose this question to the BKB crew.
I want to be able to taste each malt, but not in an overpowering way. I also want to sort of keep the amount per batch the same in each sample. So I was thinking about shooting for the equivalent of 3/4lb per 5 gallon batch. That would be ~2.4 oz per gallon tester.
I figured an average recipe amount for most of these is usually 0.5lb/5 gal. So maybe bumping it up to 3/4 would ensure a strong enough flavor without going crazy.
Any thoughts on that?
I was just playing around with the idea & BeerSmith.
If you shoot for the three American Ales-
10C - Pale, 10B - Amber, & 10C - Brown
You could use the same amount of Crystal/Caramel, yes I know they're not interchangeable, bring each .80gal batch to the same IBU with the same hop.
It looks like you could do-
Pale malt
.25# - which results in an SRM in the correct range, depending on the style
say 6%AA Cascades, amount get the same IBU.
SafeAle US-05
Full body, 158F, one step temp mash on the stove. Batch sparge.
& get a mess of interesting tasting & conversation.
Just my .02, & my lady likes Carlo Rossi, so there's no shortage of 1 gal jugs.
brewchez wrote:
And to Thirsty alone regarding Caramel Malts....
YOU BASTARD!!!! Now the list really opens up. .
HeHeHe 
glad to be there for ya, BTW, brewing up some mac and jacs (or should I say, Brugurus) amber today. Heating the strike water now!
I guess I thought you were trying to differentiate the various flavor profiles of each of the individual components, suggesting that rather than base with specialty and hops, you would use base with specialty, and separately base with hops. I know there is a taste interaction between the hops and the specialties, but is there an interaction during the ferment that impacts the flavor profiles such that you cannot ferment them separately? How much time did you say you had?
First of all I was suprised to find that i've used all the malts brewchez listed. Second of all, brewchez didn't you say you had another kid comming? A blessing it is, but do you really think your going to have more than 15 minutes to yourself?
Do you remember the first child? 2 months at least with no sleep. 4 months at least no sex. 6-9 months at least cooking your own dinner. the rest of your life doing your own laundry.( This one I don't understand, but my wife does everyones laundry but mine. She say's she does, but she doesn't).
Don't forget the changes women go through dealing with 2 kids every day, she will not be the same women you married. Do you really think she's going to let you play slapass with a bunch of malt for countless weekends checking your palate with ritz crackers as she is changing diapers?
Face it man, your going to have to pass this on to someone else, or call in sick for work for a week, and tell her your still going.
This is a bit of an undertaking...good luck! I'm slowly doing something similar with hops in the same pale ale recipe, but I'm still doing 10 gallon batches. Unfortunately this prohibits me from doing too many side by sides. Oh well, I'll just have to take really good notes. CaraBohemian...hmm never tried that one, I've used the rest quite a few times. Might have to research it and give it a try.
I just scored 6 more of these jugs last night!
Now all I need is time. I didn't find any of that in their recycling bin though.
Brewski wrote:
I was just playing around with the idea & BeerSmith.
If you shoot for the three American Ales-
10C - Pale, 10B - Amber, & 10C - Brown
You could use the same amount of Crystal/Caramel, yes I know they're not interchangeable, bring each .80gal batch to the same IBU with the same hop.
It looks like you could do-
Pale malt
.25# - which results in an SRM in the correct range, depending on the style
say 6%AA Cascades, amount get the same IBU.
SafeAle US-05
Full body, 158F, one step temp mash on the stove. Batch sparge.
& get a mess of interesting tasting & conversation.
Just my .02, & my lady likes Carlo Rossi, so there's no shortage of 1 gal jugs.
In my opinion the hops might vary enough in each batch even with same amount due varience so best bet might be to go with hopped extract, add your malts in each and then you'd likely get the results you're looking for.
DC
For the sake of clarification (in light of brewksi and deafcones posts) here is the outline of the plan.
I am going to make 14 gallons of base beer using simple DME (time saver). I plan to make an ~1048 wort. I plan to do only one bittering charge with something clean like magnum to the tune of ~40IBUs. I'll boil that whole base wort for one hour. Chill and draw off into each of my jugs. 3/4 gallon per jug.
Next I am going to take each individual grain I want to profile, measure and crush it steep it in a pint of water, remove the grain, then boil the steeped tea for 10 minutes to sanitize. Add it to one of the jugs.
Keep doing that until I have 14 jugs with base wort and an infusion of ONE specialty grain per jug.
The amount of grain I will use per 1 gallon jug will be the equivelant of using 0.75lb of that ingredient in a 5 gallon batch. Which is approximately 2.4 ounces or specialty malt per jug.
One jug per grain I want to sample. Ferment for two weeks, bottle condition in 12oz bottles.
Then do one massive side by side tasting.
I wondered last night how close in flavor profile could I get to a complete recipe, by just mixing the individual components into one glass. Sort of like blending beers to make new beers. I might have to try that with say a standard brown ale recipe. Might be neat.
brewchez wrote:
I wondered last night how close in flavor profile could I get to a complete recipe, by just mixing the individual components into one glass. Sort of like blending beers to make new beers. I might have to try that with say a standard brown ale recipe. Might be neat.
I love this experiment, my first thought would be to use an english strain like s-04, seeing both how many of these grains combined will produce a myriad from brown ale to porter or stout, and how much you love weak British ales ( 
) The only problem is many of these malts- espacially the higher lov crystals may impart a fruity flavor, and the s-04 also can give a fruity flavor, so if it were me I would squash my initial intentions. I bet us-05 or a starter of wlp001 split up would give the cleanest profile. After all, the intentions are to have the cleanest base beer from hops to esters. Just my $.02
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