sorry bout the spoof of lord of the rings first thing that came to mind.
Because of price hikes and the like, I have decieded to get away from kits as a whole and steer towards being able to buy bulk grain, I have been brewing for over a year, and this is the final shove into the kitless brewing world. So I know this question has been asked before but I am having trouble finding it on the forum.
If you only had one malt to go with rest of your life what would it be?
I brew a little of everything as far as classic styles, from english ales, to american ales, porters, stouts, english and american browns, irish reds, heffe, kolsch,wanna get into lagers and pilsners of all kinds this winter. and maybe an IPA or two. what would be a good malt for me to start with?
You could use one grain to brew all those styles, but some would suffer if you do - pick a domestic 2-row and a Pilsner and you can make most of them, add an English malt if you want those to shine, too.
I buy a 50# sack of domestic 2-Row and then purchase whatever “specialty” grains I need per recipe. I’ve found that has greatly reduced my “per batch” price. That being said my “One Grain to rule them all” would be a domestic 2-Row
But I would hate to be so limited, because I prefer pils with Munich or Vienna added for the bulk of my lagers. And English ales wouldn’t be the same without Maris Otter!
Get some Rubbermaid bins and stock up on all of the above and you won’t need kits, just some crystal grains and other specialty malts and, of course, hops and yeast. It’s pretty rare that I do a kit anymore and the beer is pretty acceptable to my gaggle of tasters.
I just use Rahr 2-row. This winter I will work with some Pilsner malt for the lagers.
I’ve found that soy sauce buckets from the Asian restaurants don’t hold an odor. After taking out 10lbs of grain you only need 2 buckets. May need to spend $2.
Check with the gas station that make donuts. Casey’s General stores have 2g bucket that the frosting comes in. Holds 10lbs of specialty grains. Or a small fermenter. Found them to be free.
If cost is what is driving you to go bulk, I would definitely recommend 2-row. The savings is huge and you can make great beer with it. After brewing with it for a while, diversify and see what ones are worth the added cost (I imagine some will be but that 2-row will work for most recipes).
I usually have a sack of Northwest Pale malt and one of Maris Otter. I try to keep 10-15lbs of Pilsner and Munich on hand. I think if I had more room I would have sacks of those as well.
I’ve found I can keep a variety of base grains on hand without buying sacks thanks to Morebeer’s free shipping deal. Every few months I put together an order for a couple 10 pound bags of MO, Rahr 2-row or whatever I need for upcoming brew days. You might find this is just as inexpensive as buying a sack of grain online or at your LHBS. Just may have to plan a couple weeks in advance, because it normally takes them a full five business days to ship the free shipping orders, plus the FedEx transit time.
It would be hard for me to commit to one malt. I tend to get one large sack of German pils for anything lager. One large sack of Marris Otter for anything British. I also have one large sack of Munich, and one of Canadian 2-row for an all-purpose. I probably would do without the 2-row and just get a second bag of Marris Otter.
You don’t get married to a bag of grain, so why commit to just one?
sorry I havent posted anything yet, I now see that I will most likely get several types of malts, think I will start out with some good 2 row of some kind, see how putting together my own recipes goes, and go from there, thank ya ll for the help and the information. thank you guys a lot
The guy who is the brewmaster at a local brewpub once said base malt is base malt and you build your beer with specialty grains.
I kind of agree with that and use 2 row for 90% or so of my beers. I also think that Marris Otter is good in English beers, Munich in German beer, Pilsner in a lager but you can get away with still using some of your 2 row in each to cut down on the cost.
