Too much biscuit malt

I order my brewing ingredients from a local shop and have them mail it to me, since its a 2 hour drive and costs less to ship it than to use the gas to get up there and back
I just got my ingredients for my ESB and found that all my grain was milled and in one bag all together! usually they bag them separately so i ordered a whole pound of biscuit malt and was planning on using 1/4 of it for this batch.
Theres no way i can think of to separate out the biscuit malt i don’t want in there, so i’m just going to use what i got, but i heard that too much biscuit malt can be over-malty or cloying.
would a really low mash temp fix this maybe? or make it not as bad. I would like a nice dry finish
any suggestions would be appreciated

Ain’t nothing going to fix that. Your beer is going to be biscuity as all heck. One thing you might do is to order the same grains again without the biscuit, then combine the two in order to cut the biscuit down to size. But otherwise… yeah, that beer is going to be biscuity.

[quote=“bluenotebrewery”]I order my brewing ingredients from a local shop and have them mail it to me, since its a 2 hour drive and costs less to ship it than to use the gas to get up there and back
I just got my ingredients for my ESB and found that all my grain was milled and in one bag all together! usually they bag them separately so i ordered a whole pound of biscuit malt and was planning on using 1/4 of it for this batch.
Theres no way i can think of to separate out the biscuit malt i don’t want in there, so i’m just going to use what i got, but i heard that too much biscuit malt can be over-malty or cloying.
would a really low mash temp fix this maybe? or make it not as bad. I would like a nice dry finish
any suggestions would be appreciated[/quote]

Let them know about it, see if they offer to do something.

I dont think its going to be a big problem, I havent found biscuit to be terribly strong. I think Ive usedit at 10% before.

I use bisquit or Victory alot. one pound would be the most I would ever consider using in a 5lb batch. And yes, it will be “biquity.”

But, the good news is that bisquit malt doesnt’ come across as “sweet or cloying.” It’s more malty than sweet, if that makes sense.

Try a De Koninck pale ale sometime to enjoy a bisquity beer that turnt out fine.

Suggest you balance out the bisquit with a little extra hops, if you are scared.

[quote=“beermebeavis”]
Suggest you balance out the bisquit with a little extra hops, if you are scared.[/quote]

Great idea! Maybe you have the beginnings of an Imperial or Double ESB. I suppose some purists wouldn’t like an Extra Extra Special Bitter, but it’s homebrewing where rules are nothing but suggestions.

I would like to try that XXXESB. Good luck.

If anything, I wouldn’t mash low, that’d strip body out of the beer and put the focus on the biscuit malt. If you mash higher, you’ve got the chance of balancing that dry toasty-ness with some unfermentables. Coupled with a higher than planned hopping rate (great suggestion) and perhaps another pound or two of base malt, and I’ll bet you’ll be just fine.

I tend to think of biscuit malt as being a super brown malt. Or perhaps you can think of it as being a sort of embryonic roasted malt. That is, biscuit is sorta the point where the darker base malts end and the road toward the roasted malts begin. Granted, biscuit is by no stretch a roasted malt, but for what we’re discussing, thinking of it in those terms may be useful.

Which leads us to another route that may be worth exploring. What if we tried something along the lines of an Extra Special Dark Mild, or perhaps a dry brown porter is a better way of thinking about it? A bit of chocolate malt will cover a lot of sins, especially if you mash high and give those dark grains something to settle into.

Or you can go the other way. With the release of the new dark and roasted malts, my milds are getting dryer and dryer. It’s a different taste, I’ll admit, but it sure plays well with EKGs.

thanks for the suggestions everyone
Im going to mash a little higher than planned and probably move some of the flavor additions to the bittering end. hoping thatll help. mostly i just wanted some reassurance that my batch wasnt totally ruined.
ive got my mind set on a nice light esb for this time but youve intrigued me with a dry dark mild. ill have to try that another time
thanks everyone

[quote=“bluenotebrewery”]thanks for the suggestions everyone
Im going to mash a little higher than planned and probably move some of the flavor additions to the bittering end. hoping thatll help. mostly i just wanted some reassurance that my batch wasnt totally ruined.
ive got my mind set on a nice light esb for this time but youve intrigued me with a dry dark mild. ill have to try that another time
thanks everyone[/quote]

Please let us know how it turns out. Brew on!