10 replies to this topic

[HVB]

What do you keep open hand with regards to specialty malts.  I am cleaning up the brewery and realize I have way to much and stuff I have not used in years, like 25-30 5# containers.  Special B, Aromatic, Melanoidin, Biscuit, Special Roast ETC.  Some of these have to be 10+ years old.  I am going to purge most of these because they just do not fit in with my brewing these days.  I assume I will have on hand carafoam/carapils, Caravienne, caramunich, regular and pale chocolate, carpils copper and maybe a couple of others.  Going to give it a good cleaning.

[positiveContact]

I don't use a lot of that stuff anymore.  I use the ones you listed, a few crystal varieties, and roasted barley.  I occasionally use some of the random stuff I have kicking around in my miscellaneous bin just to use it up but in the future I'll likely not buy more unless I'm trying to match someone else's recipe or something.

[Bklmt2000]

I keep some specialty grains on hand, but usually only a few pounds at most. 

 

I have a 55lb Vittles Vault dedicated to specialty malts, and those non-specialty malts I don't keep in great quantity (wheat, Munich, etc.)

 

At the moment, a few pounds of varying grades of crystal malt, some roasted barley, chocolate malt, flaked barley, Special Roast, flaked corn, and a few ounces of Carafa-3 occupy said VV, but outside of that, the rest of my inventory is base malt.

[Big Nake]

Small amounts of:  Special B, British Crystal, Carafa, MW, Torrified wheat, CaraMunich, carahell.  I often have flaked corn if I'm going to make lighter lagers.  I have ONE small plastic container for my specialty malts and I buy them in one-pound bags.  What I have, I use... generally.  There is an unopened 1-pound bag of honey malt that has been staring at me for awhile.

[LeftyMPfrmDE]

At most, I'll have up to 5 lbs of specialty malts/adjuncts. Right now, there is oats, flaked maize, amber, brown, aromatic, cara pils, black roasted barley, Vienna, a couple caramel types and acid malt.

Edited by LeftyMPfrmDE, 26 January 2020 - 06:53 PM.

[Poptop]

My brewing is gravitating away from a lot of specialty malts, and what I do use is in very small percentages to total grain bill.  C40 and C60 always on hand in small quantities as well as some Carafa's, Midnight wheat and Chocolate.  I'm enjoying what I consider "cleaner" recipes versus kitchen sink type recipes.  I do blend a lot of Munich and Vienna into my Pales and Pils malts.

 

Same with hops, I'm enjoying more noble varieties and moving away from the tropical fruit types.

[HVB]

My brewing is gravitating away from a lot of specialty malts, and what I do use is in very small percentages to total grain bill.  C40 and C60 always on hand in small quantities as well as some Carafa's, Midnight wheat and Chocolate.  I'm enjoying what I consider "cleaner" recipes versus kitchen sink type recipes.  I do blend a lot of Munich and Vienna into my Pales and Pils malts.

 

Same with hops, I'm enjoying more noble varieties and moving away from the tropical fruit types.

 

Agree with this a lot.  I have gone back to 2 to at most 4 malts in a grist bill.  I like to blend base malts more now to get what I want.  It felt good to purge a lot of malts.  I think the deer in the backyard appreciated it as well.

[Big Nake]

FTR, I consider wheat, vienna and munich to be base malts so I did not include them.  I always have munich 1 & 2, vienna, wheat, pilsner and then some sort of malt that is appropriate for ales: GP, MO, Rahr Pale Ale, Swaen "ale", etc.  I too am using specialties in lower percentages and I have been on a push towards clean hops (Northern Brewer, Glacier, Sterling, Crystal, Liberty, Santiam, Mt. Hood, Vanguard, etc. and I always have noble hops on hand). 

 

I occasionally find specialties in a recipe and buy a pound and then often don't go back to it.  I just looked and found some Victory and Melanoidin that rarely get used.  I also found some pale chocolate that is unopened.  Also, with the amount of British Crystal I have around, I often have no C40, C60, C80, C120 around.  The CaraMunich and CaraVienne can take their place too.   

[HVB]

FTR, I consider wheat, vienna and munich to be base malts so I did not include them.  

agree with this.  For me Rye is in that camp as well. 

[Poptop]

Agree with this a lot.  I have gone back to 2 to at most 4 malts in a grist bill.  I like to blend base malts more now to get what I want.  It felt good to purge a lot of malts.  I think the deer in the backyard appreciated it as well.

 

I can do some purging too but the iguana's will have to eat it

 

agree with this.  For me Rye is in that camp as well. 

 

Yes.

[gnef]

I probably need to do some purging as well. I'm sure some of my specialty grains are aging as well. What I did for many years, was when I needed a new specialty malt that I didn't already have, I would buy 4# of it and label a 1 gallon screw top container (I bought a couple dozen of them from US Plastics for this express purpose), and I would keep doing that until I got to the point I had all that I needed on hand, and would just refill as needed.

 

Since I started that though, there are some recipes that I haven't really gone back to, so some of those specialties are just sitting there for many years now. I should go through and give them a taste to see if they are still ok. If they are still good, I'll probably keep them. If they ever go 'bad', I'll toss them out and not refill until I actually need it for a particular recipe. I do enjoy having it all on hand so that I can brew nearly whatever I want whenever I want though. I probably have around 70ish pounds in specialty malts.