What Homebrew Are You Drinking Now? (2019)

I don't think anyone makes a diastatic brown malt in modern times, so I'm guessing no.

 

Damn those enzymes... can they be added? I think I've seen liquid enzymes for brewing on distilling sites but I've never used them. Has anyone used them?

 

I use them all the time for brewing gluten free beer from millet, buckwheat, rice, etc.

Termamyl
SEBAmyl L
Diastase
AMG-300L

Not sure which would work best for you.

 

My last bottle of mandarina blonde. Drinking fine, crisp, and floral. Nice little touch of sweetness from the honey malt. Cheers!

 

I'm pretty sure that (at least most) malts sold as brown malt these days don't have any diastatic power, owing to the rather high kilning temperatures used in their manufacture. Cheeers!

 

I really wish a maltster would make old-fashioned diastatic brown malt for people who want to make historical porter recipes. Valley Malt made a small amount of brown malt for Goose Island's Obadiah Poundage porter (based on a historical Truman recipe), but I have no idea if it was diastatic, and I'm fairly sure it's not generally available. (On top of which, I would be hesitant to use a wood-kilned malt produced in that manner because of nitrosamines. My understanding is that maltsters that specialize in smoked malt use sulfur to subdue nitrosamine formation, but I don't believe Valley Malt did so.)

 

Maybe if there was some sort of commitment from a pro brewer to make a historical batch, a maltster might be talked into exploring how to do it in their malthouse. Of course, there are economies of scale for both the brewer and the maltster that I know very little about. From my perspective, it is probably something I would want to try once, and my guess is this is how it would play out for a probrewer. I don't know how big a commitment a maltster would need to produce it.

And yet, Weyermann makes oak-smoked malt, near as I can tell, to support a style that is probably, for the most part, brewed as a one-off, at the commercial level or homebrew level. I will make my first Grodziskie in a few weeks, mostly because I have never had an opportunity to try one. Will I ever make a second? Maybe? Will I ever use oak smoked malt as much as I use continental pilsners and English pale malts, crystal malts and chocolate malts? Nope.

 

That sounds like a delicious style and great for warm days.

 

Tonight i drink Cow Quest, a lager-saison hybrid.
Huh?

 

Since they're both located in Bamberg I assume Weyermann sells a lot of smoked malt to Schlenkerla. But I take your broader point that the economics may be prohibitive even if there's a lot of apparent demand. We've certainly seen that with yeast, where it's a struggle to keep all of the varieties we want in production. It's a shame because it's hard to believe that the world is better off with dozens of iterations of the same malts and not a single source of diastatic brown malt. But that's how economics works sometimes.

 

I thought Schlenkerla uses the Beech smoked malt for Rauchbier. The only style I know that uses Oak smoked wheat malt (forgot to mention the wheat in my original post) is Grodziskie. But I suppose the same point still applies, i.e., that there might be a local-ish brewer providing the economic incentive for production. I believe there is at least one commercial brewer in Poland making this style, maybe more since it became more of an open a topic for craft brewers a few years back.

https://www.weyermann.de/eng/gelbe_Seiten_en.asp?snr=1&idkat=1175&umenue=yes&idmenue=37&sprache=2

 

Belgian Imperial Stout. 10.5% ABV. It's pretty good! Not too alcoholic/boozy tasting. Will only improve with age.

 

Raspberry Gose, just tap'd.

 

My grapefruit Berliner Weiss, blended with this beer. It's weird that NG does not disclose what juice is in the beer -- I get a peachy orangey taste. Anyhow the NG beer is not really in balance, IMO. The juice seems to have brought a lot residual sugar and the hop bitterness is at odds. What did I hope to do by adding sourness? Tame the sweetness and dilute the bitterness. A half and half blend was insufficient.

 

Blonde Ale hopped with nothing but Idaho Gem. Fired up on how this turned out. A really cool newish hop. Bright Cherry and Pineapple with a touch of pine. It’s like really clean El Dorado without all the weird earthiness. Definitely gonna be using this hop a bunch in the future.

 

So what's the pH?

 

Lemon meringue gose with Meyer lemon juice + zest and lactose. Plenty of zippy lemon, not so much “meringue.” Should have added vanilla.

 

I just acquired a bag of Meyer lemons from someone's local tree. Can you tell me about our recipe and more about how it turned out?

 

Pretty standard gose recipe, adapted from Westbrook. About 50/50 pale 2-row and wheat malt. About 3% acidulated malt. Mashed at 152 for 60 minutes, brought temp down to about 110 and pitched Goodbelly juice. Let that stew for 48 hours at around 100 degrees, and then boiled for 30 minutes, adding about 5 ibu of Centennial @ 30. Also added sea salt and a pinch of coriander (don't recall exact amounts). Pitched German Ale 1007 yeast.

Added the juice and zest from 3 lemons to my 3 gallon batch after primary was about finished. Also added .5 lb lactose at that time. It's really tart and lemon-forward, but the meyer lemons also bring a little sweetness. Not sure if the lactose really added much - I'd suggest adding a vanilla bean if you're looking for more of that "meringue" profile. Lemon ratio was spot on though.

 

Vienna lager. Really like the color on this one.