Missing malt flavor in Homebrew

I brew with both. My strategy is to use dry yeast when those strains are suitable for the beer style I am brewing. Otherwise I use liquid yeast. There is more variety of yeast strains available in liquid form but it seems that every year more and more strain varieties are being produced by the dry yeast vendors.

While we are on the topic, let's discuss yeast strains. I have read where yeast vendors describe that some of their yeast strains will 'promote' malty flavors. This may be the case but I have little experience in this regard.

For example I have used a number of different strains (of dry yeast) to produce my Oatmeal Stout: Coopers Ale yeast, Fermentis S-04, Danstar Windsor, Fermentis US-05, others?

While I would not claim that all of those yeast strains performed identically I would state that I personally have not noticed much difference from a malt flavor perspective.

Perhaps there is a yeast strain that would promote malty flavors for your beers but I am personally unable to make any suggestions in this regard.

Cheers!

 

What styles of beer are you making and how are you using hops? Your comment above about maybe using too much hops has me wondering. Have you tried purposefully making a low hopped beer style to style and still experienced this?

 

Can you provide more specific details about your BIAB method? For example, do you squeeze your bag? I have read much discussion that for the case of steeping specialty grains in bags that you shouldn't squeeze the bag because there could be negative consequences.

I personally am not a BIAB brewer and I am wondering aloud if there could be some process nuances with respect to BIAB (e.g., the squeezing of the bag I mentioned) that might be at issue here.

In other words I am running out of ideas.

Cheers!

P.S. As regards to whether there is a liquid yeast strain that could be a savior here I am uncertain how to respond. I am able to produce beers with substantial malt flavors using dry yeast so I am personally at a loss why they don't 'work' for you.

 

Brew some SMaSH beers to identify what flavors are achievable from base malts, then when you find a base malt you like, work a recipe up from there, adding one type of malt at a time. For the best place to start if you're looking for an intense malt character, use a floor malted Maris Otter (Either Thomas Fawcett or Crisp Gleneagles)

 

Another good base malt that is easy to pick up distinctive flavors from is Weyermann Extra Pale Pils with a notable honey quality and Schill Pils malt.

 

Maybe use some Dingemans Biscuit Malt in your next beer?

“From the land where brewing takes on a religious devotion. Belgian Biscuit® malt is a unique lightly toasted malt that contributes a slew of warm, earthy, toasted malt flavors and aromas. It promotes a light to medium garnet brown color and imparts a toasty finish to the beer with complex nutty flavors and an aroma of baking bread. It can be used in small percentages to add complexity and color to lighter beers, or in larger amounts in dark beers such as nut brown ales to deliver the characteristic nutty, toasted biscuit flavors. 24.5°L”

http://www.northernbrewer.com/dingemans-belgian-biscuit-r-malt

Cheers!

 

Weedy, can you think of any brewing process aspects that could yield a beer with a low malt flavor profile despite having characterful malts in the grain bill?

It seems to me that the OPs grain bill of: "The last try was 63.8% Pale Ale, 21.3% Munich, 8.5% CaraAroma, and 6.4% CaraRed. Color is fine, but maltiness is just weak." should yield a beer with notable malty flavors.

Cheers!

 

Or Briess Victory Malt, which may be easier to find at some LHBSs.

@Redindie is there a particular commercial beer that exemplifies what you're looking for? That might help narrow things down. Or if you can't think of any examples, it might point to a problem with expectations.

 

I have also struggled getting that elusive "Malty" flavor. I have come closest using these two yeasts. I do believe the yeast to be important as long as other factors such as Malts and pH are in line with a Malty style. Not sure if you can still get the Pac Man.
Wyeast 1764 Pac Man or WLP 028 Edinburgh.

 

I think Weyermann Pale Ale malt is great, but lacks character. Then with 15% crystal malts, I could see that having a candy like sweetness that dominates the malt flavors. I think it's not that the malt flavors don't exist, it's that the flavors the OP is getting from the malts aren't what he's looking for due to choice of malts.

 

Well, I am officially out of ideas.

I presume that you read the post from Weedy (@honkey) above of: "I think it's not that the malt flavors don't exist, it's that the flavors the OP is getting from the malts aren't what he's looking for due to choice of malts."

Well, I am left with that thought. I would encourage you to further explore other malt types (e.g., the Dingemans Biscuit Malt) and perhaps further increase the percentages of the malts you experiment with. IMO this avenue will provide more notable results than the other aspects that were discussed (e.g., mash pH, yeast strain selection, etc.).

Best of luck on your journey!!

Cheers!

 

Yes, bacteria that create bottle bombs and gushers will rob the beer of malt flavor. My first oatmeal stout suffered in that I thought it was malty at the time of bottling but by the time I started drinking it, it came out over carbonated and flat tasting. I concluded that my batch suffered from bottle infections. That could easily have been your problem in the past, but if the other symptoms (carbonation problems) went away, this does not sound like your current problem.

 

Throw 10% Aromatic/Melanoiden Malt in there...if you don't get malty you are definitely doing something wrong

 

@Redindie have you been able to eventually resolve your issues? I am facing the same problem and I am not getting anywhere.

For someone who had not experienced it, it may seem hard to understand, but I unfortunately know exactly what you mean. I have asked about this before and received the usual suggestions, i.e. "throw more caramel/speciality malt in", "go with a higher gravity", "try different water", "change the maltster", "mash higher", "watch your pH", "use yeast X", "buy a better thermometer", etc, etc. Well, none of that has worked for me. I also tried several SMaSH batches at different gravities, none of them had remotely the same malt backbone as most commercial examples, even at FGs in the 1.020s.

My setup is very similar to yours (BIAB), to me it seems all the richness and sweetness is still there after fermentation but is then subsequently lost during bottle conditioning. That's why I now suspect cold side oxidation during packaging as a possible culprit. You mentioned that your beers also turn out to be darker, could oxidation be the issue? I would really like to get to the bottom of this, without spending more time in trial and error.

 

Is your beer darker in color after bottle conditioning? Beer darkening is indeed an indicator of oxidation.

Cheers!

 

A lot of people think hot-side oxidation has just as much of an effect on malt character as cold-side. I'm not one of those people, but it might be worth perusing the LoDo threads at Homebrew Talk to see what you make of it.