Last time I wrote about my water experiment, and how I ended up picking my great London Brita filtered water over all else. Today, I want to tell you about my second experiment – learning a bit about the basic ideas behind the different malts.
Malt is made from allowing a grain to be germinating for a while, and quickly stopping the process by baking in a kiln. Malts can be used from any grain, and will be indicated by the beers name: wheat beer, rice beer, etc. The most commonly used grain is barley, and will have a whole variety of barley malts – lager, ale, pale ale, IPA, Pilsner etc. Many beers will be made from a specific mix of malts using a specific recipe to get the correct flavour for the beer.
When i started brewing, I had no idea what is the difference between the different malts, and I’m still learning everyday about by reading or just trying (aka drinking…) different beers and trying to learn about them. Because that overwhelming range of options, I’ve decided to experiment in a very basic way: 4 extracts made by Coopers (as I had experience with them by now), brewed in roughly the same method. The extracts are:
Wheat Malt Extract – as it say on the can: light, very “bready” extract made of wheat that gave a very specific flavour.
Light Malt Extract – Barley malt, that though it is “light” gives a nice amber colour (maybe just the way I made it?)
Amber Malt Extract – Barley malt, which I thought will be the house standard, so was the first to brew. Quiet dark but had a very familiar flavour for ale drinkers.
Dark Malt Extract – Barley malt and roasted barley malt. I thought it will give a more stout finish, but somehow I ended up with a very light and hoppy which is apparently a “thing” in craft brewing now – Black Ale.
As mentioned, it is a very simple experiment, meant to just get the feeling of what are the possibilities out there, and since I only use extracts, not much to play with.
When all the beers were ready, we had a tasting session, which might have been a little tinted from other factors but resulted with the Black Ale being the winner of all four – making it the first beer to become a house staple.
The wheat beer was a definite no, as we are not big fans of wheat beer in the house, and the amber and light will be guests.
The only problem with my experiment is the time factor, and there for the freshness of the beer. The light extract was first (February 2014), the wheat second (March 2014) the dark third (May 2014) and the amber last (May 2014), so the results might be unperfect, but I’m happy with taking the dark to the next phase.