Brewing a Bavarian Helles

[wobdee]

Ya, I think Vienna is the key. The Pils malt we get is probably a lighter basic SRM and using A little Vienna will help give us a little boost in maltiness and color

[peter.krone]

I dunno. I make one with pils, munich and carahell and no vienna which is really good. But... the one's I've made recently with vienna are good too. To each his own.

[zwiller]

Still basically a lurker here but thought it might be a good idea to pass this along especially as the discussion here recently is of custom malting. I am still of the belief that the breweries perfecting IT are getting seriously fresh malt compared to us lowly homebrewers so I had an idea to "re-kiln" the malt, where excess moisture (O2 precursor) is driven off at low temps. I did a 1lb (10% scale) trial at 170F. (My research indicates that pils malt is traditionally kilned at 185F) I had expected that my home would reek of malt but sadly that was not the case... However, the malt did improve. Aroma started with a slight hay/barn smell then this increased around the first hour then this decreased about 1:30 and started to get a slight malty smell at 2 hours. I continued the test for 3 hours but nothing really improved much beyond 2 hours. At first, I was disappointed but for giggles I thought I should taste it and I was very glad I did. Very significant increase in flavor! I will let the people decide whether I toasted the malt or not (I don't believe I did) or what actually happened, but I really don't care. I simply cannot imagine this would (edit) NOT carry over into the resulting beer. I have to encourage some of you to try this for yourselves.

[Weizenberg]

Interesting idea. Let's hope this doesn't give any false positives.

Indeed brewery malt can be rather fresh, but then they use a LOT. Often it gets used up shortly after it's delivered.

Some, like Augustiner or Pilsner Urquell, have their own maltings. There is yet another reason why they stubbornly insist on not giving up their maltings (they could easily use this space to increase output capacity).

In fact this had been tried.

In the 90's that issue came up with Augustiner. Like all of the big six, the premises are near the central station in Munich, so space is a premium. The then CEO commissioned 3 brews of the same recipe. 2 done with malt they bought in, 1 with their own.

Then there was a blind tasting and the panel of 20 unanimously preferred the product made with their house malt.

"And this is why our maltings remain", he concluded to the stunned audience, silencing any voices wanting to use the space to increase output.

His name is Ferdinand Schmidt and he is still involved in the Edith-Haberle foundation at 90 years of age (this is the foundation that owns Augustiner Bräu. It was set up so that the company could never be sold or taken over).

[zwiller]

Nice info. To me, it goes without saying it would preferable if you could malt your own but that is a very large undertaking. Not impossible, especially to the caliber of guys here that's for sure... "Honey, why is basement floor covered with wet seeds?"

[Nick_D]

Imagine malting your own grain, then taking it straight from the final kilning process, still warm to the touch, milling it and brewing with it immediately. Such ideas dance around my head as I drift off to sleep at night. Malting is certainly something I plan to try myself in the future, along with growing my own hops.

[Weizenberg]

[Techbrau]

Perhaps counterintuitively, it's not good to brew with malt that's too fresh. The chemistry behind it is not yet fully understood, but Kunze describes how malt that has not been stored for at least 1 month after kilning produces a beer with very poor shelf stability. Hence he claims it is standard practice to brew with malt that is at least 1 month old.

Making good malt is pretty involved, but Kunze has a very good chapter on it. Oxygen control is very important in malting too, and maltsters who know what they're doing restrict the oxygen contact of the malt beginning at steeping.

[Weizenberg]

Brewers finish the job the maltster started

[zwiller]