Base Malt?

[Chris Garrett]

I currently use Maris Otter. What do you use and why?

Cheers,

Chris

[Diamond Knot]

Gambrinus 2 Row
Nice big berries, great extract, coversion, and a local supplier (well.......within 6 - 7 hours by truck, anyway). A good price as well.

[BigWilley]

Gambrinus as well. A good malt at a reasonable price. I have also used Great Western 2-row as well as their High Color Pale with good results. I have tried Rahr 2-row and was not impressed. Marris Otter once in a while but too expensive for not much difference (that I can taste anyway). A lot of micro's big and small use Great Western with good results. What I do to distinguish the different malts is use them on my lightest beer where the malt flavor really shines through, I also taste all the local beers brewed with different base malts to compare. Again usually the lightest beer is the best showcase for the malt.

[tariq khan]

We use Maris Otter (low colour and reg) Pale Malt and the results are always good. Having said that I've used Pearl and Halcyon pale malt from Fawcetts here in the U.K. and found them to be quite good as well.

[David Quinn]

Briess Organic 2 row

Because they are the only ones in North America making certified organic grains, now if the dollar would just get a little stronger....

[tariq khan]

I also forgot to mention we use Organic lager malt from Warminster, great stuff!!

[Beersmith]

All different types of base malt: Crisp MO, GW Pale Ale, GW 2-row, Simpsons Golden Promise, Durst Pilsner, and Briess Organic 2-row.

Briess Organic 2 row

Because they are the only ones in North America making certified organic grains, now if the dollar would just get a little stronger....

Actually, Gambrinus in British Columbia is now producing certified organic pale malt. I just brewed with it for the first time last week, efficiency was about the same as Briess. Email me in a couple of weeks and I will let you know what I think.

beersmith@qwest.net

[pbutlert]

We use Great Western high color. Have used Gambrinus, Cargill, and Castle as well. Recently, it's just been the Great Western in our silo. Better extract than the others at the time, inexpensive (we always split loads and get the full truck price), close to home (less than 5 hours), and just plain great tasting malt.

[Valleybrew]

Paul's 2-row for majority of our beers.
Dingemans Pilsen Malt for our Belgians and Lagers.

Primary reason for using these malts is that of all the
malts we have evaluated over the last 11 years these two
perform the best with our funky grain mill and mash tun set
up. Your mileage may vary.

[damoller]

2 row
6 row
vienna
munich malt

[mlhardesty]

what is everyone's experience with the rahr malts?

[Fred Scheer]

what is everyone's experience with the rahr malts?

We use Rahr Malt; my experience is higher gravities.
Myself, I like that malt alot, and the resulting beers.

Fred

[BMOOR]

Rahr Malt has worked well for us(extracts, lautering, taste profile). We use it as our base malt, but also use Weyerman pils and Simpson Golden promise in other beers depending on the country of origin for that particular beer.
Anyway, I know malt is only 1/4th of the ingredients, but the three GABF medals that we were fortunate enough to earn this year says something about the quality of the ingredients used. I give it my blessing!

[Sir Brewsalot]

I saw a couple of other Briess users out there - anyone else have any comments on them?

I've had two brewers in the last 3 months tell me I need to make a change, but I'm only 10 months into doing this stuff, so I don't have much experience on which to base my choice. No, they were not especially specific in their criticisms, but generally cited extract levels and other grain-contaminants (corn or rye in your two row, chocolate malt in your peanut butter malt, that sort of thing...)

Thoughts?

Scott

[beauxman]

Gambrinus 2-row, good price and split the load with another top notch Northwest brewery.