Brown Malt ?

[Greg2013]

Been catching a few of Bradley Smith's podcasts over the weekend and this malt came up in discussion on the last one. Also have heard a couple of the UK home brewers on about it being used in the older English ale recepies. Does anyone have any clue what this is and its origins etc. ? Has anyone here ever used it and if so how ? Cheers.

[DEMPSEY]

I tasted a brew that had 10% brown ale and it tasted like someone had put a pot of coffee into the brew. Was really nice.

[Greg2013]

I tasted a brew that had 10% brown ale and it tasted like someone had put a pot of coffee into the brew. Was really nice.

I don't see it being mentioned at all on here so i was wondering is it even widely available anymore ? Does it compare flavour or colour wise to any of the speciality malts we normally use Dempsey ? 

[Stitch]

Reubens Dark Stranger uses Brown Malt also. Depending on how it is malted depends on its diastatic power. Usually though it has none. I heard of people use some of this in a stout instead of roasted malt to keep the head more white. As you pointed out Greg there seems to be some mystery around this malt :

[Rossa]

I love the brown. It comes in a couple of ebc these days. ~450 is more authentic. London porter brewers used it exclusively over the years and even when black malt  was invented they still persisted with it.
It is different now but still worth experimenting with. Guinness (in 1799 decided to only make porter) brown stout was made with large amounts of brown malt as is fullers London porter.

[delzep]

Barclay Perkins early 1800's porter and stout used over 40% brown malt

[cruiscinlan]

Does anyone have any clue what this is and its origins etc. ? Has anyone here ever used it and if so how ? Cheers.

Only seeing this now, brown malt was a diastatic brown malt that formed part of the recipe of stouts in the 18th & 19th century.  It was kilned over straw or wood.

Here's some sources if you want to go further down the rabbit hole:

http://perfectpint.blogspot.ie/2011/12/making-diastatic-brown-malt.html

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.ie/2011/11/diastatic-brown-malt.html

https://brewingbeerthehardway.wordpress.com/category/diastatic-brown-malt/

http://beerblog.genx40.com/archive/2014/february/theleagueof4

http://edsbeer.blogspot.ie/2015/02/making-diastatic-brown-malt.html

[Hop Bomb]

Barclay Perkins early 1800's porter and stout used over 40% brown malt

...And its disgusting. I brewed that beer to the letter & it tasted like fuggles with burnt toast & burnt coffee. Subsequent batches had some major tweaks & were delish.

[Tom]

What did you tweak? I'd love to do a decent old porter, but I'm sceptical about the old recipes and the availability of half-decent ingredients. Would you mind posting it?

[oblivious]

Hard to beat Whitbread 's  1850 London Porter 1.060 75% PA 20% Brown 4-5% Black patent (50:50 chocolate:black if you can do it)

[oblivious]

Oh and fuller's London porter uses it (12-13%), give it quite a unique  taste

[Bubbles]

Cara did a smoked porter for BrewCon last year that used a high percentage of brown malt to give it the smoky taste. I was amazed that there was no "smoked" malt in it. It was lovely stuff.

[Hop Bomb]

What did you tweak? I'd love to do a decent old porter, but I'm sceptical about the old recipes and the availability of half-decent ingredients. Would you mind posting it?

Recipe: 1890 Export Stout MK2   TYPE: All Grain

SRM: 85.5 EBC      SRM RANGE: 59.1-78.8 EBC
IBU: 70.0 IBUs Tinseth   IBU RANGE: 30.0-70.0 IBUs
OG: 1.080 SG      OG RANGE: 1.056-1.075 SG
FG: ??      FG RANGE: 1.010-1.018 SG
BU:GU: 0.875      Calories: 750.2 kcal/l   Est ABV: 7.1 %      
EE%: 72.00 %   Batch: 38.00 l      Boil: 57.42 l   BT: 90 Mins


Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
11.07 kg              Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC)           Grain         1        76.0 %       
1.46 kg               Brown Malt (128.1 EBC)                   Grain         2        10.0 %       
0.73 kg               Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC)   Grain         3        5.0 %         
0.44 kg               Black (Patent) Malt (985.0 EBC)          Grain         4        3.0 %         
0.44 kg               Chocolate Malt (886.5 EBC)               Grain         5        3.0 %         
0.44 kg               Chocolate Malt (689.5 EBC)               Grain         6        3.0 %         



---BOIL PROCESS-----------------------------
Est Pre_Boil Gravity: 1.067 SG   Est OG: 1.080 SG

Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
74.33 g               Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus (CTZ) [15.50 %] - Hop           7        55.8 IBUs     
74.33 g               Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min      Hop           8        14.2 IBUs     
1.00 tsp              Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)              Fining        9        -             



Use pale chocolate & normal chocolate malt.