Melanoiden Malt / Belgian Aromatic

[Doublehoppy]

I've been speaking to Mike of Brewers Coop about him stocking Melanoiden Malt. He'll do it as long as there is enough demand. From speaking to a few people and following threads on the forum there does seem to a number of brewers using or who would use it if was readily available.

I understand that German Melanoiden is interchangable with Belgian Aromatic.

So what's the word, would you be interested in it, and if so how much? I'd get 3kg.

I said to Mike that I'd start a thread and then let him know what the demand was like.

Depending on the response there could be a wider opportunity here to source a greater variety of Malts. Brewers Coop have added quite a few specialty malts over the last year, but there's still others I'd like to see there - i.e Belgian Special B

By the way, and just to be clear, I'm not offering to do a bulk order and distribute etc. All orders would need to be placed directly with Brewers Coop, to which (despite appearances) I have no commercial interest lol .

[Mike Neilson]

I would be in on all accounts!!

[Stu McKinlay]

We'll be getting it in on our next order... along with further extending our specialty range. We're also going to get some cleansers, sanitisers and brewing salts and auxiliaries (clarifiers etc). Let us know if there is anything you're particularly interested in. We can't guarantee it but we may be swayed...

Cheers
Stu

[e-mail]

[denimglen]

I would probably get a kilo or two.

I'd like to see US/UK victory/biscuit and really REALLY like to see a Crystal/Caramel 60L.

[Greig McGill]

I'll second that, denimglen. I'd probably get 5kg or so of unmilled Melanoiden. I'm limiting my specialty malts lately, use almost nothing but Bairds MO, some Crystal (looks like 80L or so, hard to be sure), and occasional hints of Munich or wheat depending on the beer. Different for Stouts of course, but 90% of my brewing is just MO and Crystal. It gives me a great feel for the malts with such simplicity. Cheaper that way also! ;)

I'm torn on choice of suppliers. I tend to buy my grain locally to support my local homebrew store. They get it direct from David Cryer, and charge an extremely reasonable price on a 25kg sack of MO. For specialty stuff, I've used Mike in the past, and can't recommend his friendly service enough. That said, I'd also like to support Liberty, being a) mates, b) SOBA members, and c) enterprising people bringing something new to the market. What's a low-volume, occasional consumer to do?

[Stu McKinlay]

I'd say support your local first and foremost, if he/she is supplying what you need at a good price and in good condition. Nothing beats having a supplier that you can pop in and see...


There is nothing in Wellington, the bulk deals really are a lot of work, and shipping cost is the homebrewers killer (especially on base malts) - that's why we started Liberty. Selling malt is not going to make us money (and it won't be making anything for any of the homebrew stores either, the mark up is small and the volumes are even smaller!). Every dollar that comes in is just an excuse to buy another sack of a different specialty malt. Melanoiden next time eh?

What do we get out of it? I can wake up any morning and brew any beer I want... except that I have to go to work, or look after kids! I have any malt i could really want sitting under my house. And i get to meet more homebrewers. Try the odd beer. It's fun.

[Stu McKinlay]

It's hard to get a lot of malts as David Cryer is the only importer - and he's not going to ship in a tonne of a cerain malt for a few homebrewers. He supplies the commercial breweries and we are lucky to have a few supply sources throughout the country. He has got a wide range and I do want to extend our Liberty supply to virtually everything but we're still feeling our way in the dark yet...

In sying this, you have to remember that things like "biscuit", "victory" and "cara-this-and-that" are generally brand names. The malts might be exactly the same under laboratory analysis but the maltsters want to differentiate them to the suppliers/consumers. Sometimes you'll find that you can substitute similar malts. Read up on the malts you want and then see if there is viable solution in the malts offered at one of the local suppliers.

Don't skip a recipe because you can't get the name brand malt. I believe this is a weakness in the Jamil show and it is something that filters down to us homebrewers, i suffered from it for a while when I used to listen to the show. Jamil says "use Victory, nothing else will impart that biscuity-blah-blah-blah" and then everyone else thinks they can't brew the beer because they can't access the malt. It's likely that a little amber and/or some caraamber will see you right... maybe another combination of malts...

[denimglen]

It's funny you mention that, I've only ever listened to one Jamil show and it was the interviewee doing all the talking :-P

I'd just like to see a toasted malt in the range of 25L (not too worried about brand names) as a lot of the recipes I'm looking at lately call for it and to be honest being a new brewer I'd rather stick to the recipe as close as possible before taking shots in the dark. But at the end of the day if I can't get it I won't be crying myself to sleep.

How do you feel caramunich II at 63L stacks up against the run-of-the-mill crystal/caramel 60L?

[JoKing]

Caramunich II is normally 45L - are you sure you've got the II and not the III? I have been using the II in a few beers - and it's good. I have Weyermann (pretty crap - go Global Malt where possible) and find it nicely rounded.

Also agree with Stu - there are more Subs than you can count on one hand... I saw someone before asking about Special B? Has anyone heard of CaraAroma? Its the same stuff. I dont like it much, but there are plenty of breweries in NZ who are using it: Shakespares tavern use it in about 3 of their beers. Victory? Belgian Biscuit? Tastes the same as Amber to me! I've still got heaps of it if you want some Glen.

I would take one step further and say - you dont need it to make nice beer either. A bit simplification goes a long way to making drinkalble beer. Here is a question: If you are spending so much money on liquid yeast, why would you ruin the subtle flavors with an OTT grist? There are obviously a lot of exeptions - where you need absolutely to use special malt - but if you cant find it... make do, or brew something else.

[denimglen]

Ooops my conversions were wrong.

Nah I got a little Amber, Cara-aroma and some homemade toast at about 25L (in theory going by times and temps, but I don't trust it too much).

Maybe I shouldn't be too much of a malt-snob.

I try and keep my grists simple, to only around 2 specialty malts if I'm creating a recipe, if I'm using a tried and true recipe then I like to keep it as close as possible to what's listed. If I need to sub too much then I'll brew something else TBH.

[denimglen]

Ok this has got me absolutely fucked. I know I'm over thinking it and it doesn't really matter that much but it's just annoying me now. Assuming craftbrewers data is correct.

Caramunich is between 80 - 100 EBC or 30.6 - 38.1L

THEN, from ye-almighty-wikipedia

"...the measurement of the color of a beer in degrees SRM and degrees Lovibond are approximately equal and in practice can be used interchangeably to evaluate the color..."

So I guess we can assume SRM = L

The conversion for EBC to SRM is

SRM = EBC x 0.508

So 80EBC x 0.508 = 40.64SRM, and 100EBC x 0.508 = 50.80. These don't match up to the two L figures stated above by craftbrewer. Anyone see where I've gone wrong?

queue flaming :-P

[JoKing]

Looks like the craftbrewer website has quite the discrepency.

The SRM color of beer is measured using a ½” glass cuvette measured by a spectrophotometer at a light wavelength of 430nm. The SRM color is approximately 10 times the amount of absorbance, which is measured on a logarithmic scale. The SRM color is approximately equal to the old lovibond scale in most cases. The other common method, called the European Brewing Convention (EBC) is measured at the same wavelength but in a smaller 1 cm cuvette. In practice the EBC color is approximately 1.97 times the SRM color. (EBC = 1.97 * SRM)

[JoKing]

Here is another formula:

To convert EBC to SRM: Multiple EBC by .375 and add .46

To predict the final color of the beer. Multiply the number of pounds of the grain or malt by the Lovibond of the grain or malt used. Then divide by the total of gallons of the wort.

Example: (14oz. crystal @ 55 lovibond plus 6 # Light DME @ 3.5 Lovibond) divided by 5 gallons. {(14/16)(55)+(6)(3.5)}/ 5=13.8 Lovibond