All about brown malt and more

Plus, 4 free recipes featuring brown malt, etch your kettle project, a day in the life of a beer judge, and more

Find Recipes Start your free trial Brew Day Bulletin Dear Homebrewer, Learn about the history of brown malt [Free], then try your hand at three recipes [Free] in which brown malt accentuates the hop dryness and keeps the beer from being sweet. Sticking with the brown malt theme, TableRock Nut Brown Ale clone [Digital Members] is a Brown Ale from Idaho. Gordon Strong's American Indian Brown Ale recipe [Free] uses late hopping for bitterness and adds the darker malts during the sparge, both of which should cut down on the clash of malt/hops that can happen in hoppy darker beers. Here's what one Saturday in the life of a beer judge is like [Digital Members].  Mr. Wizard discusses using leftover wort to prime next beer [Digital Members] and temporary hardness vs. permanent hardness in brewing water [Free].  In projects, here's how to etch your kettle [Free] and build a portable RO system for water on the go [Digital Members]. Cheers! Brad Ring Publisher Read & Brew: Free Content For All Recipe Cherokee Nation (American Indian Brown Ale) According to recipe author Gordon Strong, "This is a brown IPA, which is my normal IPA recipe with the addition of some darker malts and using brown sugar instead of honey. It uses late hopping for bitterness and adds the darker malts during the sparge, both of which should cut down on the clash of malt/hops that can happen in hoppy darker beers." (5 gallons/19 L, partial mash) OG = 1.070  FG = 1.014 IBU = 66  SRM = 33  ABV = 7.4% Ingredients 9 lb. 10 oz. (4.4 kg) Maris Otter malt 7.0 oz. (0.20 kg) Munich malt 7.0 oz. (0.20 kg) wheat malt 14 oz. (0.40 kg) Caravienne malt Read more Only Days Left to Save $50 on NanoCon Online Don't miss targeted live online brewing and business seminars to help you run or launch a successful small-scale craft brewery in these challenging times.  Article Brown Malt What we think of as brown malt has been around in many different incarnations from its inception. Today's brown malt is different but not terribly so. Brown malt was called so because it was relatively browner than the other malts and produced a brownish beer. The original brown malt had enough enzymatic activity to convert itself and was used for centuries as the base of many beer styles. As the hydrometer came into common use, it was found that pale malt produced more extract per pound and was much less expensive to make. To further brown malt's demise, heavy levies were imposed on malt during the French Revolution (C.E. 1789–1799).  Read more Ask Mr Wizard Temporary hardness vs. permanent hardness in brewing water Q What is the difference between temporary hardness and permanent hardness. I'm only 36, and we're not talking Viagra here! We are talking brewing water. A The most basic difference between hard and soft water is that hard water reacts with soap to form solid soap scum, and soft water does not form soap scum. The formation of soap scum on your skin is the reason that soap seems easier to rinse from your body when you shower with hard water.   Read More Project Etch Your Kettle If you've ever tried to figure out your mash efficiency, monitor your evaporation rate, or compare your boil volumes to what your recipe estimated, you very quickly find a need to measure your brew kettle volumes at various stages during the brew day. Unfortunately, a lot of brew kettle manufacturers do not include volume markers. Some brewers install an expensive sight glass into their kettle to monitor volumes. Some brewers dip a homemade measuring stick into the wort. I used to use a measuring stick, but I got sick of relying on an extra tool during brew day and the added risk of contamination. Read More For Digital Members Only Members get access to thousands of recipes, all new BYO issues and more. Try membership risk free for 14 days.* Brew Better. Try Membership, Free!* Recipe TableRock Nut Brown Ale clone A homebrew recipe for this commercial Brown Ale out of Idaho. (5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains) OG = 1.055  FG = 1.015 IBU = 18  SRM = 18  ABV = 5.2% 6.6 lbs. (3 kg) Briess light liquid malt extract 1 lb. (0.45 kg) dextrin malt 0.5 lb. (0.23 kg) Carastan malt   Read more Article A Day in the Life of a Beer Judge One of the most common reactions I get when I mention that I'm a beer judge is, "Do you spit it out?" Actually, it takes hard work and focus to judge beer. Beer judges have a mission, which is to improve the quality of beer on every level. If judging is better, homebrewing will get better. If homebrewing improves, consumers will demand better beer from commercial breweries. At least that's one theory. Read more Ask Mr. Wizard Using leftover wort to prime next beer Q I have been an all-grain brewer for the past two years. In the bottom of my boiling kettle, I always find a fair amount of hop trub mixed with wort, which I separate from the main primary. Just for grins, I dumped all but the thickest of this "mud" into a sanitized half-gallon growler and loosely put on the cap. By the next day, all of the trub had settled to the bottom of the growler and there was about a quart of clean wort on top. I siphoned this into sanitized bottles, then placed the bottles in 180° F water and held it there for 20 minutes. I then capped the bottles, let them cool and stuck them in the fridge. The sterile wort has a gravity of 1.113. I would like to use this wort to prime my latest batch of barleywine, but I don't know how much to use. I don't want bottle bombs, nor do I want undercarbonated brew. How much should I add in a 4.5-gallon batch to give the proper carbonation level? The specific gravity of the barleywine is 1.018, if that makes a difference. Also, is there any reason to not use the "nasties" from the boiling kettle in the way I have described? I have done this for the past few batches, so I now have a growing supply of this wort for yeast starters and for the occasional bottling that I do. A Priming with wort is very tricky, because wort is not completely fermentable and its fermentability varies from batch to batch. Breweries that bottle-condition with wort determine the fermentability of each lot before use and have tables that enable them to consistently carbonate with it.   Read more Project Portable RO System: Water on the go Maybe like me you have come to realize the importance that water and water chemistry plays in the flavor of the beer you brew. And maybe like me you have also wanted to take control of the mineral composition of the water you use for brewing so you can dial in a particular profile for that perfect helles, NEIPA, or saison. If you want help with that . . . I'm not your guy. I'll be the first to admit that I bought, read, and understood little in Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers by John Palmer and Colin Kaminski. Read more *For new members and subscribers only. Limit one per customer. Additional auto-renewal terms apply. See product checkout page for details.  Copyright © 2020 Brew Your Own, All rights reserved. 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