Single malt, single hop brew

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Blackisle

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Hi all,

I'm a whiskey distiller up here in Scotland and am keen to have a crack at making some homebrew beer. I have 'access' to Concerto malt (barley, green malt or malt) and a friend up the road has fuggles hops growing (free hops).

I'm a pretty frugal sort of guy so does anyone think it's possible to make good beer from just one malt and one hop?

PS quite comfortable with converting the base malt into either crystal, heavier roast etc

Cheers,

Ryan
 
You certainly can make a good beer that way, it's commonly known as a SMaSH (single malt and single hop).
Fuggles by itself isn't to everyone's taste although personally I quite like it. It would be considerably better though if you combined the fuggles with some East Kent Goldings, you could make a very delicious English IPA or bitter.
If you wanted to add a little crystal it would help with body and enhance the maltiness.
 
I've got a SMaSH brewing at the moment. It's an English Pale consisting of Maris Otter and East Kent Goldings only.

Even after 10 days in the fermenting vessel it already tastes good!

Go for it!
 
I know lots of brewers use maris otter for their malt but I never see any other varieties mentioned (or named on products). I wonder if the barley we malt to make whiskey is any different to standard brewers malt, we use concerto or optic mainly.
 
Concerto and Optic are fine and most likely just branded as pale malt in homebrew shops.

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Distillers malt is often higher yield and lower quality. That said, I'd never heard of Concerto before, but I'm sure you can make decent beer with it - their website boasts that it is suitable for brewing and distilling.
 
Concerto malt seems to be used in some ale malts so should be fine, I don't think there are any major differences between distillers malt and ale malt but I am not sure. I sent an email to the Maltsters' Association of Great Britain to see what they think and will post if they reply. Maltsters certainly sell different malts for distilling than for beer but I can't find any info on why. The colour and taste may be different based on how much its roasted/heated. Do you know the EBC on the Concerto malt?
 
We don't get colour analysis from the maltings, it's just not really a factor when you're distilling. I could put some in water and use a comparison chart though. It is very high yielding but then our mashing is optimised for maximum extraction (typically over 99%), using my humble home kit I wouldn't get anything near that
 
I know lots of brewers use maris otter for their malt but I never see any other varieties mentioned (or named on products). I wonder if the barley we malt to make whiskey is any different to standard brewers malt, we use concerto or optic mainly.

Golden promise which is a scottish malt is becoming popular I think. I have used it to good effect.
 
I think I found the most relevant info here http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/Di...e_article_DistillersvsBrewersMalt_Feb2016.htm
"The most glaring difference is in enzyme level. Both Diastatic Power and Alpha Amylase levels are significantly higher in the Distillers malt than the brewers. We also see that the distiller’s malt requires a higher protein barley, which results in a lower extract, since those two parameters are inversely proportional to each other."
Briess_Article_DistillersvsBrewersMalt_Chart.jpg
 
Make a single 'one hop' brew and your mind will be opened, using EKG, or Amarillo/Chinook and I swear your brain will never be the same.
 

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