Previously, we learned about base malts and setting the foundation of your recipe. Unless you’re brewing a SMASH beer—single malt and single hop—your recipe will also include specialty grains that add color and nuances of flavor. By now, your familiarity with simple crystal malts and dark grains gives you the tools to make a solid all-grain batch of beer. But there’s a world of other grain choices, and this column will help you start digging into these to see what they can bring to the party.
Blending Base Malts
One of the first steps to malt complexity is to go back to your base malts and mix it up a little. Vienna malt and Munich malt both count as base malts, but they are often added to a simpler pale-malt foundation. This gives you more control over the intensity. For instance, you could have 30 percent of the grist come from Vienna malt to pick up a bit of its toastiness without making that too dominant.
Non-Barley Grains
Our column on base malts focused on barley, but wheat and rye can also be used as base malts. More typically, though, they are combined with malted barley. Oats also fit into this category. The main caveat to remember is that since these grains don’t have husks, they can gum up the mash and lead to a stuck sparge. At lower percentages, this shouldn’t be an issue, but for higher amounts (e.g., a big weizen), you might want to add rice hulls to help prevent a thick layer of the cereal.