Has anyone compared heirloom barley to m o?

[Rookie]

I do like the sound of chevalier, has anyone just replaced say 75% of the MO is a modern recipe?

To my mind this would highlight the real difference?

I've been contemplating buying some the next time I get ingredients and doing just that, maybe 80%.

[PeeBee]

... One of the ones I've just done is Morrell's 1889 Bitter from Edd's now defunct Website ...

BTW: Edd is back with a new blog site:

https://beerhistorybloke.blogspot.com/2021/

All new, none of his "back-catalogue" just yet?

[PeeBee]

I do like the sound of chevalier, has anyone just replaced say 75% of the MO is a modern recipe? ...

Actuaaalllly ...

A beer brewed later than the "stuck" one above (one of those "bitters" I mention; a Morrel & Co's 1889 Bitter) was 100% Chevallier Barley Malt and coaxed to attenuate to 78% (FG 1.012). Yet it still held on strongly to the honey-and-cream-like flavours.

I've no idea if beer with only 75% Chevallier barley malt, perhaps more attenuation, carbonated into "keg" range (rather than the 1.1 volumes "cask" range I carbonate at) and (gawd forbid!) chilled below 14°C, would still hang on to some "Chevallier qualities" in "cold, modern, craft fizzy keg beer" (I'm presuming) recipes? I wouldn't be encouraged by some "craft brewer" reports I've read. But as always, it's worth a go.



(BTW. I'm not trying to be derogatory about "cold, modern, craft fizzy keg beer" - or not much - and even brew the stuff myself ... but not at this time of year).

[Northern Brewer]

Here at the S Cheshire Malt Buying Co-operative we have been told the following from Crisp

"They have had low enzyme activity reports. You need to mash at 63C and for an extra 30 mins. Also using 10% pale malt helps

The enzyme activity is low on the Chevallier

Shane Swindells (@unclepumple of this parish), who's been brewing with it commercially since Crisp's first batch, reckons that was more of a problem with that first batch but it's been fine since they switched malting process. Worth seeing what him and Steve Dunkley of Beer Nouveau have to say about it in this thread :
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1431323712188526604

Steve's shared his process :
Start with a strike temperature of 54c, after 30mins up to 62, then after 30 mins up to 66 for 30mins, and then up to 72 for 39 mins.

but Shane reckons that step-mashing is a bad idea : "you remove most of its flavour, drying a beer out by making the malt produce more fermentables, also removes part of its character. You dry it out and make the finished beer thinner bodied as a result of the step mashing."

[PeeBee]

... that was more of a problem with that first batch but it's been fine since they switched malting process. ...

I wouldn't say Chevallier barley malt is as convertible as modern malts. That "stuck" beer illustrated above (actually a 1849 Whitbread Porter recipe dug up by Ron Pattinson ... not the Durden Park Beer Circles 1850 Whitbread Porter as there appears to be something very wrong with that recipe) was only made a few months ago, probably 2019 grain. It "stuck" (at SG 1.025-7) because it was mashed for too short a period, 45 minutes instead of the intended 75 (not much of a problem for modern Maris Otter).The 1880 Simond's Bitter was mashed normally (67°C) for 75 minutes finished at 1.018 - which some "craft" brewers would also say is "stuck" ( ). The 1889 Morrell's Bitter finished at a more "usual" SG of 1.012; but only because it was adapted to do that (mashed at 62-63°C).

If Chevallier barley malt really did mash like modern malts, I would not find it so valuable!

It needs mashing with care, but doesn't need handling with spot on precision. I never used the really early resurrected stuff, perhaps that was really difficult?


And stepped mashes: I can appreciate some stepped mash routines would thin the beer too much. But the stepped mashes I used were modified "Hochkurz" mashes; temperature ramping mashes that start from a "maltose" rest (63-67°C) before stepping up to a beta-amylase unfriendly 69-70°C "Dextrinisation" rest. Whether that step is actually useful needs more work, at the moment I'm thinking it might add something to a flavour avoiding 63°C mash - I certainly don't think that "Dextrinisation" temperature thins the resulting beer.


I'm the last person who'd be trying to make modern-day new-world "craft beer" out of 19th century UK recipes . (But I do appreciate that the words are being repeated from another's POV, and need not be "Northern Brewer's" POV)!

[MashBag]

I wouldn't say Chevallier barley malt is as convertible as modern malts.

Exactly. Hence my thoughts of using it @75% with MO as the other 25%.

Modern singe step, might get the flavour and the MO help it to also get more fermentables?

Just thinking outloud...

[Hanglow]

Try using 10% distillers malt

Blending base malts is a good idea I think if you are after better mash performance, usually the lower the colour the higher the amount of available enzymes, so maybe an extra light MO would be best. It would allow the chevallier to shine more I would think than using a pale ale malt

[Hanglow]

Also I don't think step mashes and high attenuation thin out a beer at all, think of all the great helles and pils from Germany with attenuation in the mid to high 80s and they are not thin at all, all made with step mashes and minimal speciality malts. Or good wines and ciders. Yeast choice has a far greater effect imo, belle saison for example makes an almost chewy beer despite drying everything out to 1.002 or thereabouts, due to it producing so much glycerol.

[MashBag]

I have given up on a "Dextrinisation" rest as it didn't seem to make a difference. My BM20 heats @1c per minute, and there is also a lag as it is pumped through the malt tube. So I gathered its probably in the 68-72 range for perhaps a good 8-10 mins anyhow.

Agreed :- "I certainly don't think that "Dextrinisation" temperature thins the resulting beer."