Melanoiden and Aromatic in same recipe???

[mstry510]

Has anyone used Melanoiden and Aromatic malts in the same recipe? I want to brew a 9+ % Imperial West coast red Red. The reason I ask is that I really want the big hop character to have a compliment of a strong very malty red. What do you guys think about percentages. I'm thinking about

Maris Otter Base Malt
23 % Munich
3-5% of each mel/aro
6 % Honey Malt
6% crystal 80
1.5% crystal 120

 

[Yooper]

Has anyone used Melanoiden and Aromatic malts in the same recipe? I want to brew a 9+ % Imperial West coast red Red. The reason I ask is that I really want the big hop character to have a compliment of a strong very malty red. What do you guys think about percentages. I'm thinking about

Maris Otter Base Malt
23 % Munich
3-5% of each mel/aro
6 % Honey Malt
6% crystal 80
1.5% crystal 120

Too much in specialty grains. Not including Munich (which is a base malt), I'd try to keep the others to less than 20% of the grainbill, probably less.

I like aromatic malt (a 'stronger' Munich malt) but I would find it too much with 3-5% of melanoidin malt in it as well. One of the things I love about American reds is the big crystal/caramel notes with the huge hopping. I'd increase the crystal, adding crystal 20 or 40L, and cut the honey malt out or at least lower it so the beer isn't cloying. A well-hopped American red can have up to 15% crystal malt, but not so much with the honey malt flavor.

Another thing to keep in mind is that while you want a big malty feeling, you don't want the beer to be thick or underattenuated. Using so many specialty malts in searching for that big maltiness may mean a very thick feeling beer that isn't quaffable, something more like a barleywine if you're not careful.

 

[Weezy]

At 9+% abv, you might want to consider 4-5% sugar to thin the beer a bit as well.

One more thing on the specialty malts,
6% of specialty malt in a 5% beer might be fine, but 6% in an imperial version of that same beer might be too much. Sometimes it might be better to keep that 1/2 lb crystal you use in the regular beer at 1/2 lb when you raise the beer to a 9% abv recipe, for example. i.e. bump the base grain, not specialties, as the abv goes up. And add sugar to keep the beer from getting too malty.

 

[mstry510]

Both of you are so right on. I'm learning!! I did use 1.25lbs of Brown sugar but my first gravity sample revealed exactly what you said. Low attenuation. Thanks fort the input. I will cut both Mel/Aro by more than half, honey to a minimal amount, and add a little crystal 40.