Pale ale malt uses

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DVCNick

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So, I bought a bunch of pale ale malt on sale. Mostly because it was cheap and I figured widely useful.

However, only one of my current recipes uses it, so unless I want to drink a LOT of that beer, I'm going to have to find some others.

What good beers out there use a lot of pale ale malt that would help me start using this up?
Thanks
 
What kinds of beers do you brew? I find that the majority of my brews are based on American Pale Malt or English Pale Ale Malt...stuff like Pale Ales, IPA, Stouts, Porters, and Red/Amber Ales.
 
Pale Ales and IPA, definitely are in my normal tastes/wheelhouse. But most of them seem to call for regular Pale 2-row (~1.8L) instead of the Pale Ale Malt (~3L)

I've Googled briefly thinking it would be easy, but nothing really so far.
My Two Hearted "clone", which I do like a lot, calls for 3lb of Pale Ale in addition to mostly 2-Row but that is the only one I'm currently brewing that calls for any of it.
 
You can use Pale malt in place of 2-row for the most part. Pale is slightly darker at about 3 srm i believe. Its like the difference in golden promise and maris otter they are bother british pale 2-row malts but have slight flavor differences.
 
Did you perhaps get some of the Viking Pale Ale malt from Morebeer that was on sale? I picked up a bag myself but so far I have only used it in an Imperial Stout and an Irish Red. With a steep in hot water, it seemed darker and sweeter than some Mutton's Maris Otter that I had on hand. It should work fine in a Pale Ale or IPA, but you might want to adjust your speciality grains a touch if shooting for a light body. It should be a good grain to use in any dark/roasty/malty ales.
 
Brew some SMaSH (or just single malt) beer with it to get an idea of the flavour. As I brew more, I find myself using less specialty grains and blending more base grains. There's a lot of flavour to be had by using different proportions of flavoursome base grains without specialty grains.

Edit: 100% pale ale malt to an OG in the 1.060's would be great for a Bells two hearted style beer (not a clone). Give it a try with the same hop schedule you normally use.
 
I buy 50 lb sacs of base malts and mix them up. try equal amounts of your pale ale and a pils malt with a small amount of wheat malt and put that on WY2565.
 
Did you perhaps get some of the Viking Pale Ale malt from Morebeer that was on sale? I picked up a bag myself but so far I have only used it in an Imperial Stout and an Irish Red. With a steep in hot water, it seemed darker and sweeter than some Mutton's Maris Otter that I had on hand. It should work fine in a Pale Ale or IPA, but you might want to adjust your speciality grains a touch if shooting for a light body. It should be a good grain to use in any dark/roasty/malty ales.
Click to expand...

Yes actually this is exactly the one that I bought.
 
I wouldn’t hesitate to brew anything I wanted with it. Who cares that a recipe says to use. This is homebrewing not a prison. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it as a replacement or in combination with any base grain in any recipe. What’s the worst that can happen, you brew a batch of beer. You might find you prefer the difference. Either way you have it. Might as well brew the next few batches with it.
 
Edit: 100% pale ale malt to an OG in the 1.060's would be great for a Bells two hearted style beer (not a clone). Give it a try with the same hop schedule you normally use.
Click to expand...

I can definitely try this, thanks.
If it is "close enough" to 2-row I'm definitely not opposed to just swapping half the two row called for with pale ale if that will work.
 
Not the best pic but this was 50/50 Viking pale malt and white wheat, very light in flavor and color
20190729_204807[1].jpg
 
I bought some Viking Pale Ale Malt also. My normal base male is Great Westrern Pale Ale Malt. I brewed a Session IPA yesterday. I had a steep learning curve brew day experience. I grind my own grain. I grind all of the grains together. The exact grain bill is listed below. I normally grind at a 0.045 inch gap. I tried grinding at 0.045 inch gap and nothing would feed. After several trial and error attempts I ended up with a 0.057 inch gap. I did a double pass to make sure I had a good grind. A few kernals were not touched in the first pass. Ater a 60 minute mash at 154F the mash lautered real fast. I use a double batch sparge method. My mashing efficiency was 88% and the brewhouse efficiency was 86.5%.

Grain Bill
Viking Pale Ale 5.9 lbs.
Great Western Pale Ale 2.1 lbs.
Caramel Munich 0.2 lbs.
Biscuit 0.3 lbs.
 
Haussenbrau said:
I bought some Viking Pale Ale Malt also. My normal base male is Great Westrern Pale Ale Malt. I brewed a Session IPA yesterday. I had a steep learning curve brew day experience. I grind my own grain. I grind all of the grains together. The exact grain bill is listed below. I normally grind at a 0.045 inch gap. I tried grinding at 0.045 inch gap and nothing would feed. After several trial and error attempts I ended up with a 0.057 inch gap. I did a double pass to make sure I had a good grind. A few kernals were not touched in the first pass. Ater a 60 minute mash at 154F the mash lautered real fast. I use a double batch sparge method. My mashing efficiency was 88% and the brewhouse efficiency was 86.5%.

Grain Bill
Viking Pale Ale 5.9 lbs.
Great Western Pale Ale 2.1 lbs.
Caramel Munich 0.2 lbs.
Biscuit 0.3 lbs.
Click to expand...

Whoa... I normally grind GW 2-Row, caramel, etc....everything at .035 and have had no problems. So, your Viking malt is causing you to go from .045 to .057? Others have posted milling Viking at .034.
 
I think you can use it for anything except maybe really light lagers.
 
When I first bought my grain mill I was at 0.035 on everything. Then all of a I slowly was having a harder time for the grain to feed. I tried to lower the gap and it made it worse. I even took the whole mill apart and cleaned everything and put it back together again. That did not help. My initial solution was to start the mill (I use an old the drive) and add the grain as the mill is running. That worked for a few years then that stopped woking. I then experimented with the gap and ended up at 0.045 for almost everything. I had to widen the gap to 0.057 with Viking Pale Ale. I know there is something weird going on with my mill, but I just threw out my experience with Viking malt.

For my nest batch with Viking I will try a double pass grind. First pass at about 0.060 a the second pass at 0.040. Please comment.
 
Last edited:
Haussenbrau said:
When I first bought my grain mill I was at 0.035 on everything. Then all of a I slowly was having a harder time for the grain to feed. I tried to lower the gap and it made it worse. I even took the whole mill apart and cleaned everything and put it back together again. That did not help. My initial solution was to start the mill (I use an old the drive) and add the grain as the mill is running. That worked for a few years then that stopped woking. I then experimented with the gap and ended up at 0.045 for almost everything. I had to widen the gap to 0.057 with Viking Pale Ale. I know there is something weird going on with my mill, but I just threw out my experience with Viking malt.

For my nest batch with Viking I will try a double pass grind. First pass at about 0.060 a the second pass at 0.040. Please comment.
Click to expand...

The rollers on most mills have knurling on them that help the grain feed. You knurls are probably worn down or worn so the edges are no longer sharp enough to bite into the grain to help feed it. It might be time to buy new rolls or replace the mill. The rolls should look something like this.

https://i2.wp.com/www.homebrewfinds.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cln_img_2909.jpg
 
RM-MN said:
The rollers on most mills have knurling on them that help the grain feed. You knurls are probably worn down or worn so the edges are no longer sharp enough to bite into the grain to help feed it. It might be time to buy new rolls or replace the mill. The rolls should look something like this.

https://i2.wp.com/www.homebrewfinds.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cln_img_2909.jpg
Click to expand...


Thanks

I have have sent an e-mail to Barley Crusher and asked if they think I need to do anything.
 
I've run this through at .035" on my Barley Crusher with no problems. Mine is brand new though.

.05 or .06, I would think it would just fall through with little or no crush... what are you using to measure?
 
Bell's Two Hearted clone (from Bell's General Store) recipe calls for Pale Ale malt in addition to the normal 2 row.. I think 3lbs of Pale Ale Malt (3.5L) per 5 gallon batch... brewed one 10 days ago with that recipe and it already tastes phenomenal straight out of the fermenter ... easy way to burn up a few pounds ... haha...
 
I've brewed that several times and have one tapped right now... really good.
 
You can use the Viking Pale Ale malt in any recipe that calls for standard 2 row. It will taste slightly different and will be a bit darker. I use 2 row and pale ale malts interchangeably. I just know there will be a difference. To keep the beer lighter you could mix with 2 row if you wanted to.
 
DVCNick said:
I've run this through at .035" on my Barley Crusher with no problems. Mine is brand new though.

.05 or .06, I would think it would just fall through with little or no crush... what are you using to measure?
Click to expand...

Feeler gauge
 
DVCNick said:
Yes actually this is exactly the one that I bought.
Click to expand...

I brewed my 3rd batch with Viking Pale Ale Malt. So I have used it for a Russian Imperial Stout, an Irish Red, and a Sweet Potato (w/ Pumpkin Pie Spice) beer. So I still have very little idea about how this malt tastes. ;) The RIS and Red are very good beers...the other is fermenting.

Not sure if I have posted this pic before but I did a hot steep (the Briess published method) using Viking Pale Ale, Muntons Maris Otter Blend, Briess Brewers Malt, and Pilsner (Weyermann?). The Viking came out much darker and I recall it tasting sweeter. This scared me a bit from using it a lighter IPA. It also made me wonder if it was on sale from Morebeer because of an issue with a production run...$40 to have 55 lbs of grain shipped to my door seems a bit too good.

xjbKdkr - Imgur.jpg
 
Wow, that is a big color difference... thanks.

I'll probably first try swapping half the regular 2-row for this in a known recipe first and see what the impacts are.

Really the only one I have to work from that I know the results well is the 2-hearted clone, and it is at least medium-dark as is, so not sure how much difference I'll see there.
 
I have never tried Viking malt and have heard some mixed reviews on it. I use Weyermann pale malt as my base in 90% of my beers (anything that doesn't call for Pils or Vienna/Munich basically) and love it. I buy it in 55lb sacks and, while it is definitely more expensive than the Viking or some other brands, to me, the quality in the finished product is worth it.

Here is an interesting thread from Mer-man that does a side-by-side comparison of the Viking and Weyermann pale malts:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...sner-and-pale-ale-and-viking-pale-ale.639319/

His conclusion on the flavor of the Weyermann pale jives with the flavors I get (and is why I use it!).
 
Edit: 100% pale ale malt to an OG in the 1.060's would be great for a Bells two hearted style beer (not a clone). Give it a try with the same hop schedule you normally use.
Click to expand...

I'm going to brew this up today... 14.5lb Viking Pale Ale, ounce of Centennial at 45 and 30min, four oz dry hop and see how it comes out.
 
IMG_20190816_211150834.jpg

Viking is darker but still come out good,
Blonde with 53% pale ale, 38% pilsner, 4.8% 20L crystal all Viking. Balance was carapils and acidulated. Not a light blonde but tasty. Slight orange color in sunlight.
 
DVCNick said:
I'm going to brew this up today... 14.5lb Viking Pale Ale, ounce of Centennial at 45 and 30min, four oz dry hop and see how it comes out.
Click to expand...

Kegged this yesterday... it is carbing up and should be ready to try by mid next week. If it goes like my others it will start off hazy and clear up a lot about the time the keg kicks (probably I'm just drinking it too fast:))

Aroma of the sample was good, maybe a little sweeter than my normal Two Hearted clone if memory serves. I think I'll still drink it up no problem though. Finished at 1.014, a couple points higher than my normal Two Hearted clone as well.
 
I just ordered some Viking "brewer's malt" is this pale malt? I always wondered what "brewers malt" means...

anyway, wish I knew about that $40 deal...I think my order was about $55 shipped :/
 
odie said:
I just ordered some Viking "brewer's malt" is this pale malt? I always wondered what "brewers malt" means...
Click to expand...

Not sure. Briess is the only one that I am aware of that uses the name "Brewers Malt". In their case it is a standard "American 2-Row Pale Malt" designed as beer base malt.
 
Well I was going to wait a couple more days but couldn't resist and just popped it.

Going off memory, I think it is just a touch sweeter and darker than my normal two hearted clone. Overall not bad. it has a just a touch of lingering bitterness on the end that I'm not sure what it is, I won't pretend I can identify off flavors but hopefully it's just green or something. Definitelya drinkable as is though.
 

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