Crystal malts

[stevedasleeve]

Can you taste these in a whisky? I’ve seen “stout” whisky, and I am curious as to how much flavor comes from roasted malts but seems to me crystal malts might not come through, maybe at all? Or am I wrong?

[ShineonCrazyDiamond]

Chocolate malt, crystal malt, roasted malt, caramel malt etc. Are all just barley malt roasted to some different degree of roast (different times and temps). If chocolate comes over, so does crystal. Fortunately for us distillers, I have found that there is a direct corolation to the different flavors of malt to the final distillate. It may be a lighter flavor, but if it's caramel, you'll get those flavors. If it's black malt, you'll get that deep almost astringent flavor.

[OtisT]

I made a bourbon with about 5% dark crystal malt and 5% Chocolate malt. I could taste them both in the finished product. Reminded me slightly of a stout beer. I labeled it my dark chocolate bourbon. Yummy!

Otis

PS. I recall that after it was done aging I thought I should have used either a bit less chocolate malt, or perhaps a chocolate wheat that was unmalted because the result was a little more bitter than I wanted. Here is the link to that batch: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=72896

[pope]

Wow, 5% chocolate was too much? Good to know, I am pivoting to single malt soon and have plans of using toasted and roasted malts in the grain bill.

[shadylane]

Fortunately for us distillers, I have found that there is a direct corolation to the different flavors of malt to the final distillate. It may be a lighter flavor, but if it's caramel, you'll get those flavors. If it's black malt, you'll get that deep almost astringent flavor.

If the mash bill is 100% black malt, you'll get that deep over powering astringent flavor :oops

[shadylane]

Wow, 5% chocolate was too much? Good to know, I am pivoting to single malt soon and have plans of using toasted and roasted malts in the grain bill.

There's only 1 way to find out, give it a try.
I'd recommend using more crystal malt with a lower Lovibond
Don't fer get the mash efficiency will be lower than if you use regular malt
And crystal has very little enzymes left

[cayars]

I'm kind of with OtisT as I've capped my specialty malts at 5% if used. I like them in beer, but not as much in distilled products.

This is going to be personal just like how much peat malted to use. To me less is more and I'm ok with that as it makes it cheaper to produce.

[8Ball]

I’ve used 3.5% Caramunich malt and it came over nice. So yea, no more than 5% sounds about right as a reference point.

[OtisT]

Wow, 5% chocolate was too much? Good to know, I am pivoting to single malt soon and have plans of using toasted and roasted malts in the grain bill.

5% chocolate malt may have been enough (not too much) on its own, but I also used 5% British dark crystal in the same batch. When I posted about the dryness/bitter, someone told me that chocolate malt was bitter and suggested using unmalted chocolate wheat (or was it barely?) as a way to include the chocolate flavor w/o the dryness/bitter. I could easily taste both in the finished product and it was not bad at all, just dryer than I was expecting. I think the dark crystal was stronger flavor wise than the chocolate was. If you want just a hint of those flavors, use less. If you definitely want that stout flavor profile to stand out, the proportions seemed good to me.

Otis

[pope]

Chocolate wheat sounds tempting but then it wouldn't be single malt I know I shouldn't try so hard to play by the rules.

Shady are we talking 10l, 20l, 60l? There's an English crystal 55l that I absolutely love using with a little flaked maize when I'm doing a Bitter or ESB. But so far my single malts have been 100% base and they're still pretty rich in flavor. Might have to try it in a whiskey.

I 'need' to fill an 8-gal barrel (to get the rum out), was thinking single malt but it's a big commitment to one recipe. I found out too late that 8-gal isn't a 'learning' barrel, it's a 'make friends' barrel. I might do a sample batch with 10% and see. I've been doing a bourbon with 15% barley, half of it is special roast, but it doesn't come through too much to be super noticeable so far. Needs more tastings...

[ShineonCrazyDiamond]

Wow, 5% chocolate was too much? Good to know, I am pivoting to single malt soon and have plans of using toasted and roasted malts in the grain bill.

5% chocolate malt may have been enough (not too much) on its own, but I also used 5% British dark crystal in the same batch. When I posted about the dryness/bitter, someone told me that chocolate malt was bitter and suggested using unmalted chocolate wheat (or was it barely?) as a way to include the chocolate flavor w/o the dryness/bitter. I could easily taste both in the finished product and it was not bad at all, just dryer than I was expecting. I think the dark crystal was stronger flavor wise than the chocolate was. If you want just a hint of those flavors, use less. If you definitely want that stout flavor profile to stand out, the proportions seemed good to me.

Otis

That was me with the chocolate wheat. It's why I use it in the sundae bourbon.

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=65895&hilit=#p7465073

[MtRainier]

Try the Honey Malt in the Honey Bear Bourbon recipe here in Tried and True. It smells so good and the taste really does come over.

[Psilocide]

In the same way, if I roasted some of my non-malted corn (wet) prior to mashing, am I making it eliminating the starch from all that roasted corn from fermentability, the same way as a crystal malt?

[Delecto]

A good commercial example of this is Dead Guy Whiskey from Rogue Brewing in Oregon. They use the same malt bill for their Dead Guy beer as for the whiskey. Tastes like chocolate milk whiskey.

From their website: 2-Row, Munich & C15 Malts. https://www.rogue.com/products/dead-guy-whiskey

[hypnopooper]

I just mashed a wheat whiskey this morning. In this mash bill about 10% of the wheat is midnight wheat malt from Briess. Also dark roasted malted wheat doesn't produce the astringent flavors that chocolate malted barley does, as there is no hull to the grain. additionally, I grind all my grains to a flour like consistency and distill and ferment on the grain.

25 gallons of water
45 lbs of red winter wheat malt
5 lbs of midnight wheat malt
35 lbs of standard 2 row malt

That midnight wheat smelled so good, very chocolaty/dark coffee roast aroma to it and added some complexity to the mash. I will be putting this into a new charred oak 5 gallon barrel after distillation. I'm looking foward to tasting what the distilled spirit flavors will be from this experiment.

[OtisT]

Sounds tasty hypno. Can’t wait to hear how it turns out.

What is your total ferment volume after adding all the grains?

Do you plan to do 2 or 3 more ferments with the same bill to fill that barrel?

Otis

[hypnopooper]

Otis,
I was shooting for around 30 gallons or so for final fermentable volume. I ferment in a BRUTE 32 gallon trash can (Clean and never used for trash of course. But with all the grains I'm not sure if its going to be too much for my BRUTE. If it is, I'll simply add a 5 gallon HD/Lowes project bucket for the remainder.
I should easily get 3.5-4 gallons of 140 proof, maybe more. I don't yet know my finished brix yet and I haven't decided on whether to use a malt yeast which can be fermentable up to 15% potential alcohol while whiskey yeast is usually on round 10% potential alcohol. I'll be deciding tonight on yeast type based upon the final volume of ferment, and then I'll have to either decide on a 3 gallon barrel or run another batch to get to 5 gallons. 5 gallons barrels are of course the better buy for the volume to be barreled.

[OtisT]

Hypno. You may get 4 gallons of of high wines from that batch, but after cuts you will be left with only half that. (Approximation). My assumption above about your yield is based on the weight of the grains you are using. Has little to do with the amount of water.

As for your target ABV, you should try to keep your max potential ABV below 10%. Higher ABV ferments are more prone to off flavors due to stressing the yeast. Most of the AG advice I have seen from folks I trust is to keep your ferment ABV near 7 to 8% max, which is about 2 to 2.5 pounds of grains per gallon of ferment. (Final volume, not how much water you add.) Most of the recipes here on HD refer to what the final ferment volume is, not how much water to add.

Otis

[hypnopooper]

Otis,
My final ferment volume is about 30 gallons. Since this is my first run of this mash recipe, its difficult to know exactly what my final volume would be, so I'm guessing with water amounts and grain amounts. It does look like its about 3.4 lbs to 1 gallon of water.

For future batches, I may thin is out a little more to 2.5 lb per gallon of water. I'm aware to what conventional theory is here on HD for grain to water ratio, I appreciate you reminding me. Due to it being an all malt mash, with no carb conversion required and the grains milled to a flour, it's quite viscous, I'll see how this ferments out. In this gain bill, the midnight wheat malt adds nothing but flavor to the mash since it has no diastatic conversion power. The finished mash has a brix reading of 25.

I've decided to ferment with the whiskey yeast as it is more tolerable to heat vs. the m-1 malt yeast. I'll should very easily achieve 2.5gallons at a minimum of distilled product, so I will probably do this mash again in a couple of weeks to get to my 5 gallon desired barrel size.

[Beerswimmer]

hypno I do 30 gallon ferments too. I use 2-2.5lbs per gallon depending on what grains I'm using, and need 4 ferments to fill a 5 gallon barrel. I just made Sundae Chocolate and Christmas Caramel, so I'm a big fan of using specialty malts!

[shadylane]

Due to it being an all malt mash, with no carb conversion required and the grains milled to a flour, it's quite viscous

Was this a misprint, or do you think malt doesn't need to be mashed for starch conversion

[seabass]

I love specialty malts in whiskey. I have found that too much c120 will come over a bit too intense and take a while to age out. After a year, it was pretty good, but still a bit too sweet. I used about 7% and it was more than I wanted. But everyone's taste is different. I've veered towards non crystal specialty malts like extra special malt and similar for things I want to drink a lot of. But the c120 added a lot of interesting character. I'll eventually do it again with 4% or use a bit of specialB around the same % for the dried fruit character.

[hypnopooper]

No shady, I was saying that with the all malt grain bill there is no other additional starches to convert as you would if you were also mashing corn and using the malt to convert the corn to sugars. That being said, my final mash was quite viscous. I totally mashed the wheat malt at 153F for an hour and then added the 2 row with a 2.5 hour rest to finish the conversion. However, since the malt was milled to to a flour like consistency there in no need for an extended mash time like you would have with corn or other unmalted starch. I don't think I would have gotten to 25 brix with just adding the flour to cold water

[SaltyStaves]

I used two specialty malts in my last whisky that were each 6.3% of the grain bill (the remainder was base malt). One adds honey toffee flavours that I have used before and the other was more biscuity/roasted. It came out slightly burnt chocolate orange and I'm not sure what to do about the maturation. I like chocolate orange, but I'd like the roasted/burnt note to go away.

Keeping that malt under 5% would have helped a lot.

[shadylane]

I don't think I would have gotten to 25 brix with just adding the flour to cold water

Actually, water and flour will float the hydrometer just like sugar water

[hypnopooper]

Ran the batch today... omg it is very good. The flavors definitely carried over for the midnight wheat malt at 10% of the mash bill, but not too strong. My wife was wanting to drink it before aging... I got somewhere between 3-3.5 gallons total product. I can’t wait to get this in a new charred oak barrel and see where this goes.

[Deplorable]

Ran the batch today... omg it is very good. The flavors definitely carried over for the midnight wheat malt at 10% of the mash bill, but not too strong. My wife was wanting to drink it before aging... I got somewhere between 3-3.5 gallons total product. I can’t wait to get this in a new charred oak barrel and see where this goes.

Did you get all 95 pounds of that grain and 25 gallons of water into a 32 gallon brute?

[hypnopooper]

Well it was 85 lbs to be fair and it did fit but it would have over flowed if I didn’t pull 5 gallons off and ferment into a five gallon Lowe’s project bucket. Next batch will be reduced a bit to ensure the next batch will fit completely without over bubbling during the ferment.