Multi-Grain Brewing
Remember when all bread was white and squishy? Remember when all beer was light and bland? Just as consumers are clamoring for more flavorful beers, so too are better-tasting breads winning popularity. First it was wheat bread, then whole-wheat bread. One current favorite is multi-grain bread, made from a combination — often seven — different types of grains melded together to create a rich flavor.
Well, just as merging various grains creates better bread, it can also create terrific beer. The following recipes feature seven grains, but you can mix and match to create your own multi-grain gem.
Each recipe is still based on barley malts, because barley is the ideal base malt and greatly improves the mashing and fermenting process when using other grains. But there’s so much more to them. Each of the recipes requires mashing, but many of these grains can be steeped in an extract-based recipe.
Is Your Oatmeal Flaky?
Barley, wheat, and rye are readily available in homebrew shops in malted form. Malted grains are much easier to brew with than non-malted grains, so use these if you can. Other grains, including oats, rice, and corn (as well as wheat, rye, and barley), can be found in flaked form. Flaked grains can be used in the mash with no further preparation (again, check with your homebrew supplier first). For dinkel, triticale, amaranth, buckwheat, spelt, and others you will have to deal with the hardship of pre-mashing to gelatinize. Likewise if you can’t find flaked rice.
To gelatinize, simply boil one to 1.5 quarts of water for each pound of grain, add the grain, and soak it, covered, for 45 minutes. Add these precooked grains with the cooking water into the mash with the malts and flakes. If you really want to go authentic, you can try to malt these grains, but most brewers wouldn’t recommend it.
So which grains should you use? Whatever you can find, of course.
Dinkel and spelt are more or less ancient forms of wheat, so they will taste similar to wheat in a mash. Triticale is a modern hybrid grain, combining the qualities of wheat and rye. If you go to a whole foods store, you should be able to track down several different varieties. Baking supply stores often have many of them as well. You want to find whole grains, not flour, though. Cereal aisle, rice and pasta aisle, ethnic foods aisle, sprouting seeds aisle. Admittedly, some will be harder to find than others but worth it if can you find them. You can substitute almost any one of them for another, depending on what you can find. And different varieties will give slightly different results (for instance red wheat berries will be a bit different from white ones). This is not an all-inclusive list of grains. Write and let us know what other grains you’ve found to brew with.
Birdseed Blonde Ale
(5 gallons, all-grain)
Light in color and body but with a nice complex, nutty taste.
Ingredients:
• 4 lbs. pale malted barley
• 1 lb. Munich malt
• 0.5 lb. flaked rye
• 0.5 lb. popcorn
• 0.5 lb. pre-cooked millet seed
• 0.5 lb. pre-cooked sorghum
• 0.5 lb. pre-cooked quinoa (or grain amaranth or dinkel)
• 1 lb. rice syrup solids
• 1.5 oz. Tettnanger hops (4% alpha acid): 0.75 oz. for 50 min., 0.75 for 10 min.
• German ale yeast (Alt or Kölsch strain) built up to at least a quart of slurry
• 3/4 cup corn sugar for priming
Step by Step:
Pop the popcorn in an oil-free air popper. Do not butter or salt! Pre-cook the millet, sorghum, and quinoa in about 3 qt. water. Heat 2.5 gal. water to 162° F. Add the barley malts, popcorn, and the precooked grains (with the water they soaked in), which should settle to about 152° F. Hold at this temperature for 75 min. Begin the run-off and sparge with 3 gal. of 168° F water.
Add a little water to the kettle if necessary to make 6 gal., then bring to a boil. Total boil is 50 min. Add rice syrup solids and about half of the hops. Boil 40 min. Add the rest of the hops. Boil 10 min. more, which should bring the volume down around 5.25 gal. Remove from heat and chill the wort. When cooled to 70° F, pitch the yeast.
Ferment between 65° and 68° F for 10 days. Rack to the secondary and age cool (50° F) for two weeks. Prime and bottle. Bottle condition at 50° F for three weeks.
Kashi Amber Ale
(5 gallons, all-grain)
Reddish amber, because of the rye and the crystal, this is a rich-tasting beer with an intriguing blend of spicy flavors.
I must give credit where credit is due. I was talking about this article with my wife one morning when my children pointed out that the box of cereal on the table in front of them (Honey Puffed Kashi, produced by The Kashi Co. of La Jolla, Calif.) had seven grains in it. This recipe is based on that box of cereal.
Ingredients:
• 3 lbs. pale malted barley
• 1 lb. medium crystal malt (50° to 60° Lovibond)
• 1 lb. malted wheat
• 0.5 lb. malted rye
• 0.5 lb. flaked oats
• 0.5 lb. brown rice
• 0.5 lb. buckwheat
• 0.5 lb. triticale
• 0.5 lb. red winter wheat berries
• 2 cups honey
• 2 oz. whole sesame seeds
• 1 oz. Willamette hops (4% alpha acid) for 30 min.
• 1 oz. Cascade hops (4% alpha acid) for 30 min. steep
• American Ale yeast, built up to at least a qt. of slurry
• 2/3 cup brown sugar for priming
Step by Step:
Precook (as above) the brown rice, wheat berries, triticale, and buckwheat in 3 qt. water. Heat 3 gal. water to 162° F, add precooked grains (with cooking water), flaked grains, rye, wheat, and barley malts. Mash should stabilize at about 151° F. Hold at this temperature for 90 min. Begin run-off and sparge with 3 gal. 169° F water.
Add honey to kettle and bring to a boil. Boil until volume is down to about 5.5 gal. Add Willamette hops for the last 30 min. of the boil. Add Cascade hops and the sesame seeds (in a fine mesh bag to facilitate removal) as you turn off the heat. Steep 30 min., and then chill the wort. When the wort has cooled to 68° F, pitch the yeast.
Ferment at 68° F for 10 days. Rack to secondary and condition warm (62° to 65° F) for 15 days. Prime and bottle. Bottle condition for three weeks.
Cheater’s Stout
(5 gallons, all-grain)
Dark and creamy-smooth, but it’s cheating because it only has six different grains — unless you count malted and unmalted barley as two separate ones.
Ingredients:
• 3 lbs. pale malted barley
• 1 lb. dark crystal malt (90° to 120° Lovibond)
• 1 lb. roasted unmalted barley
• 1 lb. flaked wheat
• 1 lb. flaked oats
• 1 lb. flaked maize (corn)
• 0.5 lb. spelt
• 0.5 lb. brown rice
• 1/2 cup dark molasses
• 1 oz. Northern Brewer hops (8% alpha acid) for 65 min.
• 1 oz. Kent Goldings hops (3.5% alpha acid) for 5 min.
• English or Irish ale yeast (built up to at least a qt. of slurry)
• 2 oz. lactose (milk sugar)
• 1 cup unhopped dark malt extract for priming
Step by Step:
Precook the spelt and brown rice (as above) in about 2 qt. water. Heat 3 gal. water to 164° F. Add precooked grains (with cooking water), flaked grains, malts, and roasted barley. The mash should stabilize at about 152° F. Hold at this temperature 90 min. Begin run-off and sparge with 3 gal. 168° F water.
Bring to a boil. Total boil is 65 min. Add molasses and Northern Brewer hops, boil 60 min. Add Goldings hops, boil 5 min., and remove from heat. Chill, pitch yeast at 68° F.
Ferment two weeks at 62° to 65° F. Rack to secondary and age two weeks at 60° F. Prime with dry malt extract and add lactose to sweeten a little. Bottle and age four to six weeks in cool (50° F) and dark place.
