Beer Forum

Why does it seem so hard to get chocolate malt at 350L?
At least near me all my locals carry english chocolate malt thats in the 400+range, often around 425 or more.

I know I can order exactly what I want from a plethora of online sites. But it just seems weird to me. When I started brewing 15 years ago chocolate was chocolate at 350L Roasted barley was 400 and BP was 500+.
The explosion of homebrewing over the last decade has brought us in such variety, but I wonder if others have small local shops that have to chose between on chocolate or another.

What's more disturbing is when you compare malts from two different maltsters of the same lovibond and they are obviously not the same color.

I had something similar yesterday at the "LHBS". Read: liquor store with 20' of homebrew shelf space & no knowledgeable employees. They only keep 4 sacks of malt in stock at any one time, 1 each of 2 row, Maris, Wheat & the 4th is usually a pilsner. I'd been getting my brands from them (Great Western 2 row & Crisp M.O.). Yesterday there was Muntons M.O. & Rahr 2 row. All the employees know me, so I had 2 of them come over to the aisle & say hi. I had to give them a hard time about not having my brands this time & the guy who makes the order confessed that he sees Maris, he clicks on it, he sees 2 row, he clicks on it... no consideration of the brand or price or what they've been carrying. Buy it, mark it up, order another one when it sells. When I checked out, he started asking me questions about the different brands & is going to start paying attention to it more closely.

I know you were making a comment about the state of variety & choices in homebrewing, but some helpful words of advice to others stumbling upon this who have problems finding what they're looking for - talk to them about it. It doesn't always take a million requests for them to carry something specific. Perhaps no one's talked to them at all about something & they're just shooting in the dark, thinking they must be buying what folks want since it still sells & no one's said anything. On this occasion I didn't even make the request, they asked me & we had a short chat about the slight individual nuances of the major brands they could easily get.

It depends on if you're talking about the change in standards, i.e. the chocolate malt going from 350 to 400 or if you feel like they should have both on hand. Can't speak to the former, but the latter is usually an inventory issue. If your demand can't support the supply then you've got to have just the right amount of inventory that can be turned quickly. It's even more important when you're talking about perishables.

12stones wrote:It depends on if you're talking about the change in standards, i.e. the chocolate malt going from 350 to 400 or if you feel like they should have both on hand. Can't speak to the former, but the latter is usually an inventory issue. If your demand can't support the supply then you've got to have just the right amount of inventory that can be turned quickly. It's even more important when you're talking about perishables.

That was what I was referring to - maybe they can only keep one on hand, but no one's made a request for one over the other. Frequently a brewer will see the chocolate, notice it's not his preferred color, but buy it anyways & tweak the recipe slightly to make it work - without commenting/asking about it to the shop. The shop might have no idea that most of their customers would prefer a different one they could carry just as easily. Our local wouldn't have any idea there even is a difference between Choc 350 & 400.

As far as wanting to turn product quickly... come visit our local When I first started going over there a few years back 'fresh' was anything that had an expiration date in the previous 5 or 6 years. They've gotten a little better... sorta. If you ignore the yeast health & warm hops on the shelf anyways.

Ozwald wrote:

12stones wrote:It depends on if you're talking about the change in standards, i.e. the chocolate malt going from 350 to 400 or if you feel like they should have both on hand. Can't speak to the former, but the latter is usually an inventory issue. If your demand can't support the supply then you've got to have just the right amount of inventory that can be turned quickly. It's even more important when you're talking about perishables.

Our local wouldn't have any idea there even is a difference between Choc 350 & 400.

As far as wanting to turn product quickly... come visit our local When I first started going over there a few years back 'fresh' was anything that had an expiration date in the previous 5 or 6 years. They've gotten a little better... sorta. If you ignore the yeast health & warm hops on the shelf anyways.

That's what you get for living in BFE.

12stones wrote:That's what you get for living in BFE.

Beats the shit out of heavily populated, traffic jammed, noisy, polluted flat lands - who still have undereducated LHBS employees. Besides, with Northern Brewer & B3 it's not much of a concern at all. Even with shipping costs 99% of the stuff is still cheaper online.

I have to stand up for the new LHBS in Bozeman (we have two now!). Instead of being attached to a liquor store it is attached to a grow your own pot shop. The help isn't any better (though occasionally one of the employees knows about the beer side), but the selection is pretty good, and things are kept cold.

As for the OG topic, what I have seen is more places moving to "light" chocolate malt to distinguish.