Not much to report in the first couple of years, when the only adjunct used was flaked oats. And that in tiny quantities. Only in 1942 did Whitbread fall in line with most other brewers and employ adjuncts to replace malt.
Most unusual of the adjuncts is chocolate barley, something I’ve never seen before or since. I suppose it was the chocolate equivalent of roast barley.
Even when they were using adjuncts, the quantity was quite small, mostly under 10% of the total. The one exception being in 1943, the year of oats. When brewers had to substitute pats for 10% of their malt. Ironically enough, it was the only time London Oatmeal Stout contained a significant quantity of oats. Later in the war, malted oats were used in place of flaked oats.
Whitbread finished off the war employing flaked barley, just like everyone else.
| Whitbread London Stout adjuncts 1939 - 1945 | ||||||||
| Date | Year | OG | choc. Barley | flaked barley | barley meal | flaked oat | malted oats | total |
| 8th Aug | 1939 | 1046.9 | 0.79% | 0.79% | ||||
| 9th Sep | 1940 | 1043.4 | 0.82% | 0.82% | ||||
| 22nd Sep | 1941 | 1042.0 | 0.79% | 0.79% | ||||
| 4th Aug | 1942 | 1038.7 | 6.47% | 0.81% | 0.81% | 8.09% | ||
| 31st May | 1943 | 1039.6 | 12.44% | 0.78% | 13.21% | |||
| 22nd Sep | 1944 | 1039.8 | 2.48% | 6.62% | 0.41% | 9.52% | ||
| 19th Sep | 1945 | 1039.2 | 6.18% | 0.77% | 6.96% | |||
| Sources: | ||||||||
| Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/09/126, LMA/4453/D/09/127, LMA/4453/D/09/128 and LMA/4453/D/09/129. | ||||||||
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5 comments:
As I remember posting a couple of years ago, I love flaked barley as an adjunct. However I brew on a single vessel recirculating system and never experience set mashes, but wonder if this would be a feature of flaked barley used in a conventional mash tun?
If so I can understand why brewers would have rushed back to flaked maize when it came available again.
Were oats ever a significant percentage of grain in stouts (except out of wartime necessity) until the modern craft brewers started dumping them in?
Mike in NSW,
can flaked barley cause set mashes? I've never read about that in the literature.
My guess is that flaked maize, once international trade was back to normal, was simply cheaper than flaked barley.
Anonymous,
yes. Maclay's Malt Stout was 30% oat malt. But, other than that, 5%-6% oats is the most I can remember seeing.
I brewed the 1945 Tetley's Bitter Ron posted a while back. It called for about 15% flaked barley. I brew on a single vessel self designed system that uses RIMS and a custom basket. Checking my notes I did not see nor do I remember that there was any extra problems due to the flaked barley. I routinely check the level of the water in the basket stir and adjust the flow of the recirculated water.
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