Lovibond Rating (or Plato. Not sure)

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Lepke

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I'm wanting to attempt to make a few beer styles that have fallen out of popularity in the past hundred years or so, or which are extinct aside from a recipe or two still being available.

One of them calls for 2 pounds of acidulated malt with an L of 2. I think they mean 2L as in Lovibond and not Plato, so if I'm wrong by all means let me know.

So far I have found this with a 1.8L and 3L rating.

My question is; does this make that much of a difference? If so I will keep looking. I'd like to get it as close to the style as possible otherwise there's no sense in doing this.

Also, is there away to compensate the 1.8L to 2L. Or conversely the 3L to 2L?

Here is the link from BYO in case this helps.

http://***********/stories/beer-styles/article/indices/11-beer-styles/534-dampfbier-style-profile



Thanks all!
Ken~
 
Lovibond is a color rating and it is easier to put color in than to take it out. Use the 1.8 and then you could boil longer. You could also check your water too and compare to the water where the style was brewed. Some additions to water can increase or decrease the extraction of color from the grain. It may be possible to make additions to your water that will make the brew darker than theirs would have.
 
Unless the rest of your grain bill is pilsner malt, I wouldn't worry about 1.2L If you add any crystal malts or toasty specialty grains, those will be suspect for color discrepencies.

Plus, you said you were doing historical beers, which depending on how far back you are going, were no where near as light or clear as today's pilsners just due to the malting and kilning process.

I wouldn't worry about it.
 
That is likely Lovibond which is a measure of color. There are many more factors that will impact the best more than the slight difference in roastiness that the difference in color indicates. so I wouldn't sweat it. The malt available today is very different than that available a century ago, so I wouldn't sweat the Lovibond being 10% different.

EDIT:
That's an interesting article. Is it really 2 lbs of acidulated malt? 1% or 2% of the grist is normal, and maybe I missed it when I skimmed it, but it didn't sound that sour. The Pilsner malt was listed as "about 2L" and the Munich is listed as "between 6L and 20L." If that's what you are referring to then like was said, don't worry about the 2L being 1.8L.
 
Maybe the link is wrong, but I didn't see any acidulated malt in that recipe. The grain bill is "70/30 mix of Pils and Munich malt", no room in there for 2 lbs of acidulated malt.
 
That article is wrong about Dampfbier. It isn't feremneted with a Weizen yeast. I've been to the brewery and asked the brewer. It's just a neutral top-fermenting strain. The beer itself is like a lightly-hopped Alt.
 
So it turns out that the gose style has experienced a small resurgence in popularity. Sam Adams makes Verloren, which is limited release, but you may be able to find some. Also, a gose took gold in the Category 23 in the Boston Homebrew Comp in 2012.
 
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