Crystal Malt Substitution

Quick question on a malt substitution.

I'm doing a recipe that calls for 12oz. of Crystal 40 steeped. The LHBS doesn't have 40, so I got 60. According to the brew calculations, 8 oz. of Crystal 60 should give me the same SRM as 12 oz. of Crystal 40. Does that sound about right?

Thanks!

For SRM or Lovibond, you're basically correct. The 60 will be darker, but you're using less of it.

BUT, aren't you more concerned about flavour, than color? I would be.

steve

My take on it is, you can scale the crystals and they seem (to a degree) to give you what you are looking for. Actually what I did when I converted the very first recipe I made (extract to AG...to get the DME 'amber' right) I ended up combining 10 and 60 in the right proportion to get what I wanted.

skou said:

For SRM or Lovibond, you're basically correct. The 60 will be darker, but you're using less of it.

BUT, aren't you more concerned about flavour, than color? I would be.

steve

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I guess that's what I'm asking. Will there be a significant flavor difference between 8 oz. of 60L and 12 oz. of 40L? This is an extract recipe with steeping grains.

The full recipe is 4.5 lbs Light DME, 12 oz. 40L, 2 oz. Special B, 2 oz. roasted barley.

Thanks!

It won't really make much difference. I like maltier beers, so if it were me I'd use 12 oz of the 60L.

If it were me, I'd probably run with 6 or 7 ounces of 60L, and 4 or 5 of 10 or 20L. With the Special B, and roasted barley, I'd not be too worried on hitting the exact color specs, but try to get the flavours close.

I'm somewhat guessing on the amounts, but it is an educated guess.

The flavours of the various Crystal (or Caramel) malts, will range from a sweetness approaching brown sugar from lighter colours, to something approaching dark toffee from 120L. Crystal malts will leave sweetness, after fermentation has completed.

Oh, you can also attain a residual sweetness, by using some Wyeast 1968 strain.

steve

I agree with Skou.

Instead of less 60, use half 60 and half 20. You don't want to sacrifice the sweeter nature of the crystal malt.

BierMuncher said:

I agree with Skou.

Instead of less 60, use half 60 and half 20. You don't want to sacrifice the sweeter nature of the crystal malt.

Click to expand...

See what I get for filling a few dozen recipes a week?

Thanks, Munch!

steve

Jfrizzell:

I agree with Skou and others, you can scale back the C60 to hit the color of 12 oz of C40, but matching th flavor is a bit more difficult. If it were as simple as mixing and matching some C60 and C20 to get the flavor of C40, maltsters would not make the array of crystal malts they do.

From a flavor standpoint, crystal malts tend to have similar flavors across about 20 - 30 color units. Thus, C10 - C20 have a similar mild caramel, candy sweetness; C30 - C40 have a sweet, caramel, toffee flavor; C50 - C60 have a sweet and pronounced caramel note; C70 - C90 a caramel, slight burnt sugar note; and C 100 - C120 a burnt sugar, raisin note. Now, how important this is to your beer depends on how sensitive you are to these flavors and how close you want to match a given recipe. Also, a little experiementing with ingredients is much of the fun of home brewing so using C60 in place C40 is no problem unless you are duplicating a previous brew and you want to hit the flavor dead on.


Dr Malt