Special B and Carafa Aroma, same thing?

Just wondering if these 2 Grains are suitable substituitions for each other. Ya see, we have a new Home Brew Shop that is equal distance from my house from my Go To shop. Well, I'd like to give the new guy some business, but he does not have any Special B in stock Think that his Carafa Aroma will do just as well?

They are really similar in flavour, but IIRC Special B is a wee bit darker in colour. At the typical amounts used, however, I doubt it would make much difference. Use sparingly if you are new to it!

RLinNH said:

Just wondering if these 2 Grains are suitable substituitions for each other. Ya see, we have a new Home Brew Shop that is equal distance from my house from my Go To shop. Well, I'd like to give the new guy some business, but he does not have any Special B in stock Think that his Carafa Aroma will do just as well?

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It's CaraAroma. Carafa are the German dark roasted malts equivalents of chocolate, black patent, etc. CaraAroma is a decent sub for Special B. The original Special B from DeWolfe-Croysin (sp?) is no longer available and nothing tastes quite like it. Weyermann's CaraAroma is pretty widely distributed and is a very nice specialty malt with a very similar color and some of those nice dark toffee and dried fruit notes.

BigEd said:

It's CaraAroma. Carafa are the German dark roasted malts equivalents of chocolate, black patent, etc. CaraAroma is a decent sub for Special B. The original Special B from DeWolfe-Croysin (sp?) is no longer available and nothing tastes quite like it. Weyermann's CaraAroma is pretty widely distributed and is a very nice specialty malt with a very similar color and some of those nice dark toffee and dried fruit notes.

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Apologies for the hijack, but question for you Ed. What types of recipes have you used CaraAroma as a sub for Special B that you can make a comparison? I use Special B in a Scottish ale to get the dried fruit flavor and used Crystal 120 as a sub when Special B wasn't available. It just wasn't quite the same.

No, it's not the same. The old DWC Special B had great complexity that the others just don't have. I have used the Weyermann CaraAroma mainly in porters and a touch adds a nice tone but it doesn't have the depth of flavor and the slightly raisiny edge of Special B.