If a recipe says crystal... what type?

When one of papazian's recipes says to use crystal, does it matter what type/color of crystal I use?

Not a huge deal i guess, just changes the color of the final beer, right?

The flavor contributions are different, not only the color.

What is the recipe? What style of beer?

Rick500 said:

What is the recipe? What style of beer?

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It's the Weizenbock recipe from Joy Of Homebrewing, says to use 1 lb crystal.

While I'm here... German Caraffe (black debittered) malt... haven't seen that online yet. I see a lot of black malt, but not "black debittered"... is it not the same thing?

Just an educated guess, but I'd probably use 60 or so...depending on the rest of the recipe.

Debittered black malt... this will get you there.

Well, I'm not one to argue with the god father Pappy, but here is my usual recipe that I can never keep in stock once my friends find out it on tap. BTW, its what I call a "Crystal Wheat" everything US grains except I do use WLP300, ferment out well and crash chill to make it crystal clear.

%GRAINS (lbs) Grain Points Color
47.6 % 5.00 American Two-row Pale 23.1 1.5
47.6 % 5.00 American Wheat 24.4 1.4
4.8 % 0.50 American Crystal 10L 2.2 0.8
%HOPS (oz) Hop Form AA% AAU Boil Util IBU
25.0 % 0.50 Hallertau Pellet 4.5 2.3 60 0.271 7.6
25.0 % 0.50 Hallertau Pellet 4.5 2.3 30 0.208 5.8
50.0 % 1.00 Hallertau Pellet 4.5 4.5 5 0.054 3.0

Simple, basic, I don't want the crystal to over power any of the primary flavours and just add background support.
Maybe I should bump it up to 1 lb of C20 and see how it works.

Crystal is very often refering to a specific kind of Caramel, namelly Caramel 120 EBC.

The number ratings that go along with crystal malts correspond with varying degrees of color and caramelization. Very light-light crystal would be in the 20-40 range. Medium crystal is almost always crystal 60. Dark crystal is 90-120.

To respectfully disagree with Endovelico, Papazian is referring to medium crystal, which was often the only grade available to homebrewers when he wrote that book. Go with the crystal 60.

kevmoron said:

To respectfully disagree with Endovelico, Papazian is referring to medium crystal, which was often the only grade available to homebrewers when he wrote that book. Go with the crystal 60.

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To respectfully disagree with kevmoron, Endovelico quoted 120 EBC, which equates to about 45L. As the color rating for crystal malts varies from batch to batch, 120 EBC could actually be lighter than 60L. I agree with a medium crystal, which I would think is anything between 40L to 60L.

-a.

jigidyjim said:

While I'm here... German Caraffe (black debittered) malt... haven't seen that online yet. I see a lot of black malt, but not "black debittered"... is it not the same thing?

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You are looking for debittered, or more commonly "dehusked". You can find the Weyermann version called Carafa III here (or any other online store, I just like BMW).

I could be wrong because I'm a newbie but I swear I remember reading somewhere that the "standard" crystal malt is 40 or 60. If you've got beersmith just plug the recipe in there and see if the SRMs come with the style guidelines!

Auspice said:

I could be wrong because I'm a newbie but I swear I remember reading somewhere that the "standard" crystal malt is 40 or 60.

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Seems like I've read the same thing somewhere. Papazian's book is great. But it's a little dated. Most recipes should specify the exact type of steeping grains needed.