Caramel SMASH?

Hello, fellow brewers.

I'd like to try my first All-Grain recipe next week and on that occasion some acquaintance of mine that works in a commercial brewery is willing to present me with a 5kg of caramel malt. Now I am not exactly sure if it's a CaraAmber, or CaraHell, or WhatTheHell

I think with that amount of malt - it's just asking to be a single malt brew.
After googling and browsing the HBT forums for a fair amount of time I was unable to find any recipe that would only use caramel malt. Thou I'm sure I cannot be the first one to come up with such brew idea.

Can somebody please point me in the right direction, or maybe share a recipe that would be based off crystal and caramel malt?
I.e. should I use sugar for such brew, or caramel in the malt will be enough? What type of hops/yeast goes well with caramel?


Thanks!

I think there is a reason you were unable to find any SMaSH recipes with carmel. You would wan to use it in much lower percentages. Only "base malts" would be used in a SMaSH

Some folks around here shutter whenever someone sugesting using much more than 1.5 lbs in a 5 gallon batch, for fear of it being too sweet.

Somewhere in the back of my brain I was afraid i'd get that answer...

in that case i would need a recipe that is using as much caramel malt as possible. I've read somewhere that grain will go bad if it's malted and not used for over a month... any ideas?

You can keep grain a lot longer than a month. I'd say around 6 months would be reasonable if it is stored well.

Look at jamil's mild recipe. that uses over 1kg of crystal if i remember right. I do find it too sweet though.

But, if you brew fairly regularly you will get through 5kg of crystal.

crystal malts do not have any diastatic power. diastatic power comes from the amalyase enzymes needed to convert starches to fermentable sugars. the amalyase enzymes are destroyed during the kilning/roasting/etc.

so if you used all crystal malt it would not be a mash. it would be a giant steep of unfermentables.

Crystal malts Do not need to be mashed. The malting process for crystal malts has already converted the starches in to sugars. I think all all crystal malt smash would simply need a steep then sparge. The mash part is unnecessary.

Reno said:

crystal malts do not have any diastatic power. diastatic power comes from the amalyase enzymes needed to convert starches to fermentable sugars. the amalyase enzymes are destroyed during the kilning/roasting/etc.

so if you used all crystal malt it would not be a mash. it would be a giant steep of unfermentables.

Click to expand...

This.

The kilning process in making crystal/caramel malts converts the starches into sweet, mostly unfermentable sugars that add body and flavor to beer, but little or nothing to alcohol content. You'll get a better idea of what kind of recipes you can throw together when you know what kind of caramel malt it is. But unfortunately a SMaSH is out of the question with just caramel malt.

Good luck with your first all grain brew.

Thanks guys for stopping me from ruining my first AG.
I've found a recipe, where one uses Special-B, CaraAmber and CaraHell, 0,5 kg each, plus 5 kg Belgian pale ale malt.
I'm thinking of substituting those three caramel malts with 1,5 kg of whichever malt I'm getting.

kehaar said:

Crystal malts Do not need to be mashed. The malting process for crystal malts has already converted the starches in to sugars. I think all all crystal malt smash would simply need a steep then sparge. The mash part is unnecessary.

Click to expand...

Apparently not entirely true.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/testing-fermentability-crystal-malt-208361/

Maegnar said:

Thanks guys for stopping me from ruining my first AG.
I've found a recipe, where one uses Special-B, CaraAmber and CaraHell, 0,5 kg each, plus 5 kg Belgian pale ale malt.
I'm thinking of substituting those three caramel malts with 1,5 kg of whichever malt I'm getting.

Click to expand...

Make beers you want to drink. At the end of the day, you invest a lot of time and effort as well as cost and it is a waste of money if you don't want to drink 5g of it when you are done.

Your grain will keep.

Since I'm only starting - it's pretty hard for me to tell what I personally want Since I really don't know which malts/hops/yeast gives what taste. So the best thing I can do right now - is find a recipe and hope it's good

You could always buy amalase enzymes to do a caramel smash brew. I don't think itd turn out very well though