"Amber" base malt?

[Bosh]

Been reading up on 19th century British brewing and a malt that was used a good bit was "amber malt." This was obviously a base malt as old school amber ale used amber malt and nothing else.

Searching for modern amber brought up only a specialty grain that cannot be used as a base malt and a whole lot of extract which isn`t the same thing at all.

So for recreating old recipes that call for using "amber" base malt what is the best modern substitute? Light munich?

 

[JKaranka]

Amber malt evolved through the 18th and 19th centuries. I'm racking my brains here, but I think there was a diastatic Amber malt from Belgium that is meant to be similar. I think the colour would be more like dark Munich. That said, the modern amber malt by the likes of Crisp should be relatively similar to the Victorian / Edwardian amber malts.

 

[Bali]

Bestmalz AG's "Red X" is a proper base malt, and the color of it is way deeper than it's taste: it has less bread crust flavor than Münich and less caramel than one would think from the color. My favourite basemalt these days.

 

[JKaranka]

Old British amber malt had lots of flavour, though. The modern one is so pungent lots of people avoid it.

 

[Bosh]

Hmmm as I thought hard to pin down. I don`t think modern British amber malt can be that close since it isn`t a base malt and old amber malt very clearly was.

Sadly I can`t seem to find Red X or Dark Munich or modern amber for that matter in Korea. So maybr the closest approximation would be Light Munich plus a little Melanoiden malt.

Came across a Victorian recipe in a blog that looks interesting that calls for 95% amber and 5% black malt. So maybe 90% light munich, 5% black malt and 5% melanoiden woukd get me in the ball park.

 

[JKaranka]

That must be pre 1830s, very rare to get any malt other than some form of pale malt as the main malt since gravities were measured.

 

[Bosh]

That must be pre 1830s, very rare to get any malt other than some form of pale malt as the main malt since gravities were measured.

After 1830's the amount of amber malt used crashed and, like you said, it was pretty much never used as the primary base malt but it still did hang around in smaller quantities.

See here: http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2008/01/porter-grists-ca-1845.html

Some Barclay Perkins stouts had about 10% amber malt in their grists.

HOWEVER, a writer called William Littell Tizard recommended using 95% amber malt in a porter. Commercial breweries didn't take his advice since it'd cost more to get the same gravity but it sounds pretty tasty.

The closest approximation I can come up with for his 95% amber 5% black recipe with the stuff I can find in Korea is 90% light munich (Weyermann), 5% melanoiden and 5% black patent and then a historical mid 19th century level of porter/stout hopping (i.e. quite a bit). To be really historical I'd have to use some brett but I think if I brew a "mild" (i.e. unaged) version I can get away with skipping that.

 

[JKaranka]

Btw, Guinness at the time used an "amber" malt that was seen to British brewers as very pale. The malts also varied from brewery to brewery because the specifications were handed to maltsters. You can get the more modern amber all though the second half of the 19th century but I've never seen more than 15% being used.