How different ingredients affect your hb..

[ohshot]

Right now I'm at the stage where I am getting curious and trying out different ingredients from different brands. But I still have only done extract brewing. I am still unsure what exactly your malt extract and crystals do for your brew flavor wise. Also what does cracking the crystals before you seep them do. What brands of malt extract do you prefer? I've just been using the kind I get out of true brew kits.

 

[RM-MN]

Your Crystal malts will give you the sweetness and caramelly flavors, with each type (10L is different flavor than 60L which is different from 120L) giving something different to the beer. You want to crack (CRUSH!!) them so the water can reach the center and dissolve out the sugars, flavor, and color.

 

[cluckk]

The "L" on number on each tells the Lovibond number, the darkness to which the malt has been kilned. When mashing the malt is crushed (cracked) to break it down enough that the enzymes and starches within it are accessible to the water. At the right temperatures different enzymes are activated which produce different kinds of sugars (some more fermentable than others). If you're brewing extract kits your probably steeping adjuncts for coloring and some flavors. Most of these do not need the enzymes in the grain for anything because they are mainly imparting flavors or colors instead of sugars. You will discover far more such ingredients when you start partial-mashing and then even more when you go All Grain.

 

[cluckk]

Some grains are kilned to a point that there are no enzymes and must be added to a base malt--usually pale malt--so their sugars can be converted by the enzymes in the base malt.

 

[rjwhite41]

The only thing I would add about crystal malts is they also add body and head retention.

 

[ohshot]

What do you mean by kilned when talking about crystal malt? Sorry, my terminology for home brew is a bit weak.

 

[Toadsticker]

What do you mean by kilned when talking about crystal malt? Sorry, my terminology for home brew is a bit weak.

Basically, roasted.

 

[kh54s10]

What do you mean by kilned when talking about crystal malt? Sorry, my terminology for home brew is a bit weak.

Grains are moistened then allowed to just begin to germinate. They are then "kilned" or in other words baked at varying times and temperatures to create the different styles.

How you use them takes some knowledge. I start from known recipes and make small changes so that I don't make something awful. If that turns out I might change amounts or types of grain to change or refine a flavor.

Using extract you have a lot less control over the final product since you don't know exactly what is in the extract.
Making changes in the base (the extract) is only possible by using a couple of extract types in differing amounts.

 

[Captain Damage]

Get and readDesigning Great Beers by Ray Daniels. It really helps you understand how the different malts and other ingredients work together. It is my Bible. Combining the knowledge gleaned from that book with some brewing software, such as Beer Smith to make the calculations easy, will make recipe creation a more actively creative exercise, rather than a series of guesses. While the folks here on HBT are incredibly helpful and generous with their knowledge an experience, the fact that there is no ONE way to make great beer means that even seemingly-straightforward questions are often answered with a large number of conflicting, but perfectly valid opinions.