Toasted Malt vs Crystal Malt i.e. (Victory/Biscuit Malt)

[Colbizle]

When I'm designing a recipe I often keep a close eye on my crystal malt and specialty malt percentage in relation to the style. However, I often find confusing and conflicting results when I see people use toasted malt (i.e. victory/biscuit malt) in their recipes, but don't count it towards their overall crystal percentage. From my understanding, a lot of malts that are listed as Toasted malt are still a Crystal malt and would ultimately contribute to some sweetness there (given their lovibond rating).

Let say I'm targeting an overall crystal percentage that is no higher than 8%, but I wanted to use some toasted malt (i.e. victory malt which is a Toasted crystal malt) but now I'm sitting at 10% total crystal in my overall grist. In the scenario of Victory malt, I would suspect it's going to make my beer a little sweeter than I'd hope.

Thoughts?

 

[Jawbox0]

Victory and Biscuit are kilned malts, not crystal malts. They can be produced by toasting your two row in an oven. They are not converted to sugar prior to kilning.

Crystal malts are made by actually converting some of the starches to sugars and then caramelizing those sugars to varying degrees in the husk.

 

[Colbizle]

Victory and Biscuit are kilned malts, not crystal malts. They can be produced by toasting your two row in an oven. They are not converted to sugar prior to kilning.

Crystal malts are made by actually converting some of the starches to sugars and then caramelizing those sugars to varying degrees in the husk.

I was familiar with the latter but thank you for clarifying the former.

 

[Calder]

Me thinks you are being too formula based in your recipe construction. I think that stunts creativity.

 

[Colbizle]

Me thinks you are being too formula based in your recipe construction. I think that stunts creativity.

Well If I'm brewing to style for a competition I'm pretty strict on my recipe formulation. Believe me, I've had my far share of creative brews!

 

[JKaranka]

I don't have much experience with Biscuit in large quantities and I've never seen Victory for sale. I find the same with Amber and Brown malt as in that they are fairly dry in small quantities but provide some sweetness in large quantities. The comparison with Crystal is not 1:1 really. I'd say about five times less sweetness from the kilned malts but definitively more than from the same quantity of pale malt.