Why do newbies always use so much crystal malt?

[JKaranka]

Well, 26% Crystal in an ESB looks very reasonable, and would probably be okay if the C40 was instead half-and-half Carastan and C10 or C20 (don't get me wrong -- it would be sweet, but it would make sense) when one considers there's +- 40% of Honey Malt (with +- 15% dark Crystal on top of it!) in that American Brown Ale.

For a strong bitter 26% crystal is way too much. It's not going to finish anywhere near dry enough. Some body and caramel, yes, but more than 10% is overkill. (I could see it in a mild, though).

The only malt I use large amounts of is Brown malt. 15-30% just makes a porter.

 

[FarmerTed]

For a strong bitter 26% crystal is way too much. It's not going to finish anywhere near dry enough. Some body and caramel, yes, but more than 10% is overkill. (I could see it in a mild, though).

The only malt I use large amounts of is Brown malt. 15-30% just makes a porter.

I would say, when in doubt, check out the recipe for a particular style in Brewing Classic Styles, and use the percentages in there as a guideline when creating your own recipe. Jamil has 0.75 lbs in his esb recipe, which works out to just under 6% if you go all-grain. If you want more, doubling the amount may get you where you want, but 26% seems kind of crazy to me. On the other hand, I seem to recall when Anchor Brewing was on the BN Session a year ago, they went over the recipe for their Winter Wheat beer, and said it had something insane like 30% crystal malt in it. (That's probably why I never bought a sixer of it when it was available).

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Sooo you guys are saying this recipe won't be amazing?:

Caramel Commando (5 gallons)
1lb Pilsner malt (for diastatic power)
3lbs Caramel 60
3lbs Caramel 80
3lbs Caramel 120
2lbs Simpsons Extra Dark Crystal
1oz Hallertauer 3.1% AA (boil 60 minutes)
Mash at 158.




Rev.

I'd try it.. ^.^

 

[ericbw]

Yes, that's the one that caught my eye first. The Campari IPA looks interesting but at the price of a liter of Campari I'd be hesitant to pour 2 or 3 of those in there at bottling time. At least the base recipe for that IPA doesn't use ANY crystal, only Pale and Biscuit. But the Biscuit again is at 20%!

Now I wonder if there's Sorbitol in Campari...

The book is not published by the Brewer's Association (BA) and the author is not known as a brewer. Sam Calagione has his endorsement on the back.

It's a real shame as this is a much larger budget publication than we ever see (Ten Speed Press/Penguin Random House). The photography alone speaks testimony to that. It is intended for home brewers wanting to Brew Better Beer. It makes a wonderful present you want to give.

That said, that copy goes back to the library next week.

What is the book?

 

[JKaranka]

I would say, when in doubt, check out the recipe for a particular style in Brewing Classic Styles, and use the percentages in there as a guideline when creating your own recipe. Jamil has 0.75 lbs in his esb recipe, which works out to just under 6% if you go all-grain. If you want more, doubling the amount may get you where you want, but 26% seems kind of crazy to me. On the other hand, I seem to recall when Anchor Brewing was on the BN Session a year ago, they went over the recipe for their Winter Wheat beer, and said it had something insane like 30% crystal malt in it. (That's probably why I never bought a sixer of it when it was available).

Completely agree: 0-5% crystal malt for strong bitters is more traditional. Bit of invert, dash of brewers' and Bob's your uncle.

 

[aprichman]

Don't a lot of extract kits use higher amounts of steeping grains? I see a lot of pale ale kits with over 1lb of caramel to steep. It could be a carry over from that.

 

[m00ps]

Just read this on Bear Flavored regarding saisons
"Finally, for the love of god: keep your saisons dry. Stick to a simple, clean malt bill. Take any caramel malt you might find laying around your brewery out back, douse it in gasoline, light it on fire, dig a ditch, shovel the remains into the ditch, and fill the ditch with concrete. Then move somewhere else, because your property might now be haunted by caramel malt."

 

[specharka]

Endlessly entertaining thread.

Personally I've found that people err on the side of complexity because they think there's something reputable to put their own creative spin on things. Like, where's the fun in brewing a brown ale when you can make a Maple Honey Nut Raspberry Smoked Gouda Chocolate Almond Ale? It's the same with crystal/cara malts. Why use one ingredient when 20 are available?

If I make a beer with more than 3-5 malts, I really ****ed up.

 

[DromJohn]

OTOH, one of my best brews used 7 malts, 6 hops, maple, muscavado and honey. Fitting with the thread title, two of the malts were 12 oz 60L and 4 oz 120L.

But then it was an attempt to clone Redhook 8-4-1 Expedition Ale which originally was eight brewers making four brews blended into one. Probably each of the four were much simpler.

Both the original and the clone are the best brown ale I've tasted. Wild Heaven Ode to Mercy is my favorite of commercial browns currently available. I'd presume it's grain bill is much simpler.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

And my Floor Sweepin's Brown Ale lead to the development of my favorite Moose Drool'ish beer. The original iteration had small portions of 7 leftover specialty grains totaling about 30% of the grain bill.

The rationalized version had just 4 specialty grains totally about 25%...if you include Vienna as a specialty grain.

 

[Rev2010]

OTOH, one of my best brews used 7 malts, 6 hops, maple, muscavado and honey.

Just to clarify, I intended in no way to suggest that beers with complex grain bills are bad in general, not at all. Was more referring to new brewer's often going too crazy by building uneccessarily complex grain bills for typically simple beers, especially when they're still unfamiliar with the malts they're recipe building with.


Rev.

 

[slym2none]

But honestly, we were all noobs at some point and most of us did at least some wacky shiz, though no I've never done 50+% crystal malt recipes.

This site alone has helped me from doing any wacky shiz... so, a big thank you to everyone here!

 

[henchman24]

I like crystal malts in a lot of recipes (though almost never in a saison or IPA), but they can be overdone really easily. In my early days I made a barleywine that I had an 80/15/5 split of 2 row/various crystals/aromatic malt, and people absolutely loved that beer and keep demanding that I make more. I thought it was alright, but cutting 5 percent out of the crystal and maybe 10-15 out of the 2 row and putting that all towards Munich would have made a much better beer IMO.

A big part of why people tend to overdo it I think stems from bad advice at homebrew shops and the simple availability of the malts. I've heard people say they use 25-30% routinely in their beers... I just imagine them to be overly sweet messes, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

[slym2none]

On the other hand, I seem to recall when Anchor Brewing was on the BN Session a year ago, they went over the recipe for their Winter Wheat beer, and said it had something insane like 30% crystal malt in it. (That's probably why I never bought a sixer of it when it was available).

I hate to tell you, but you're missing out. AS's Winter Wheat is really, really good beer, IMHO.

 

[z-bob]

So how much crystal malt do the cool kids use? About 3 to 5% of the malt bill?

I like a little Special B, and I just bought a couple of pounds of caramel wheat and rye to play with. But I really don't know what the guidelines are (other than brew what you like.)

I'm planning to do a saison soon that's 96% pilsner and 4% cara-rye. I know crystal is unusual in a saison.

 

[slym2none]

I use whatever recipe I am following calls for.

 

[henchman24]

Looking back at my recipes... I normally am somewhere in the 2.5-10% range with the higher being less common. ~5% is the most common. I usually mash lower when I get to higher percentages too.

 

[hotwatermusic]

So how much crystal malt do the cool kids use? About 3 to 5% of the malt bill?

I like a little Special B, and I just bought a couple of pounds of caramel wheat and rye to play with. But I really don't know what the guidelines are (other than brew what you like.)

I'm planning to do a saison soon that's 96% pilsner and 4% cara-rye. I know crystal is unusual in a saison.

The cool kids sure as Hell aren't on the internet telling people what to put in their home brew. As a brewer you must make what your customers want. As a home brewer, make what you like.

 

[JKaranka]

I stopped using crystal malts a year and a half ago and my beers improved immediately. I don't miss it at all, plus it simplifies what malts I stock.

 

[JKaranka]

Btw, the only style I can think of that demands crystal malts is American Red. I mainly brew British styles so I don't particularly need it.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

Btw, the only style I can think of that demands crystal malts is American Red. I mainly brew British styles so I don't particularly need it.

Those bloody Yanks and their dragging down of a fine traditions...will it never end!

I actually get the issue of stocking a limited number of malts. My shipping times were never as bad as yours probably are but when I started brewing, our LHBS was only open hours I worked or was in school (online ordering was in its infancy). I kept 50# sacks of 2-row and Munich plus one sack of some specialty grain that usually took three or so years to use up (so I had 3 specialty grains in stock at any one time). Back then, C20-C90 were some of the few available by the sack.

 

[JKaranka]

It makes life a lot easier. I have sacks of pale and brown malt, plus some amber and patent malt. Pale ales (inc. bitters & IPA)? Pale malt and sugar. Porters? Pale and brown malt. Stouts? Pale, brown and patent malt. Stock ales, winter warmers, milds? Pale malt, amber malt and sugar. The only non-British style I make regularly is saison and that's pale malt as well, maybe some sugar as well.

There's so much other staff to play with: water, mash temps, yeast.

You can too easily make the whole trying out different malts into an arms race against yourself as if trying out hops wasn't time consuming enough.

 

[Eschaton_YDAU]

...But I'm a newbie, and I have a recipe I'm thinking about doing that has a fair amount of crystal/caramel in it - for a few reasons.

If anyone wants to weigh in, the post is over here - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=564276

...any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[Kharnynb]

i've used some in a porter, and if i remember right one more beer, both 1 pound or under...i prefer smash or just following recipes.

 

[bobeer]

Maybe a stupid question, but aren't cara malts the same as crystal malts? How are they different?

Cara is just a brand of malts. Carapils, carahells, carared, etc... Most of them can be subbed out for crystal malts. They're not 100% exactly the same but they're close enough for some of them. Some of the cara malts have better aromatics and color IMO but YMMV.

 

[Eoghanie]

Is this the Emma Christensen book? I recently went through a whole lot of homebrewing books from the library, and that one stuck out by being beautifully produced and having seemingly enormous crystal additions. Has anyone here made any of the recipes from it?

I just got this book and was going to try some of the recipes with the crazy amounts of crystal. Same question as above: has anyone tried any of her recipes.

 

[m00ps]

I dunno, 90% of recipes I see in books seem way outta whack to me. Im wondering if they just 100% scaled down from commercial volume and some efficiency stuff gets lost in the mix or what

 

[jonny24]

I've only done 2 extract and 3 AG batches so far, three of those used caramel. I think part of it is that it's pretty easy to understand what they do. "adds colour and some caramel taste" -easy enough. And at the same time doesn't seem specific to a certain style. Munich, Pils, Vienna- if I'm not brewing that style of beer it's harder to know when it's appropriate as a newbie. Of course you can research it but sometimes you gotta just jump in.

Right now I'm planning a series of "almost-smash" ales, using one specialty malt and one hop, to start trying to get a handle on some of the ingredients.

 

[mdennytoo]

Also, if it hasn't been said already, people new to brewing use extracts. Most extracts already have caramel malt in them. If you sort of convert or borrow ideas from an all malt recipe, you should probably drop the caramel additions by half in order not to get a really heavy beer. The magazines do that- newbies see same amount of caramel as the all grain version, usually. And if 8 oz is good, why isn't a pound better? That was something that took me a couple of years to understand. Dales Pale Ale has that rich depth because of pale malt mashed warm over 153f (my guess), not because it has a dump truck of caramel in it.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

I've only done 2 extract and 3 AG batches so far, three of those used caramel. I think part of it is that it's pretty easy to understand what they do. "adds colour and some caramel taste" -easy enough. And at the same time doesn't seem specific to a certain style. Munich, Pils, Vienna- if I'm not brewing that style of beer it's harder to know when it's appropriate as a newbie. Of course you can research it but sometimes you gotta just jump in.

Right now I'm planning a series of "almost-smash" ales, using one specialty malt and one hop, to start trying to get a handle on some of the ingredients.

Small world, I'm working on that today...