# Crystal vs. Cara malts



## Doctormcbrewdle

Ok, I'm seeing many big name boutique pale ale's employing both 'crystal' (by which we assume medium) and cara malts. 

Now, if cara is just a light crystal, why would we bother using both to achieve the same result? For instance, if we're looking to achieve an srm of x value we add x amount crystal 60 to achieve that result. Or, we could add roughly 2-3 time the amount of light crystal. I don't really think taste will be too distinguishable between the two personally but am I wrong? Cara is a very bland malt used in small amounts, so much so that I find it pretty well useless in amounts under around 8% of the grain bill

I do understand the darker roast malt will give a much different flavour but not too sure on these lighter types. What are your thoughts and experiences

Cheers


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## manticle

Caramalt, cara pils, cara red, cara aroma, cara munich, caramunich ii........ All very different from one another. Even medium crystal differs significantly between brands, dark crystals even more so.


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## Yuz

Aren't these are American style crystals and traditional European styles?
I've just started using grains for steeping, so once I figure out what's what I can try partial mashing


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## manticle

American, English, German, Belgian.....


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## Bribie G

The cara range are mostly from Weyermann in Bamberg and I guess they have the trademarks. For example very similar products such as Dingemans Special B don't bear the cara prefix.

As Manticle says, horses for courses. I use a range of caras for various purposes.

For example Carapils to imrove body and head retention and give a nice light biscuit flavour. Caraaroma for a deep red and toffee overtones. Carafa II for darkening without roastiness etc. For UK ales I use Thomas Fawcett or Bairds or Simpsons crystals in various forms.

All these products are made by slowly heating the whole germinated malt grains so that they literally mash themselves within the husks, then kilned to various colours. As opposed to other dark grains that are just toasted and roasted, like Dark Wheat or Roast Barley.

It's a jungle out there.

Another advantage of Caras and Crystals is that generally if used in a mash they don't break down further into simpler sugars so recipes can be designed in the knowledge of exactly what the grain is going to give you. For example Carapils can be used up to 40% of the mash to make a mid strength beer. (that's from Thomas Weyermann himself.. a few gasps around the audience at that one )


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## MHB

All the crystal/cara malts have a lot in common, being that they are mashed inside the grain, then roasted progressivity hotter/longer to make progressively darker malt. As they get darker the flavours change from more like base malt in the case of the palest like CaraPillis/Carafoam, to darker and more intense toffee and caramel in the middle colour products, to plumb pudding at the darkest.
Just substituting more light for a given amount of dark can give you the same colour (probably not the same hue), but can taste surprisingly different.
When you are looking at say an Australian, American, Kiwi, UK, German... Cara/crystal that is of similar colour the flavours are going closer, so trading one for another will have a lot less impact.
We can use the same equation to get the right amount as we would if we were changing hops (g Old Alpha*AA%)/new AA% = g New Alpha
If my recipe called for 25g of 9.5% POR, it isn't available and I have to use Super Prides at 12.5%; (25*9.5)/12.5=19g to get the same bitterness.
With malt its mass*colour; 250g of 120 EBC crystal being replaced with 85EBC crystal; (250*120)/85=353g.

There is one more trap for new players, there are some "toasted" malts that are sometimes called Caramel Malts, UK Amber and Brown being good examples of the style, if not the name. Calling non crystal malt Cara or Caramel is largely going out of fashion (to save confusion) but just incase, double check if its an old recipe.
Mark


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## Adr_0

Doctormcbrewdle said:


> Ok, I'm seeing many big name boutique pale ale's employing both 'crystal' (by which we assume medium) and cara malts.
> 
> Now, if cara is just a light crystal, why would we bother using both to achieve the same result? For instance, if we're looking to achieve an srm of x value we add x amount crystal 60 to achieve that result. Or, we could add roughly 2-3 time the amount of light crystal. I don't really think taste will be too distinguishable between the two personally but am I wrong? Cara is a very bland malt used in small amounts, so much so that I find it pretty well useless in amounts under around 8% of the grain bill
> 
> I do understand the darker roast malt will give a much different flavour but not too sure on these lighter types. What are your thoughts and experiences
> 
> Cheers


Are you specifically talking about Joe White caramalt?


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Adr_0 said:


> Are you specifically talking about Joe White caramalt?



Why Yes. Yes I am


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Thanks for the info guys. May I also ask: are crystal and cara malts as fermentable as base malt? I see Beersmith II is calculating it as such. Just want to be sure. I'm using a whopping 35% in ny bext brew(!) And at a total of 5kg total grain (includes 3 kg pale malt) I'm getting figures of about standard 1.047 brew. Is this really correct? 

I'm attempting to follow the ebc calculation of a Pirate Life pale ale in case you're wondering. Which looks to be about same lovibond as a Fat Yak. They're very dark 'pale' ale's and both very big on mouthfeel and sweet character. All recipes in attempt to clone these have been way off on both hop amounts and grain bill to the point you say 'what were you thinking!?'

Also. What (really) is the difference between say a cara aroma, cara malt, cara foam etc. If they're all the same base malt grain just toasted to different hues then there's alot of clever marketing involved, right?


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## manticle

Not nearly as fermentable and I question why you want to use 35%.


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## Doctormcbrewdle

manticle said:


> Not nearly as fermentable and I question why you want to use 35%.



Thanks. Are you possibly able to offer any guidance as to what percentage differance we're talking here in regards to fermentability? I'm trying to adjust the recipe accordingly


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## manticle

And no - way more than marketing. Taste simpsons heritage crystal, weyerman caramunich (i, ii and iii) gladfields light and dingemans spec b. Even base malts with the same descriptor (pils, vienna, etc) differ markedly between maltsers.

All ale yeast strains are the same species


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## manticle

Doctormcbrewdle said:


> Thanks. Are you possibly able to offer any guidance as to what percentage differance we're talking here in regards to fermentability? I'm trying to adjust the recipe accordingly


It really depends on recipe, desired results and crystal type.

General light/medium crystal in apa or uk bitter might be 5-10%. Some caras might ve a bit more, some way less.

It's a bit like asking how much salt should you use on your pork - what salt, what cut, what result (cured, preserved, fresh roasted, crackling......)

Sorry - reread the above. Difference in fermentability as opposed to difference in recommended percentage.

Crystal malts (and the caras that are crystals) have been malted in a way that converts their starches to mostly dextrins. Dextrins are sugar chains which are longer, a bit sweet (not stupidly so) and add body.

If you mash a small amount with a base that has surplus diastatic power (crystals have none), you may continue that conversion from dextrins but increase the crystal to high proportions and it's unlikely.

Crystal is generally used to balance body and sweetness.

I don't have figures for the fermentable extract potential for each different type but they'll be available if you want to search.


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Thanks mate. I'm just bored half to death of the standard 5% crystal apa. It's barely detectable and I just really love a good, chewy malt backbone. Looking for something drastically different than the standard pale's I've been churning out. They all taste the same, even with different hop schedules and amounts

I was reading an article where someone did an experimental brew using 90% crystal and it turned out actually alot better than expected so 35% is probably somewhere near par to an ESB or similar. Nothing too outrageous really, just not as common

I'm wondering, is anyone able to let me know how much additional pale base malt I should add to compensate for the crystal in terms of og? I'm looking for 1.050 in a standard 23l batch


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## manticle

By all means have a crack if you've read and have an idea of what you're looking for and an acceptance it may not work.

Additionally, I can understand being bored of pale but try brewing alt, wit, dunkel, gose, baltic, stout, lambic, dubbel, brown, pils, etc. That's where an awful lot of the variety is.


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## manticle

And to answer your question above - I might be misunderstanding but to hit the fg you want by increasing the base obviously reduces the crystal percentage. So just reduce the crystal percentage.

Or brew but add another fermentable like sugar to up og without changing the balance between pale and crystal (still alters beer balance but maybe in your favour).

Alternatively, make the base a malt very high in diastatic power - some pils malts might suit, then mash long and low.


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Thanks. Just found a good little article on fermentability of crystal. It sure is a misunderstood grain online I must say. Will let you know how it turns out for sure! Scheduled bottling tomorrow and probably brew this one up the following day


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## Rocker1986

It'll give a similar OG but it won't ferment out to as low an FG. 35% is a shitload though!


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## manticle

Have you got a link to that article? Wouldn't mind reading the entire thing. Yes beer chemistry, including the behaviour of crystal in a mash, is often over simplified and simplifications get perpetuated.


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Sure. Here it is
www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=9465.0


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Sorry guys. I made a small miscalculation. I'm using 700g cara and 700g medium crystal so the 35% becomes more something like 22% because cara is so light. Keep you posted on the outcome anyway


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Aha. Now I'm getting it. Just half way through bottling this latest brew which is a hoppy pale, mostly pale malt with 700g cara malt to an og of 1.047 and the TASTE is there. That beautiful caramelly chewiness. Nice. The colour however is a pretty boring brown/murky gold. Pretty uninspiring

I'm going to guess for now that the 700g additional medium crystal on top of the 700g cara next batch will bring the deep amber colour and some thick, almost roasty flavours. So looking forward to it!


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Mine


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## Doctormcbrewdle

My aspiration (Pirate Life pale ale)


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## MHB

You could get darker than that with a 5% addition of a dark crystal, I really think your crystal additions should be less than 10% and less than 5% in most beers, but its your beer not mine...
If you find the beer too sweet, you will know for next time.
Mark


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## Jack of all biers

Doctormcbrewdle said:


> Mine



Mate, some of the light colour you have in your bottle is from the yeast in suspension, which is predominantly white/cream colour. Not that the beer will darken once the yeast settles out, but it can be a bit of an optical illusion with the white particles floating about. 

Totally agree with MHB re the % of crystal malts. I will add that you have not stated what base malts you are using? Remember it's not all about the speciality malts and some base malts will add a nice colour without any speciality malts at all. For example if you used Vienna, you would need to tone back the amount or colour of the crystal (if you were only looking at the colour of the beer). If you can't get the caramel chewiness or colour you want without going over 10% crystal/caramalt, I'd suggest you try some different brands or types of malts to see if other Maltsters produce a malt more to your flavour. eg if you use Pilsner malt, try some Maris Otter as your base. You'll get a darker colour and more malty profile.


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Thanks for the advice fellas. It states on a Pirate life can 'ale malt, cara malt, crystal malt' that's what I'm using to achieve the same lovibond. Like I said, I'll keep you posted

I've received plenty of bad advice about brewing from all sorts of 'great' brew minds in the past and unfortunately had to discover many things on my own that people were telling me should be fine but I was getting mediocre results so I'm naturally into experimenting myself with the knowledge I have. It's definitely been the winning ingredient in the past

By the way, my beers darken as they clear


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## manticle

Don't forget, there's multiple ale, crystal and cara.

Brewing is very much about trying things out and tweaking according to results.


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## Jack of all biers

Doctormcbrewdle said:


> By the way, my beers darken as they clear



That's the optical illusion. The white coloured particles drop to the bottom and aren't reflecting as much light back into your eyes. The beer doesn't actually darken though.

And yes you have to brew to the way you think best and learn by experimenting, that's for sure.


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## manticle

Doctormcbrewdle said:


> Sure. Here it is
> www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=9465.0



Unless I'm missing something, that forum post doesn't describe what was actually tried. Link within, purportedly to the experiment was unfortunately broken. What and how did they test?


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## Mardoo

Actually, my first beer I brewed was 35% crystal. It wasn't overtly sweet, but the body was chewy as…something really chewy. A pint felt like a meal. I'd guess that a huge portion of that was the dextrins, but that's a guess.


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## Rocker1986

I always thought crystal and cara (caramel) malts were pretty much the same, just two different names.


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## Adr_0

Doctormcbrewdle said:


> Why Yes. Yes I am



Joe White Caramalt is, while useful, not particularly inspiring. But it depends what you want.

I can't remember much about the PLIPA malt profile when I had it in Brisbane, but it looks like your photo is pretty dark.

Do you have any brew software? It might be worth aiming for EBC 22-26 and see if you like that.

I'm not sure which malts they would use, but the term 'medium crystal' is about as broad as it gets. Gladfield medium crystal might be a good option.

If you're after interesting crystals Manticle has listed some and I would also throw Thomas Fawcett pale crystal in there.

Some like Cara-amber you would use 8-15% while Cara-red might be as much as 20%. Most will be best in the 3-7% range though, particularly the darker ones: dark crystal (choose your brand...), Special B, Cara-aroma, Cara-bohemian.


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Well I decided on an ebc of 29 (I used a color chart to estimate best I could to the colour of a Pirate pale, knowing the basic ingredients, unless only small anounts of dark crystal are used, time will tell) and we'll see how she tastes in a few weeks. I've just ordered some dark crystal too to trial in smaller amounts. Cara is basically very light crystal Rocker. I believe anywhere between 20 and about 60 ebc brand dependant (mine was 40) and looks a good shade lighter than the medium crystal too, as it should. OG: 1.047. Bang on Beersmith figures with 4kg pale malt, 1.7kg mixed cara and crystal malts so they're very convertible. Probably more so than nany might assume. Apparently I can expect a standard fg of 1.012. If so, meaning that there's less reason to assume crystal a 'sweet' malt for non fermentable reason. It would be the particular roast we taste and perceive as 'sweet' but I will update

Well the wort is now complete, here is a sample glass I tried to get in a similar light but it's a bit overcast here today but I'm happy with my ebc calcs here. Tastes very promising in the early stage. Keep you posted (Pictured real deal Pirate and my attempt)


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## manticle

The question is not whether or not they are 'convertible'. There's no doubt the sugars within most crystal malts (already converted in the malting process) will contribute to OG.

There are different types of 'sugar' - some more easily digested by beer yeast than others. IF you steep crystal, in the absence of enzyme containing base malt, the majority of dextrins within (dextrins are a type of longer chain sugar) will not get digested by yeast and therefore add to body and some sweetness. Different crystal types will also add melanoiden, dried fruit, toffee and even roast type flavours in varying amounts. If you mash crystal with high lintner malts, it stands to reason at least some of that dextrin can get broken down into shorter chain, more fermentable sugars. The higher the crystal percentage within the grist, the more surplus enzymes would be needed for breaking those chains down.

Crystal malts contain negligible enzymes and negligible starch.


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## Rocker1986

I'll be interested to see if the FG does get down to 1.012 with that much crystal malt in the recipe. I usually use about 5-6% medium crystal in my pale ales and end up at around that FG with a nice background sweetness under the hops. I'm not sure there's any need to use 35% of it, color can be adjusted with small amounts of roasted grains without affecting the flavor, but it's your beer after all.

All the Weyermann crystal malts are prefixed cara-, even the dark ones like Caraaroma (which is a ******* beautiful malt by the way)... they can be light or dark. Caramalt itself is a trade name, but there isn't much, if any difference between Caramalt and lighter crystal malts. They're pretty much exactly the same thing, just with different names.


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Dear diary, it turns out the brew dudes at AHB DO know wtf they're talking about! Who would've guessed. I was sure a complete novice like myself knew more than they, whaddya know

Interesting prelude, right? How have I come to this sudden conclusion? Well, I'm glad you asked. Sit right down, grab a home brew and make yourself comfy, would you?

So my crazy crystal brew is almost at FG, a point or two to go and preliminary tasting yields a suprising result so far, being, it kinda tastes a little bit like stout.. yea, it does a bit. It's too early to tell for sure but it's reminiscent of stout.

Now, second interesting development is, Pirate Life finally wrote back to my email! Yep, out of the unexpected I logged on and whoomp, there it was. They didn't F-around and wanted to get straight to the point.

The brewer talked about preference of water additions, or should I say water preference, which was high in sulphates ('of course' he added; like you'd have to be severely mentally incapacitated if you did not pick this)

he added, chloride levels are also 'healthy' to ensure malt backbone is present. He spoke about mash temps and being different for each grain type (they have intelligent instrumentation which tells them how the mash is performing for each grain) US-05 or WLP-001 for yeast. 21 degrees fermentation temp, cooling, racking off the yeast cake, dry hopping for 2 days (3 max) and taste testing (if hop presence hasn't eventuated as expected action is taken with further dry hopping) mostly late hopping in the kettle (just 10ibu from 60 minute addition) that's the basic gist of their brewing technique

Malts. Yes, now this is where things become interesting for me. We remember seeing the actual PL pale ale pictured earlier vs my attempt, right? well a mate decided to rock around this arvo with a 6 pack of Pirates. I was really keen to put one straight from the ice into a clean schooner because I'd basically received the ingredients email just a couple hours prior. Straight away I notice something very different. The latest sample is a completely different colour.. (pictured) Wow, I think to myself, what's the go?! It's much hoppier than my previous sample also, which leads me to the malt bill. Pirate life tell me they use 91% Aussie ale malt (but other types such as Marris Otter, or Golden Promise will do too. 5.5% Carahell/caramalt and 3.5% medium crystal, along with (wait for it) 'sometimes' Carafa III in 'small' amounts. Which may help explain the sample I attempted to emulate. I'm suprised how much these guys seem to experiment, in a good way

After all this, today I noted (with the golden pale ale) that my regular pale ale's are very close to this already, bar the incredible hop aroma. They apparently only dry hop at 6g per litre while I use twice the amount..

So, that's my interesting news, will keep you updated (I still have one can of that really dark and malty pale ale to trial against mine in a couple weeks)


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## manticle

Good luck. Learning this shit (and how it relates to what your desired results are) is more than half the fun and should never stop. Brewing is a universe.


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## laxation

Have you come across this recipe? I tried it for a mate's birthday and thought it was damn close...

https://club.coopers.com.au/coopers-forum/topic/16722/


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Well, it's crash chill time. Been fermenting for 8 days now at 19. Today's sample is actually really promising. All stout tastes seem to have disappeared but time will tell

FG:1.013 (ish) but it usually drops a further point or two once Co2 dissipates, it was only drawn 5 minutes prior so will leave it on the bench and see what happens


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## Doctormcbrewdle

I'd call that 1.012. Wow.. is interesting. Still, it doesn't mean everything, there's still the little matter of taste yet, ha

Has lost it's red hue, will see what happens as it conditions


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Well, it's been in the bottle a week or so now, so how is it?

It's good! (Left home brew, right Pirate. Mine hasn't cleared just yet and is a few shades darker) it's actually very close, but still not as hoppy as the real deal. Whatever I do I just can't quite get the same level of aroma there. But I'd say it's definitely the closest brew I've ever made to the real deal, about 95% of the way there! so crystal is definitely a big factor and I'll say quite confidently that if you weren't looking you'd never notice this was used. The mouthfeel is really good, not too overbearing at all suprisingly! It's 'malty' without being overpowering. Next time I'm going to lighten it up to around 22ebc


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## Doctormcbrewdle

Well, it's been a few weeks now so I'm confident at giving the final verdict. It's a good beer. A little heavy on the mouthfeel, a little confused and hops don't particularly shine through.

You wouldn't think of it as a pale ale if it were served to you in a pub, it's more a. Well.. I don't know what it is!? It reminds me of a porter or ESB with a strange hop schedule. Something you'd drink in a pub in England while saying to yourself, what the [email protected] is this!?. And for some reason it gives me a wicked beer buzz.. too

Nice and creamy but the crystal dominates the stage. All-in-all, glad I tried it to see what effects crystal in high doses does have exactly, rather than just reading about someone else doing it

Next up is an IPA, for a change. I've got milled

6kg BB pale ale malt
300g Cara
200g Medium crystal
450gms sucrose because I think I'd enjoy a bit ir a drier finish and picked up the tip from the 'Pliny the elder' guy
So that's 7% total crystal, probably as high as I'd want to go(?)

First wort hop with Cascade combined with bittering magnum (this will be my first time FWHing)

Steeping hops are mosaic and Cascade

Flameout whirlpool hops under 80 degrees celsius Amarillo and Simcoe

2x packets US West coast yeast. Hopefully this is more to style?

(Crystal pale ale pictured)


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