# Crystal malts - why so many numbers ?



## Samuel Adams (30/3/13)

Hey can someone please explain to me the different crystal malts.


I'm trying to work out how the hell the numbers in brewmate relate to the pale, med & dark crystal I've bought from craftbrewer.
CB has an EBC number like 90,140 or 220
BM has numbers alot lower what are they refering to ?


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## Charst (30/3/13)

Is the colour values in brewmate set to Lovibond? that would explain them being lower as lovibond is roughly half EBC. see below.

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/1472-ebc-to-lovibond-conversion/

Dont stress too much about the colour.
The end of the day you I'm more worried about the flavour contribution than the colour a malt imposes on the beer.


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## jyo (30/3/13)

Go to settings and change your 'Colour Calculation" from SRM to EBC. SRM is about half of EBC.

Also go into "edit" and check out your fermentables. This will give you a good idea of what I mean.


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## Samuel Adams (30/3/13)

Cheers guys,

The colour is already set to EBC.
I'm not really worried about colour I just want to know what to choose to match what I've actually got.

In BM there is crystal 10,15,20,30,40,60,80,90 & 120
Should I just choose the one with the closest EBC to what CB states ?

I usaully see people refer to crystals with the BM numbers but I buy from CB and can't seem to find the info on what it relates too.


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## jyo (30/3/13)

That's what I do, mate.
Or I look on the suppliers website and use the EBC number provided to edit a fermentable/create a new one.

For example, I have added "Bairds Medium Crystal" to my list in Brewmate and added a value of 145 EBC in the fermentables list.



Samuel Adams said:


> Should I just choose the one with the closest EBC to what CB states ?


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## np1962 (30/3/13)

The Crystal10, Crystal20 etc.. in Brewmate/Beersmith or other software are °Lovibond colours.
These are roughly half the EBC colours you are getting from CB for your Bairds Crystals.
If you don't want to add the actual the actual figures for the malts you have you could use the following.
Pale Crystal = Crystal 50
Medium Crystal = Crystal 70
Dark Crystal = Crystal 120


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## Samuel Adams (30/3/13)

Ok cheers, I'll probably add them in as I'll be using them a fair bit.


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