# Crystal Malt 20l To 120l



## Effect (11/1/09)

After reading some american home brew websites and looking at their online retailers I have seen crystal malt ranging from 20L to 120L.

I have also found some recipies that I am interested in trying out, but for the life of me don't know which grain we have here in australia that would be similar to crystal 20L?

Does anyone know which grains we have over here that we could use to substitute for these grains?

Here is the recipe that I want to have a go at linky


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## Tyred (11/1/09)

20L should be the lightest type of crystal so I would assume light crystal malt could be substituted.


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## Adamt (11/1/09)

Caramel malts you can get here and their colours.

13L Wey Carahell
24L Wey Carared
25L JW Caramalt
36L Wey Caraamber
51L Wey Caramunich I
63L Wey Caramunich II
71L Wey Caramunich III
72L JW Crystal
110L JW Dark Crystal
178L Wey Caraaroma

These should be good substitutes for the same coloured American crystal malt.


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## Effect (11/1/09)

Thanks Adamt...

where did you get that information from?


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## Adamt (11/1/09)

Beersmith.


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## Damian44 (11/1/09)

Ive got a recipe and it calls for....

Brown Malt (70 L) is Brown Malt (145 EBC) OK?

and

Chocolate Malt (350 L) is Pale Chocolate Malt (500 EBC)

Thanks guys


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## buttersd70 (11/1/09)

if you take the SRM, and double it, that is approximately, roughly, what the EBC is. (I'm sure theres a formula to be more exact, but I don't know it). But 2x is close enough...
so 70L is about 140ish ebc, and 350 is about 700 ish ebc, give or take.

So the brown is right on the money, with the choc, the light is a little light, the regular will probably be around 800 ish depending on brand/batch, so a little dark. If I had to use one that was off, I would go with darker rather than lighter if I had both in stock, personally (cos I likes my darks), but in all honesty it should make sfa difference unless it's used in fairly big quantities anyway. edit...life is full of these little compromises.


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## boingk (12/1/09)

Hahaha, this reminds me of my old LHBS. I asked the fellow what colour his crystal grain was, exactly. After a bit of looking around in the database he told me that his supplier said it was between 60 and 120EBC. 

I budgeted on it being 90 and bought a half kilo for an impending batch 

Cheers - boingk


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## Adamt (12/1/09)

Damian44 said:


> Brown Malt (70 L) is Brown Malt (145 EBC) OK?



Poifect.



Damian44 said:


> Chocolate Malt (350 L) is Pale Chocolate Malt (500 EBC)



Try Weyerman Carafa I, or just use a bit more (25% more?) pale choc, because that stuff is deific. :icon_drool2:


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## drsmurto (12/1/09)

Bairds Pale Choc at 500EBC, i'm not so sure. I know that is what is quoted but i think its darker.

the current batch of normal choc is ~1300 EBC. 

After making a few beers with the pale choc i now estimate it as 700 EBC. Its quoted as having a range of 500-800EBC.


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## reviled (12/1/09)

Adamt said:


> Poifect.
> 
> 
> 
> Try Weyerman Carafa I, or just use a bit more (25% more?) pale choc, because that stuff is deific. :icon_drool2:



+1 for Carafa I over choc, its awesome stuff, I get heaps of hints of coffee when I use it, just awesome B)


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## BoilerBoy (12/1/09)

DrSmurto said:


> Bairds Pale Choc at 500EBC, i'm not so sure. I know that is what is quoted but i think its darker.
> 
> the current batch of normal choc is ~1300 EBC.
> 
> After making a few beers with the pale choc i now estimate it as 700 EBC. Its quoted as having a range of 500-800EBC.



I agree about the pale choc, I Have also found the latest Carafa 1 to be way darker than the last lot I had as well.

BB


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## bconnery (12/1/09)

Phillip said:


> After reading some american home brew websites and looking at their online retailers I have seen crystal malt ranging from 20L to 120L.
> 
> I have also found some recipies that I am interested in trying out, but for the life of me don't know which grain we have here in australia that would be similar to crystal 20L?
> 
> ...



Craftbrewer also lists the actual colour for the particular batch of grain you are buying, as well as the range. 
It also has Bairds crystals, pale, medium and dark which I notice where missing from the post above about available malts...

Comparing by colour won't always get you an exact flavour match, but a crystal malt of approx. 20L, or 40EBC, will come close. 
You might also want to examine, and I haven't looked at the recipe, whether they appear to be using the grain for flavour or largely just colour adustment or other reasons. 

Pale Chocolate malt I find adds more of a coffee note that normal choc, but I believe american chocolate malt, just from what I have read not personal experience, is lighter than british or Australian. Don't quote me on that one though. 
I like Pale chocolate malt but subbing say 100g of it for american chocolate won't necessarily give the same flavour. 
Carafa special is a great grain... I tend to buy it and Pale choc a lot in preference for chocolate...


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## buttersd70 (12/1/09)

agree about the carafa...I now use carafa special 1, particularly in combo with caraaroma....the cofee like dryness it imparts balances the more intense caramel from the caraaroma beautifully imo, ....I use these 2 grains a lot. Muckeys latest (AAA) has them at 4.5%/1.5%, and tasted so good I had a sample from primary...then another, then another. Then tried to convince him to carb one up straight away even though it hadn't dropped bright yet.


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## Damian44 (12/1/09)

Thanks again butters.
When i plug the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles into Beersmith i dont get the same bitterness.


3.08 kg Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 72.30 % 
0.45 kg Brown Malt (65.0 SRM) Grain 10.56 % 
0.45 kg Crystal (Joe White) (72.0 SRM) Grain 10.56 % 
0.28 kg Chocolate Malt (Joe White) (381.0 SRM) Grain 6.57 % 

35.00 gm Fuggles [5.00 %] (60 min) Hops 18.7 IBU here im supposed to get 25.4 IBU
14.00 gm Fuggles [5.00 %] (10 min) Hops 2.7 IBU and here im supposed to get 2 IBU

So the 60min edition is less and the 10 min edition is more.

I have the same batch size 22.7 and boil size 36.5l. I get the same OG and FG.
Any ideas?


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## Damian44 (13/1/09)

I downloaded the trial of Promash and put the recipe in. It came out a lot closer to the book.
Promash got 23.2 IBUs for the 60 mins and 1.9 for the 10 min addition.
Maybe i stuffed up the settings in beersmith.


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## buttersd70 (13/1/09)

damian, 
with the bitterness, it relies on several factors. The actual alpha of the hop, the hop utilisation rate, the formula being used, the boil sizze and gravity, etc.
Many have found that beersmith appears to understate the IBU when using tinseth formulation when compared to Tinseths formula itself, and also to promash.....even though I'm a beersmith user, I would tend to trust promash as being a more accurate representation of the formulation. The issue comes down to the utilisation differences between pellets and flowers, and which one is the default for the programs....beersmith uses pelets as default at 100% utilisation, with flowers at -10%, wheras promash uses flowers as 100% utilisation with pellets being +10%. This accounts for a fair bit of difference. IMHO, promash is the right one in this case.

Either way, if you need to adjust the bittering for a difference in alpha, or for a difference in BG, the way to do it is to leave the weight of the late additions the same as the recipe, and adjust the bittering addition only, in order to balance the IBU back to where it should be. That way, your flavour and aroma hops are still going in at the same ratio of weight to volume, and the bittering addition, which is only secondary for flavour purposes, is the one that is adjusted.

Hope this helps.


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## Damian44 (13/1/09)

butters that is immensly helpfull. I started looking through the book to see if they used promash. All they say is, they use Rager formula WTF.
Thanks again.


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## buttersd70 (13/1/09)

ah, that would account for it. Both beersmith and promash default to the Tinseth formula, Rager is a differant formuala, you can change it in the options, and will give a differant result.


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## mika (13/1/09)

I thought Promash defaulted as Rager ? I changed mine, pretty sure to Tinseth, as Rager is meant to be closer to the money for concentrated boils. But then without actual IBU testing it don't matter a hell of a lot.

A vote for including the Crystal data above in a Wiki article. Think there's one in there about grain already.


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## buttersd70 (13/1/09)

mika said:


> I thought Promash defaulted as Rager ?



You're probably right, mika. I'm going off hazy memory here as far as promash is concerned. I know that beersmith definately defaults as tinseth. As you said, without a lab it's pretty much academic, anyway.....

my advice for anyone is to pick a formula and stick to it. Tweak it to where your own tastes lie....I personally use tinseth, because it was the first one i used. Regardless of what the _actual _IBU might be, I know what it is as far as my own perception, and can adjust batch to batch. If you switch back and forth between formulas, you don't get that.


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