Byo Magazine Recipes

[drsmurto]

Have noted over my lengthy experience of reading BYO magazine (4 issues now!) that far too many of their recipes contain what i would describe as very high levels of crystal malt.

I realise that APA, and their take on brown and red ales are higher IBU and hence have a higher BU:GU ratio but 15% crystal?

Am i the only one that thinks this would be cloying or am i missing something? Mash temps are 65 which is where i mash quite regularly for a drier finish but 15% crystal still scares me.

 

[fraser_john]

Does not surprise me, I will have to review my old copies that I got whilst living in the US, but a lot of the "smaller"(still big to us) beer producers made beers that had a lot of body, six 330ml stubbies and you felt like you were going to burst. Course, they were great beers, my favourite being Leinies

 

[goatherder]

I have also noticed this. Lots of crystal and high mash temps are common in American recipes. I usually just tone it down to a more sane level when using the recipes.

 

[buttersd70]

Surely 15% crystal would give a APA where you can actually taste the malt over the hops....disgraceful. :lol:

Bear in mind, the american crystal is often the light flavourless crap that americans seem to love.....15% caraaroma, on the other hand, now that would be cloying.

 

[Cortez The Killer]

I got sucked into using too much crystal in a couple of recipes that were inspired by byo

It must be a lighter grade of crystal than the Bairds / JW - because my beers ended up leaning heavily toward the sweeter end of the scale

Some recipes call for horrendous amounts if crystal - almost verging on base malt %'s

After spending 4 weeks in the US I can't say that there beers were overbearingly heavy with crystal - though I did stick to a healthy diet of APAs, IPAs, IIPAs and IIIPAs

So I put it down to different malting techniques or some aspect of the malting process that doesn't bring through as much toffee / caramel / sweetness flavours that we associate with the crystal levels in byo recipes

Cheers

 

[buttersd70]

So I put it down to different malting techniques or some aspect of the malting process that doesn't bring through as much toffee / caramel / sweetness flavours that we associate with the crystal levels in byo recipes

A less sarcastic aproach than myself, but this is what I was getting at. A lot of the american crystals seem very light indeed when compared to Australian and European equivilents (from reading the malt specs, not the recipes in which they are used.) I think this may well account for it.

 

[Goofinder]

Could you have posted this yesterday? I just picked up the grain for an American Amber Ale today that has about 15% crystal all up!

Sounds like it could be a bit interesting... :unsure:

 

[goatherder]

15% crystal probably will be OK for an AAA. It's a crystal heavy style. Go with a low mash temp to avoid too much residual sweetness and body.

 

[Weizguy]

Could you have posted this yesterday? I just picked up the grain for an American Amber Ale today that has about 15% crystal all up!

Sounds like it could be a bit interesting... :unsure:

Plus one for the Goathurdler!

I have made an Am. Amber recently. Still to be bottled. Tastes great with 18.3% of crystal and a complex mix, too. This was a Jamil recipe from BYO with 6.9% carawheat, 5% Munich II (Weyermann), 3.6% Caraamber, and 2.5% Dark crystal.
This hides behind 5.9% abv and 35 IBUs of Am. hops and some late hopping.
Mash at 66C and ferment to utter dryness using a liquid culture of American ale yeast.

I'm happy with a lot of their recipes, and like to start my search for a good recipe using a BYO recipe as a baseline. Then you modify and tweak the recipe to what works for you. I might use Glacier where it specifies cascade, or Simcoe all through, except for 15g Amarillo at the end. Fruit cocktail ale.

Rambling now. Rest up now, but rest assured that your beer will taste more like an American amber than anything else.

Les out

 

[shandy]

I brewed my usual APA but upped the crystal a bit to bring it into line with the percentages of crystal for a recipe in Brewing Classic Styles. It was my APA that I entered into Vic Brew this year and it scored 35 from memory. The 1 and only negative comment I got was that it was too crystaly which pulled its flavour score down. This beer finished at 1.011 or 1.012 as per usual (I have brewed it many times) so I might concur that the crystal we're working with imparts a fuller flavour.

 

[PostModern]

Rather than a difference in the specs of the crystal malt, is it also possible US base malts are different? I brew a lot of my beers now with no crystal at all and mash around 64-65C. No dramas in thinness or malt flavour. Crystal in many of my brews where I use it is limited to about a pint glass in a bucket of base malt or 4-5%.

 

[Weizguy]

Rather than a difference in the specs of the crystal malt, is it also possible US base malts are different? I brew a lot of my beers now with no crystal at all and mash around 64-65C. No dramas in thinness or malt flavour. Crystal in many of my brews where I use it is limited to about a pint glass in a bucket of base malt or 4-5%.

Of course their malts are different. The big brew boyz like a certain style of malt, to give that corny flavour, even with rice in the mash. Our big boys like a clean malty or dry malty flavour in our base malts.
I believe that to be the reason why no-chill is unpopular in the U.S. Too much unavoidable corn-ness.
Please pay me the two cents by Paypal

 

[buttersd70]

Rather than a difference in the specs of the crystal malt, is it also possible US base malts are different? I brew a lot of my beers now with no crystal at all and mash around 64-65C. No dramas in thinness or malt flavour. Crystal in many of my brews where I use it is limited to about a pint glass in a bucket of base malt or 4-5%.

It wouldn't surprise me at all...reading comments from our friends across the pond on other forums, the impression I get is that we are lucky buggers with the quality of the grain we have here, both base and specialty.

 

[katzke]

It wouldn't surprise me at all...reading comments from our friends across the pond on other forums, the impression I get is that we are lucky buggers with the quality of the grain we have here, both base and specialty.

Quality maybe but what about quantity? Like Honey Malt for one. I am lucky and have a dedicated owner so our local shop has many malt choices. How many? I have not counted.

 

[newguy]

One question that comes to mind.....what kind of crystal? Light, medium, dark? What's the Lovibond rating? It may be a local difference owing mainly to semantics; the BYO recipe may be calling for a large % of what is known as light crystal here, but perhaps "crystal" to you would be the same thing as our medium or dark crystal?

When it comes to that nice crystal malt sweetness, I have great difficulty getting any sweetness at all when I use domestic 60L crystal (Cargill). I can easily use up to 15% of this stuff and the beer isn't sweet and the colour isn't really that dark either. However, if I use British 70-80L crystal, I get a huge sweet crystal/caramel finish in my beers and a nice deep copper colour. If the British-style crystal malts are readily available to you, consider yourself lucky. I guess the NA recipes should be tempered with the understanding that the generic "crystal" we have here is likely what you'd consider to be light crystal.

 

[katzke]

One question that comes to mind.....what kind of crystal? Light, medium, dark? What's the Lovibond rating? It may be a local difference owing mainly to semantics; the BYO recipe may be calling for a large % of what is known as light crystal here, but perhaps "crystal" to you would be the same thing as our medium or dark crystal?

Just looked at one recipe on the BYO site. Have never looked before that I remember but I do have the last clone recipe issue of the magazine. The online recipe had a pound of crystal malt. Not very helpful as we have a bunch of crystal malts available here. From crystal 10 all the way to 120. Also toss in Caramel Vienne 20L and Caramel Munich 60L and then the difference between regular crystal/caramel and 2-row and we have 15 choices just from Briess. The clone issue does give the color of the malt so it helps. I checked a few more American amber & pale recipes online and it seems like anything before 2001 did not give the grain color. Not sure when they started but they now give the brew color in SRM so that would help in checking the recipe and substituting Aussie grains.

 

[drsmurto]

thanks for the subtle reminders i should think more before posting.

i tend to use Bairds med/dark crystal and caramunich. Used to use JW caramalt and still have a few kgs of BB med crystal somewhere. The thought of 15% of any of those in my beers and then drinking the result scares me.

All makes sense now.

Slightly OT but this is the first BYO magazine i actually enjoyed reading.

Good article on Stone brewing, very good article on going pro and an inspirational article on pros who brew commercially on equipment no bigger than the average HBer.

 

[katzke]

thanks for the subtle reminders i should think more before posting.

I thought it was a good question. It shows why it is important to put as much information in recipes as possible. Especially for those of us that think liters are what cats have, or kilos are what the police confiscate from drug dealers.

 

[peas_and_corn]

Have noted over my lengthy experience of reading BYO magazine (4 issues now!) that far too many of their recipes contain what i would describe as very high levels of crystal malt.

I realise that APA, and their take on brown and red ales are higher IBU and hence have a higher BU:GU ratio but 15% crystal?

Am i the only one that thinks this would be cloying or am i missing something? Mash temps are 65 which is where i mash quite regularly for a drier finish but 15% crystal still scares me.

Jovial Monk, have you broken into DrSmurto's account?

 

[taylor-madeak]

There wasn't any crystal malt at all in my recent (November) BYO article...