Crystal Is Evil!

[Jovial_Monk]

Guys, ladies, brewers, plonkers lend me your ears

(a corny or two of beer wouldn't go astray with all the ears there. . .)


My brewing mantra (shit, sounds a bit newage-ish and hippy-ish) is incrreasingly becoming

CRYSTAL (MALT) IS EVIL!

EVIL! I SAY!



Hmmm my road to Damascus, my Singles Scene bitter (http://www.skotrat.com/skotrat/recipes/ale/ales/recipes/66.html)
that I developed after being inspired by stubby of Marston's "Single Malt" ale has become an obsession.

(Let me make it clear I am only talking to the AG brewers here, kit and part mash need the crystal (&cara-malts) to add body & flavor)


Then earlier this year, ordered the Durden Park Beer Circle book "Old English Beers and how to brew Them" and got blown away! Pale malt is all you need!! Bugger crystal!

I have a corny of an IPA maturing in my cellar, still 10 months to go b4 bottling

Just lager malt (for the paleness) and just Golding hops (hehe mashed at 74C by accident)

hydrometer sample was RADICAL!


Looking through the Durden Park book, brewing the Dorset and Amber Strong ales, so simple, so flavorful!


lots of peeples i talk to "crystal malt is OK/unnoticeable in the right quantities"

No, it is neither. Crystal malt was developed about 1860, for what?
To improve the quality of beer? yeah right!
NO! Crystal was developed, OF COURSE, for the big, commercial brewers of the time! They could use less malt for the same body in the finished beer! OF COURSE *they* adpted it like a shot! More profit for the shareholders! too bad for the drinkers of the swill, errr, beer



No, my friends, you and I do not need to take shortcuts, right? We are HBers doing our own thing in a mechanised age, right?


Well, *I* am

I just use base malts, my specialty malts I roasted in my own oven

crystal is a hippy thing, oh yeah crystals will make me all healthy wealthy & wise



Right, crystal malt is a money saving device no self respecting homebrewer should have a bar of!

is it????? Please???????

hic!

Jovial Monk

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[joecast]

wow!!!

i should have expected such a radical view from JM though. so am i getting this straight? are you saying just add/vary flavor by type and amount of hops?
and how about body v. alcohol? different mash schedules? that would make for an easy recipie.
joe

 

[Batz]

Someone been drinking?? :chug: :chug: :chug: :blink: :blink:

 

[joecast]

Someone been drinking?? :chug: :chug: :chug: :blink: :blink:

NO!!! why, what have you heard???

 

[Jovial_Monk]

one receptive mind here, pretty rare that is and no funning

I think you will find you can brew many a beer without cara malts, use more pale, higher mash temp, home roasted malt etc

Crystal can be useful, but it does add darkeness to a pale beer and very quickly becomes cloying, very quickly.

The second runnings of the Dorset Ale I drank tonight
body, depth of flavor, cleanlyness of flavor, pretty hard to get with more than 100g cara malts

so explore the world of base malts toasted malts etc
Dare to mash at 74C! (heheh i did, but it was an accidnet, the result was radical in the way no crystal-using beer can be

Experiment
Don't just mindlessly add crystal etc

JM

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[Jovial_Monk]

hehehe and yes I did drink more than one jug of sweet homebrew tonight

Jovial Monk

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[Batz]

OK
Crystal is all in the bin !!
Hic
:chug: :chug:

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Ahhh

you will thank me for it

i hope!

JM

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[Jovial_Monk]

heh

i have received a somewhat more positive reception here than in some more highbrow (brewingwise) forums to my crystal is evil thread







JM

 

[Murray]

I've noticed a similar thing actually, I've found most crystal malts to be overrated. Glad to know I'm not alone.

 

[big d]

interesting thoughts jm
when i go ag in the new year i will try a brewski or three without the evil crystal and see how it turns out.

 

[Linz]

So JM,

Your skip bin at the back of your shop is full of all the Crystal malts that were in the shop????

 

[Trough Lolly]

Reality check needed here...!

I believe JM started his ramblings saying he was addressing his thoughts to AG brewers and not everyone on the forum...

It makes sense to avoid the use of crystal malt in AG brewing, just like you don't finish off an all grain pale ale with a can of Coopers Draught and a teabag of Cascade and expect to obtain the same degree of complexity than you'd have with Trad Pale malt (see Jayse's interesting Skunk Fart thread!) and a full wort boil!

Crystal malt (IMHO) is a valuable and useful adjunct for the extract and part mash brewer - it has nothing to do with hops, or alcohol content - the crystal helps the non-AG brewers achieve a degree of complexity in their worts that is close to an AG outcome, but not a complete AG brew solution.

Perhaps its more accurate to say that Crystal in AG brews is Evil!

My $0.02c!

Cheers and all the best in '04!

TL (On holidays with the rellies in Ballarat downing a few Kilkennies!!) :chug:

 

[Jovial_Monk]

hear hear!

crystal in ag brewing is evil

use twice as much nice Maris Otter or Halcyon as the amount of crystal

some amazing brews can be brewed that way

I challenge the doubters to try!

Jovial Monk

 

[johnno]

well i'm gonna use it in my part mashes when i start

 

[OGFG]

I don't know where your coming from but I'll bite.

Crystal Malt is a good and useful malt which can add a wonderful flavour, colour and aroma to many beers. I totally disagree that it is `evil', if it was indeed developed to cut back on the amount of pale malt needed to give a fuller flavoured beer then more power to it, a step in the right direction. By this thinking all adjuncts would be evil(at least crystal malt starts off as barley).

I am continually baffled by this attitude that crystal is a bad thing, perhaps it is the hallmark of poorly made homebrew. It is an ingredient, and like all ingredients needs to be used properly.

Crystal has just as much place in all grain brewing as it does in extract brewing, you can mash it with other grains, there is no difference, the extract is the difference.

Me and the majority of commercial brewers will be happy to keep using it.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

You can use crystal all you like, it is your beer.

Myself, I have come to believe, based on various brews, that an all pale malt beer has an intensity of clean flavor a beer using the "shortcut" of crystal never can. You should try it some time.

I will be using some brown malt in brews next year, maybe a Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild clone with brown malt in place of crystal.

There are some exceptions to this, I can't wait to try a nut brown ale brewed with some crystal wheat. Based on tasting a couple of grains, crystal wheat does not have any of the cloying nature that crystal quickly adds to a beer and in fact never turned sweet in my mouth, but I bet it will add a nice wholemeally flavor to my NBA.

I brewed a couple of bocks yesterday using no caramalts just dark munich as well as pilsner malt and light munich malt. A long boil, lovely dark brown color going into the fermenter.

Why you jump from crystal to adjuncts I do not know, only crystal quickly cloys. Some commercial brewers use large amounts of adjunct, e.g. Broughton Old Jock like many Scottish commercial beers uses a large amount of maize while I did not add any maize at all in my clone of it. However, 500g flaked maize does wonders for some bitters and PreProhibition lagers.

Jovial Monk

 

[OGFG]

I made the adjunct call based on your comment that crystal was a cost cutting measure (ie quick and dirty flavour/fermentables). Not really relevant to your argument but look at American Pilsners, same thing but they use rice and corn(ha ha but it used to REMOVE flavour!). Just came to mind in a round about sort of way.

I hear you with the roasted pale malt. Its all good stuff.

 

[Wreck]

What about for Belgian beers? Doesn't the crystal give you some of those caramel flavours? Or is there another way to achieve this?

 

[OGFG]

You could use crystal for dark belgian ales but typically people choose something like Special B or Cara Munich.