Speciality Grains For An Apa

[Dazza_devil]

G'day Brewers,
I'm thinking of using the following spec. grains in an APA extract recipe;

200g Caraamber
100g Caramunich III

I want to bring the EBC's up to around 18EBC and not sure which of the following to use;

30g Carafa III
30g Roasted Barley
30g Black Patent
60g Pale Chocolate

I don't want any burnt, coffee or roast flavour, just toasty.

What would you use?

I have quite a selection of spec grains so open to numerous options on a good APA grain profile, with or without Caramel.

Cheers.

 

[chappo1970]

Not knowing your recipe but I quite like Caraaroma (lovely red colour) and Biscuit (toasty notes in spades) in my APA's. 2c FWIW.

Chap Chap

 

[razz]

Hi Boagsy. I've used pale choc and caramunich on seperate brews to achieve colour around 15-17 ebc. Generally, I make my APA's to about 13 ebc and only use caramalt for colour. Out of that list I would use the pale choc, you won't need much. Good luck.

 

[benno1973]

Second that for Pale choc. Or some biscuit, victory or brown malt. All will add some toasty notes, and you shouldn't need much...

 

[Dazza_devil]

Caraaroma and Caramalt would happen to be two that I don't have.
I got the Caraamber because it said substitute for Belgian Biscuit on the CB website.
I do have some Carabohemian maybe that might go well. Also some Special B but thought may be too much caramel.


Edited to say - wouldn't the Biscuit or Brown need to be mashed? I wanted Victory but where do you get it.

 

[benno1973]

Sorry, my bad. Extract recipe with specialty malts, so my vote is now just for the pale choc.

 

[thanme]

Man. I didn't know pale chocolate was considered a specialty malt

I know it doesn't help, but +1 for caraaroma. I used it in my last APA and I may never go back

 

[earle]

Edited to say - wouldn't the Biscuit or Brown need to be mashed? I wanted Victory but where do you get it.

I don't have it to hand at the moment but I'm pretty sure in Brewing Classic Styles, John Plamer lists biscuit and brown as needing to be mashed but adds that some flavour can be ontained by steeping.

 

[Dazza_devil]

I don't have it to hand at the moment but I'm pretty sure in Brewing Classic Styles, John Plamer lists biscuit and brown as needing to be mashed but adds that some flavour can be ontained by steeping.

Just found that on page14, not sure how much biscuit or toast I could get from steeping them though.

Here's a quote from the page,

'Amber malts are produced by roasting fully kilned pale malt at moderately high temperatures. These temperatures give the malt the characteristic toasty, biscuity, and nutty flavors. Brown malts are roasted longer than amber malts and achieve a very dry, dark toast flavor, with color similar to that of the caramel malts. These malts must be mashed to yield soluble extract but can be steeped to impart some characteristic flavors'

I thought I was on the right track with the Caraamber for toasty but perhaps not.

 

[Nick JD]

If you use solely carafa 3 to darken a beer up a little it comes out a funny colour. Like a pale black if that makes sense. There's not much "brown" in it.

 

[Fourstar]

Try an ultra dark crystal in a low quantity e.g. caraaroma @ 1% of your grist as it will meld well with your already laden crystal grain profile (infact its more like an american amber than an APA looking at the grain there.) Failing that some biscuit or brown malt is another option if you want to use a highly kined malt. you can use anywhere up to 5% with biscuit but the brown malt i would stay low at around 1%~

 

[Dazza_devil]

The darkest amber malt I have is Special B at 300EBC but it doesn't really look as dark as the Caramunich III.
I see that CB's Caraaroma is 390EBC.
My Caramunich III is 140EBC but it does look darker than that.
My Carabohemian is 200EBC.

The Caraamber is 70EBC

I can see now how the Pale Chocolate is the better for colouring than using the dark grains I have.

But I'm still confused about what to use, perhaps the appearance of the particular grains is deceiving.

I do also have some Pale Crystal, Carared and Carapils.

In the past I have used Pale Crystal, Carapils and Carared in an APA. The colour was good but didn't really get much toasty or biscuity notes.

 

[Dazza_devil]

This is the recipe I'm playing with,

27 litres
Expected OG 1.054
Expected FG 1.014 probably bit higher than I wanted
Expected alc/vol 5.6%

3kg LME
1kg LDME
1kg Dextrose

Possibly,
200g Caraamber ?
100g Caramunich III ?
100g Carabohemian ?

for 14.6 EBC's which is a bit lower than I wanted and it does sound amberish and a lot of maltiness.

15g Magnum @ 60mins
10g Magnum @ 30 mins
25g Cascade @ 10 mins
25g Cascade @ 0mins
25g Cascade dry-hopped 2/3 way through fermentation.

Expected IBU's 36.2

10 litre 1.040 boil inc. 2 litre sparge

probably around 2 litre starter of Wyeast 1272 fermented @ 19 degrees C, perhaps 18 for a more neutral finish.

Bulk prime to 2.5 vol CO2 after 2 weeks in the primary.


I'm sure it will be delicious but smooth bitterness/malt sweetness and bready, toasty/citrus, floral balances are what I'm after.

Extracts are getting more frustrating with each brew but I want to get the rest spot on and I'm not ready

 

[Dazza_devil]

This is the recipe I'm playing with,

27 litres
Expected OG 1.054
Expected FG 1.014 probably bit higher than I wanted
Expected alc/vol 5.6%

3kg LME
1kg LDME
1kg Dextrose

Possibly,
200g Caraamber ?
100g Caramunich III ?
100g Carabohemian ?

for 14.6 EBC's which is a bit lower than I wanted and it does sound amberish and a lot of maltiness.

15g Magnum @ 60mins
10g Magnum @ 30 mins
25g Cascade @ 10 mins
25g Cascade @ 0mins
25g Cascade dry-hopped 2/3 way through fermentation.

Expected IBU's 36.2

10 litre 1.040 boil inc. 2 litre sparge

probably around 2 litre starter of Wyeast 1272 fermented @ 19 degrees C, perhaps 18 for a more neutral finish.

Bulk prime to 2.5 vol CO2 after 2 weeks in the primary.


I'm sure it will be delicious but smooth bitterness/malt sweetness and bready, toasty/citrus, floral balances are what I'm after.

Extracts are getting more frustrating with each brew but I want to get the rest spot on and I'm not ready

Woops, that's 250g of Dextrose not 1kg. Could of blew my head off.

 

[Dazza_devil]

Yep, and I'm gonna call it

Maidu Gold

and it's nothing like Spanish for Snowy Mountain Range.