Amber and Brown malt

[Garth]

I have been trying to use up some of my excess malt and I've obviously bought these a few months back to make a porter or something, but can't remember now though.

anyway, on looking at them they both look identical, and I remember SteveD mentioning getting wrongly labelled malt from H&G,

is this what has happened and how can I tell what I've got?

is there much difference in the two, what is the standard EBC 's for both?

is there a recipe which with I can use up 2kg Amber and 2kg brown?

Cheers

[steve_flack]

Amber is 20 SRM
Brown is 60 SRM

You could try brewing Whitbreads London Porter from 1850. This is a slightly modified Durden Park recipe.

OG 1060 63 IBU

5kg Pale
1kg Brown
0.35kg Black

Fuggles 120g (5.8%)

Takes a while to mature (4 months) but a brilliant beer.

[oblivious]

Fullers London porter I believe has brown malt in it and imparts that distinctive aroma and taste, maybe try tasting some?

[mysterio]

The Amber malt i get from H&G is 100 EBC, Brown is 120-150 EBC.

[Chiltern Brewer]

I wouldn't use huge amounts of either - I'd suggest using the same or less than you'd normally add of crystal. Amber malt in my experience can be unpleasant if used in large quantities, I therefore treated Brown the same. Try using to complement crystal or roast/dark malts in a strong ales/porters/stouts - to add a biscuity/grainy flavour. Here's an old recipe of mine as an example:

Pale 4.675Kg
Brown 165g
Crystal 275g
Wheat Malt 110g
Invert Sugar 275g
(85:3:5:2:5)
Challenger, Fuggles, Goldings 3x30g - 90g
Late Hops Fuggles/Goldings
OG 1050 (23L 75%)

The small addition of sugar gives a drier finish.

Some of the Caledonian (e.g. 80/-) and Shepherd Neame beers use amber malt I believe.

[Garth]

Thanks for your input and advice lads, still unsure of what it is, and it would be pointless to put up a picture as they are both so similar

I must have been planning on an old Porter recipe as I have Durden Whitbread and the Fullers Porter in my recipe folder waiting to go. Might be a nice one to make now and lay down for winter

Thanks again

[Ross]

I'm surprised they look so similar (unless cracked already) - i sell both & they are distinctly different with the brown being twice as dark - Guess with the colour ranges though, you've got one at the top of the range & the other at the bottom. In my Bairds stock, the amber malt is very uniform in colour, whereas the brown looks like a mix of paler & darker grains. Flavour wise, the Amber has a subtle biscuity taste, whereas the brown has a full on rich digestive biscuit taste.

cheers Ross

[Garth]

yeah, it's cracked already, but your descriptions will help Ross,

will give it a taste when I get home tonight, thanks

[David Edge]

For recipes that use amber and brown have a look at the Durden Park books, online the second edition is on the County site at

http://www.countybeermakers.org.uk/oldb ... dbeers.htm

Look amongst the stouts and porters.

As others have observed, all ambers are not equal. The 50EBC diastatic amber wants diluting back to 30 using pale for most DP recipes. If you use the second edition of the DP book references to 'Carapils' in fact refer to 30EBC British Caramalt; I'd suggest you use diluted diastatic amber or home roasted amber instead.

There's an article on home roasting in:

http://www.craf tbrewing.org.uk/bcpdf/BC4-1_mar2004.pdf

David Edge

[TheBigEasy]

David,
Do you know what colour Durden Park are thinking of when they state Light Amber?
Hop and Grape's Amber is 100 EBC, Is ths too dark?

[steve_flack]

Are we taking about the same stuff. There's Amber Malt and then there's Diastatic Amber. They're different. 100EBC sounds like normal Amber to me.

[TheBigEasy]

I am talking about the Amber Malt.
The Durden Park recipes on state "Amber Malt", no mention of Diastatic Amber.

[steve_flack]

The Durden Park recipes often use a 'Pale Amber Malt'. This is diastatic as it's often a major part of the grist (in fact sometimes all of it). If you brew a beer with such a large amount of regular Amber it won;t work as it can't self-convert. When the book was written there was no source of a commercial pale amber in the UK so they recommended home roasting. Brupaks then sourced a diastatic pale amber from Belgium. This is however a bit too dark and ends up with a rather sweet beer so it's recommended that it's diluted with some pale.

Other recipes in the book use Amber malt. This is normal non-diastatic amber malt. If you look at this page you will see the two amber malts concerned.

Link

On the H&G web pages one is on the roasted malt section teh other is on the speciality malt section

[David Edge]

Durden Park list the following historical malt colours amongst others:

Pale Amber 30-40 EBC
Mid Amber 50-70EBC
High dried (dark) amber 85-95EBC

The modern equivalents are:
- Pale amber: either roast your own or mix pale and 'diastatic' amber (50EBC) to get about 30. Geoff Cooper has suggested the result will be more interesting if you include Munich in the blend as well.

For Mid Amber, diastatic amber 50EBC corresponds. Note as others have said, take 'diastatic' with a pinch of salt, mash cool and include some pale unless you want a very sticky beer. (Note however that when the hydrometer was invented it was revealed that table beer fermented 1040 to 1004, but strong ale 1110 to 1052. So the idea of quarter gravity is relatively modern.

High-dried at about 90 isn't so far from H&G Amber at 100.
If someone from Site Admin can hold my hand I'll supply the article 'Old British Beers factsheet' to put in the library.

[UserDeleted]

Geoff Cooper has suggested the result will be more interesting if you include Munich in the blend as well.

I'd agree with that. In fact I would use a blend of Munich and Diastatic amber and leave the pale out.