Guess the malt

Confused about acid malt? You won't be after you post your malt-related questions here!
Post Reply
User avatar
domejunky
Steady Drinker
Posts: 61
Joined: Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:58 pm
Location: I can smell France...

Guess the malt

Post by domejunky » Fri May 16, 2014 1:49 pm

Hello All

I've been using 150EBC Crystal malt from the Malt Miller for ages. Last year I bought quite a bit of it, but it has taken 'till now for me to work out that it isn't 150EBC Crystal. First off I thought I'd made a weighing error, then checked through older versions of the recipe, and then started experimenting - upping the quantity with each brew. The sweetness and colour that I'm used to didn't materialise. Even adding 500g to 4.5kg of pale malt doesn't appreciably affect the colour.

The catch is that I, and everyone who tastes it, loves it, so I need to identify it. It has a fuller flavour than just a pale malt - makes me wonder if it's something like a Munich or Vienna malt...

Image


Rob - if you're reading - I'm not trying to rubbish your service in anyway. I'm not looking for any reimbursement, and will continue to shop with you and recommend you - it's actually been a interesting little sojourn...

Pete

User avatar
seymour
It's definitely Lock In Time
Posts: 6390
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:51 pm
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
Contact:

Re: Guess the malt

Post by seymour » Sat May 17, 2014 1:41 am

Probably CaraMalt, the lightest of the mainstream English crystal malts, akin to Munich malt. I love it too.

Clibit
Under the Table
Posts: 1631
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 8:46 pm
Location: Old Trafford

Re: Guess the malt

Post by Clibit » Sat May 17, 2014 9:30 am

Is Caramalt less sweet than other crystal malts? Is it best used in a similar way to Munich?

User avatar
seymour
It's definitely Lock In Time
Posts: 6390
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:51 pm
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
Contact:

Re: Guess the malt

Post by seymour » Sat May 17, 2014 3:06 pm

Clibit wrote:Is Caramalt less sweet than other crystal malts? Is it best used in a similar way to Munich?
It's all a matter of opinion, of course, but I find Munich to always have a noticeably German-beer presence, a memorable candy-like sweetness that reminds me of vanilla and marshmallows. Munich obviously serves an essential purpose in many great styles, but to me it's over-used and inappropriate in so many English-inspired pale ales and IPAs. So in that sense, I think CaraMalt is a perfect replacement for Munich in any non-German beer recipes. To me, English crystal malts have a different (read: better, usually) kind of sweetness, a deeper more rounded caramelized, brown sugar, toffee-like, baked goodies flavour. CaraMalt is just lighter on that continuum of lightest to darkest English-style caramelized malts.

If you have some recipes you like that called for Vienna, Munich, CaraMunich, CaraHell, or any other light crystal/cara malts, I'd encourage you to try them again with English CaraMalt instead and see for yourself. If nothing else, a 90% pale, 10% CaraMalt grainbill with hops of your choice would be delicious.

Clibit
Under the Table
Posts: 1631
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 8:46 pm
Location: Old Trafford

Re: Guess the malt

Post by Clibit » Sat May 17, 2014 3:33 pm

That's great info, thanks Seymour. I use Munich quite often, I like the lower sweetness level compared to crystal. I have a kg of caramalt I was sent instead of something else I ordered, unused. I will try it in a simple grain bill and compare with other crystals and Munich etc. I have used quite a few crystals, from 40L up to about 150L. I don't like too much toffee sweetness, especially in a pale ale. I tend to use crystal more in dark beers. And I tend towards the darker crystals. Still learning though.

User avatar
domejunky
Steady Drinker
Posts: 61
Joined: Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:58 pm
Location: I can smell France...

Re: Guess the malt

Post by domejunky » Sat May 17, 2014 4:08 pm

Thanks for the input. I use CaraMalt in other beers, and have some here. They don't look the same, and I'm kinda used to tasting CaraMalt, and find it quite sweet, so would have thought I'd recognise it. Maybe Munich and Vienna are sweeter than I imagine...

Pete

User avatar
6470zzy
Telling everyone Your My Best Mate
Posts: 4356
Joined: Sun Jun 14, 2009 7:07 pm
Location: Cape Cod

Re: Guess the malt

Post by 6470zzy » Sun May 18, 2014 9:39 pm

domejunky wrote:Thanks for the input. I use CaraMalt in other beers, and have some here. They don't look the same, and I'm kinda used to tasting CaraMalt, and find it quite sweet, so would have thought I'd recognise it. Maybe Munich and Vienna are sweeter than I imagine...

Pete
I agree with you, CaraMalt and Munich malt are not the same at all, nor are they used in the same fashion, for one thing Munich will convert itself in the mash since it has the enzymes to do so whereas CaraMalt has no diastatic power. You can make a beer with 100% Munich, you won't be doing one with 100% CaraMalt :beer:
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"
Oscar Wilde

User avatar
seymour
It's definitely Lock In Time
Posts: 6390
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:51 pm
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
Contact:

Re: Guess the malt

Post by seymour » Mon May 19, 2014 9:38 pm

It's true: UK CaraMalt is relatively darker and sweeter than standard German Munich malt, which is partly why I prefer it. Munich malt is around 10L, CaraMalt is around 37L (just like CaraMunich, for that matter.)

I probably overstated it when I said CaraMalt is interchangeable with Munich malt. But I think "not the same at all, nor are they used in the same fashion" is overstating it too, in the other direction.

What I meant to say is: whenever a non-German recipe calls for Munich malt as a small percentage of the whole, for a lightly caramelized malt in the broad sense, I prefer to use UK CaraMalt instead (for its depth of colour and flavour, and its authentic UK-style sweetness*). In either case, the desired outcome is some residual caramelized sweetness/body/mouthfeel/melanoidin complexity not found in the pale malt alone. I'm talking about recipes for Pale Ales, APAs, IPAs, ESBs, amber ales, red ales, etc, where Munich so often represents 5-10% of the overall grainbill, in which case substituting CaraMalt would make itself known a bit more, but not a difference of night and day. In this context, there is more than enough diastatic power from the predominant pale malt, so it doesn't matter whether CaraMalt would convert itself or not.

Like I said, it's really a matter of personal preference. I don't particularly love Munich malt, and I tire of seeing it in recipes for every beer style under the sun. Generally speaking, I'd rather go intentionally lighter (CaraPils or Vienna) or intentionally darker (CaraMalt or CaraMunich). If nothing else, weaning yourself off Munich malt will distinguish you from the masses. That said, I admit I enjoy many beers containing Munich malt, including Stone Arrogant Bastard which is supposedly 100%. At such extreme percentages, you can/must compensate for all that Munich malt sweetness with a shed-load of hops. That's the American bigger-is-better, punch-the-drinker-in-the-face paradigm which eventually gets old, IMHO.

Going back to the OP, it sounds like your mystery malt might be neither Munich nor CaraMalt. Maybe it's just some other light crystal/caramelized malt, or maybe it was supposed to be a dark crystal malt, but the industrial-scale maltster still had something lighter in the chutes when they switched to bagging the next thing, in which case you might've gotten a weird cut of that transitional sack. Because we're dealing with such tiny sample-sizes, this sort of variability happens to homebrewers far more often than businesses want to admit.



*In case you haven't noticed, I'm on a personal mission to remind English brewers of their own proud heritage, to take pride in their own extraordinary English malts, English hops, English yeasts.

Pale malt + Munich malt + Cascade hops + American ale yeast = tasty beer, but that needn't be the formula for every ale brewed everywhere. You guys were brewing great ale centuries before we even came ashore.

User avatar
6470zzy
Telling everyone Your My Best Mate
Posts: 4356
Joined: Sun Jun 14, 2009 7:07 pm
Location: Cape Cod

Re: Guess the malt

Post by 6470zzy » Mon May 19, 2014 10:45 pm

seymour wrote: I probably overstated it when I said CaraMalt is interchangeable with Munich malt. But I think "not the same at all, nor are they used in the same fashion" is overstating it too, in the other direction.

*In case you haven't noticed, I'm on a personal mission to remind English brewers of their own proud heritage, to take pride in their own extraordinary English malts, English hops, English yeasts.

Pale malt + Munich malt + Cascade hops + American ale yeast = tasty beer, but that needn't be the formula for every ale brewed everywhere. You guys were brewing great ale centuries before we even came ashore.
I disagree because when they are used correctly they aren't used in the same fashion and that isn't overstating it :) But on the other hand, I can most certainly agree to disagree :lol:
As far as reminding people of their heritage........... perhaps that one belongs in a different forum :shock:



Cheers
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"
Oscar Wilde

User avatar
seymour
It's definitely Lock In Time
Posts: 6390
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:51 pm
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
Contact:

Re: Guess the malt

Post by seymour » Tue May 20, 2014 1:10 am

6470zzy wrote:
seymour wrote:I probably overstated it when I said CaraMalt is interchangeable with Munich malt. But I think "not the same at all, nor are they used in the same fashion" is overstating it too, in the other direction...
I disagree because when they are used correctly they aren't used in the same fashion and that isn't overstating it :) But on the other hand, I can most certainly agree to disagree :lol:
Agreed, agreed. :)

Clibit
Under the Table
Posts: 1631
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 8:46 pm
Location: Old Trafford

Re: Guess the malt

Post by Clibit » Tue May 20, 2014 9:04 am

The Caramalt I've got is 30 EBC, and Maltmillers is about the same. So it's more Munich than Caramunich in colour is it not?

Clibit
Under the Table
Posts: 1631
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 8:46 pm
Location: Old Trafford

Re: Guess the malt

Post by Clibit » Tue May 27, 2014 1:25 pm

OK I've got a mash on which is Belgian Pale malt (92.5%) and UK caramalt (7.5%).

I'm aiming to do about 4 different boils to try out some different hops I've not used before, in single hop style. Sterling, Apollo, Summit and Summer. Though I may squeeze one out and do an English brew with Northdown/First Gold.

User avatar
seymour
It's definitely Lock In Time
Posts: 6390
Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:51 pm
Location: Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
Contact:

Re: Guess the malt

Post by seymour » Tue May 27, 2014 5:09 pm

Those all sound tasty. Can't wait to hear how they compare and contrast.

Clibit
Under the Table
Posts: 1631
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 8:46 pm
Location: Old Trafford

Re: Guess the malt

Post by Clibit » Tue May 27, 2014 6:42 pm

Changed the plan to keep life easier and did a 13L American Pale with Apollo, Summit and Sterling, and a 9L English pale with Northdown and First Gold. Using NBS 2 in both. All boxed off, now on my way out for a tasting with a friend who is setting up a microbrewery nearby. The time seems to have got stuck at beer o'clock...

Post Reply