Getting Caramalt/Crystal

[jceg316]

Hey, I want to start getting a bit more accurate with my ingredients. Previously if a recipe called for X amount of crystal malt (40L) and X amount of crystal malt (80L) I would just throw in "low colour" and "high colour" crystal or caramalt, but now I went looking for specifically those colours it's really difficult to find them. Most homebrew stores just sell generic "caramalt" or crystal and not a range of colours. I know of one shop which does sell a bit of a range but their service isn't very good and their site keeps breaking.

Does anyone know a good place which sells a range of different coloured crystal malts? Or

Is it difficult to make your own?

Cheers.

[Clibit]

There are online sellers who do, I get mine from the Maltmiller and the Home Brew Company. Like this:

http://www.thehomebrewcompany.co.uk/who ... 9_231.html

They do crushed malts too obviously.

[jceg316]

The home brew company looks good and they do have a good selection of crushed crystal malt. Thanks for sending the link.

[Jocky]

Remember that every maltster has a slightly different way of doing things and the colour rating is an estimate of the average colour of all the grains, so one Crystal 30L may be comparable to another Crystal 50L.

There are acutally 5 shades of Crystal Malt commonly sold in the UK:
Caramalt (Extra light)
Light Crystal
Crystal
Dark Crystal
Extra Dark Crystal

Personally I tend to sub these for 10L, 20L, 40L, 90L, 120L.

[jceg316]

That's interesting to know. I have seen varieties labelled in the way you mention but got a bit annoyed they didn't have L or EBC rating.

I keep track of all my brews on an Excel spreadsheet where I have unit conversion formulas as well so I can easily convert lb to kg, oz to g etc. I need to have lovibond to EBC on there.

[Jocky]

Lovibond to EBC is not an exact conversion. EBC is about double lovibond at the light end, but more like 3x at the darker end, and that's more for comparing wort colours than grain.

I also forgot caragold above, which is from Crisp malting and even lighter than caramalt.

[zgoda]

Castle Malting makes Cara Gold to 120 EBC. Their Caramalt is 20 EBC, while DMG makes it to 35 EBC. I prefer to use EBC values than names to avoid confusion.

[YeastWhisperer]

As crazy as it sounds, crystal and caramel malt are not always the same thing.

http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/blog/i ... amel-malt/

[jceg316]

Lovibond to EBC is not an exact conversion. EBC is about double lovibond at the light end, but more like 3x at the darker end, and that's more for comparing wort colours than grain.

I also forgot caragold above, which is from Crisp malting and even lighter than caramalt.

There's a formula for everything in Excel!

[Jocky]

Castle Malting makes Cara Gold to 120 EBC. Their Caramalt is 20 EBC, while DMG makes it to 35 EBC. I prefer to use EBC values than names to avoid confusion.

As crazy as it sounds, crystal and caramel malt are not always the same thing.

http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/blog/i ... amel-malt/

Which all goes to show that substituting malts is not a dial-a-recipe kind of thing.

You'll get better mileage from understanding what the recipe is using the malt for and then trying to find the best malt from that.