necessity of grains

[DaveyT]

I´m looking at some recipes and wondering whether or not I need the additional grains. I have to lug it all back to Spain so the weight factor is pretty significant.
The three I´m concentrating on are Crystal Malt, Black Malt and Roast Barley. Do they impart a significant flavour? Sacrificing a few 500g bags of these could allow for more DME in my suitcase, which would mean more beer!
If they only add colour, are they necessary and would the darker DMEs be of any use instead? The recipes I´ve got all call for pale malt extract and don´t mention the darker ones at all.
Also the sugar; do I need the posh brewing stuff or can I just chuck in a bit of castor? I´ve heard talk of Golden Syrup, too, which I´ve found available in Spain. Would this be better?
Got a shopping trip coming up and looking to get enough in for a few brews.

Thannks

[boingy]

The black malt is mostly for colour but the other two impart flavours and mouthfeel that you will not get from DME on its own. Choose your recipes then buy the ingredients.

[steve_flack]

Last time I looked they had postal services in continental Europe. Can't you get this stuff posted - maybe shipping from Belgium would be cheaper. Try Brouwland.

[CrownCap]

You can use roast barley for colour in place of black malt if that is all it is for. You could exchange the black for chocolate too to give a wider range of favours. 500g of the dark roast will go a long way.

As for sugar, any will do if its just a few percent of the fermentables.

[DaveyT]

I guess I´ll then not need half as much roast barley as black malt. Good idea.
Would the chocolate malt take we away from the original recipe too much if I used it instead of black malt? Interested in experimenting, but want to get something familiar.
In terms of postage, I´m in the Canary Islands which have an organisation that holds to you ransom over imported items. The tax isn´t a big deal, it´s the Aduana fees for taking your tax that make many things financially impossible to post in. Perhaps DME is an exception.

[steve_flack]

The Canary Islands are in the EU aren't they? In which case there shouldn't be any VAT to add. It's been already paid in another EU country (UK or Belgium).

[DaveyT]

As part of Spain, they are the EU, yes. I´m not entirely sure if it is VAT, though; it´s basically island protectionism.
The Aduana is a law unto itself and gets on everybody´s top ones.
Any advice about grains, though, still welcome.

[steve_flack]

It depends what beers you want to brew.

If you want bitters then I think crystal malt is pretty important to the flavour of many of them. If you're going to be brewing dark beers such as porters or stouts then the type of dark malt becomes more important. If you are using them merely for colouring (and not flavour) you could either miss them out and just accept the beer is a bit paler than intended or use Carafa III (it's a black malt without the roasty flavour) or you could use a colorant. Sinamar is a concentrated carafa malt extract that meets the German Reinheitsgebot....or you could just use brewers caramel (gravy browning in a push). Despite all the homebrew hatred of things like brewers caramel, It's used in a some well respected beers. For example the draught versions of Adnams Bitter and Broadside are just pale malt and brewers caramel. There are no other malts in there.

Sugar, so long as the amount isn't too huge you can use normal table sugar. It depends on the strength of the beer but in a regular bitter up to 10% should be fine. If you're doing cheap kits and adding bags of the stuff then get hold of some dextrose/glucose. You should be able to find that locally.

[danbrew]

The three I´m concentrating on are Crystal Malt, Black Malt and Roast Barley. Do they impart a significant flavour?

Personally I would ditch the Black as it's generally only used for colour and in high quantities it's a bit acrid.

I'd replace the roasted barley with chocolate malt because from my experience chocolate malt seems to offer more variability in flavour relative to the amount. I might be wrong but the the flavour seems to change more...

With roasted barley, your main beers are going to be stouts, whereas you can do milds, porters, stouts and bitters with chocolate. It will be familiar too. Loads of beers have it in in the UK.

Have you considered just sticking to 3kg kits? I'd imagine you get more beer/kg from them and some are serious quality? Or like boingy says, pick your recipes then work backwards - and just take the exact quantities you need... Leave the rest at home...(UK)

And, don't you get collared for the Aduana on stuff you are bringing in anyway?

[DaveyT]

This is all good stuff; thanks a lot.
The airport at Las Palmas is similar to all airports with people on the look-out for naughty stuff being brought in. The Aduana only functions within the postal service. One option would be to get a kit but I fancy tinkering a little and seeing what happens. If I make a mess of it, I´ll be asking for recommendations for kits in the near future.
It´s looking good for the recipes I´m looking at. One is Adnam´s bitter which was taken care of above; thanks for that. I reckon I´ll just make it pale. I´m also looking at a Duechar´s and an Old Speckled Hen. The OSP might benefit from a bit of chocolate malt so that might be an option.
It also needs a fair whack of sugar so I think I´ll look out for some glucose here. I can get Tate and Lyle Golden Syrup very easily. What would the proportions be for substituting sugar for that?

[Fuggled Mind]

I'm not sure if it's any help but there's a Spanish homebrew page here. You can get a moderate translation in Google chrome.
http://www.cervezartesana.es

They have a range of malts and kits that you could play around with and it would save you any problems with transporting it all.

Cheers

Jason

[DaveyT]

Sweet, thanks Jason. I´ll get the missus to do a spot of translating. Bit of quality time together, if ever there was any.

[Fuggled Mind]

Sweet, thanks Jason. I´ll get the missus to do a spot of translating. Bit of quality time together, if ever there was any.

It's always good to get your partner involved in your hobby - even if it's just for translating

My partner is half Swiss and she get's lots of this type of this work. One downside is they have a much better idea how much this hobby costs.