Brew UK Forum | General Brewing Discussions
Crystal and Cara-Amber
I'm starting to tire of Crystal so bought some Cara-Amber instead. Can I just substitute one for the other? As long as the colour value is the same of course!
Planning: Something with Styrians, Discovery Clone
Fermenting:
Condtioning:
Drinking: Twibute Clone, PJ Clone
Fermenting:
Condtioning:
Drinking: Twibute Clone, PJ Clone
Responses
Posted 1 year ago by Moderator
Hi Simon. Broadly speaking, yes. You will get a different colour and a different flavour. Do you have any brewing software? If not, download this.
http://www.practicalbrewing.co.uk/calculators/beerengine/
It's Beer Engine and you can play around with ingredients and see what effect they give. You often have to put the ingredient into the Grain Editor with all the information which you can usually find in the Shop on this site. There are better recipes programmes about, but they cost money. Beer Engine is free and a good place to start. Greg will be able to help you more as some malts will change the SG rather differently to Crystal.
Planning: - To get some more brews on now the weather's a bit cooler
Fermenting: - Ginger Beer experiment
Conditioning: - A normal bitter with Styrians
Drinking: - All of it!!
E-mail: arnyfris@gmail.com
Posted 1 year ago by Moderator
According to beersmith the potential SG for crystal is 1.034 - 1.035 and for caraamber is 1.035 so not really anything to worry that much about.
Plannin'-
Loads a beer after an upgrade!
nathbrew@gmail.com
Posted 1 year ago by Moderator
Thanks Nath. Beer Engine is OK, but the ingredients list is not exhaustive. On the other hand, I don't fancy paying out for Beersmith. As far as I know, most of the common malts are pretty much interchangeable. It's only the highly specialised or highly coloured stuff that might make any real difference, and then it's only very small quantities.
Planning: - To get some more brews on now the weather's a bit cooler
Fermenting: - Ginger Beer experiment
Conditioning: - A normal bitter with Styrians
Drinking: - All of it!!
E-mail: arnyfris@gmail.com
Posted 1 year ago by Member
Thanks guys.I was really after the taste difference between Crystal and CaraAmber. I wanted a change from Crystal but don't want to go down the biscuit type route. I really don't like things like Spitfire. There's only one way to find out ... No I'm not doing that again! I'll brew up Tony's Twibute with CaraAmber instead of Crystal. I've just finished the last one of those and I'm missing it already!
A brewing truism, the last bottle of a batch is the best!
Fermenting:
Condtioning:
Drinking: Twibute Clone, PJ Clone
Posted 1 year ago by Moderator
You can add malts via the grain editor, though trying to find the extract litre degrees per kilogram & fermentability percentage of some malts can be a bit tricky.
Fermenting: Marynka pseudo-lager
Maturing/Conditioning:
Drinking: Wheat beer, ESB, Vienna lager & shop bought stuff
Posted 1 year ago by Member
You could try Munich malt, that's what I used when I stopped using crystal. Give a nice full flavour and adds some colour too. Give it a go, you'll like it , its not a 'speciality' grain (in the biblical sense) either so
easier to work out what you're likely to get.
(with grateful thanks to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and slightly adapted)
Posted 1 year ago by Admin
I've not tried cara-amber but I assume it has similar qualities to both crystal and Amber malt. Amber malt has a quite distinct nutty/coffee flavour to I would use with caution. It works really well in Porters and darker beers but I would only use in very small amounts in paler beers. Definitely not in the qty's that you would use crystal.
As Tony says Munich is worth checking out but its very pale so you will need something to give colour if you are looking for that Orangey colour.
I would probably add say 1kg of Munich instead of Pale malt then try reducing the crystal down to 100/150g so give you some colour but reduce the crystal flavour which I agree can get a bit sweet and sickly. I know you are not a fan of chocolate but try adding say 10/15g just to darken it up a bit. That way you can get away with even less crystal and the chocolate will be very subtle.
Posted 1 year ago by Member
If you're looking for the colour associated with Crystal Malt without the flavour, how about adding a much smaller fraction of Black Malt? I'm conditioning 25L of Tim Taylor Landlord at the minute. The recipe uses only 35g of Black Malt, which still gives a nice rusty colour. I can't imagine an amount that small having much effect on the overall flavour.
But then I have been catastrophically wrong in the past.
Fermenting: Marston's Pedigree
Conditioning (Bottles): Warsteiner Lager Clone
Drinking (King Keg): Fullers London Pride
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