Colour gradings of malt??

[froggi]

Hi all
Wondering re the colour gradings of malts...... Obviously chocolate malt is roasted for colour and flavour, black malts same I guess... What puzzles me at present are the gradings for crystal malts .... What do the numbers relate to in relation to the colour result??? Reason I ask is that I want to create a pale with a little colour but my LHBS only appears to supply a single type/grade of crystal malt..... Just thinking that's all guys

 

[Baz Chaz]

Have a look at Rob (The Malt Millar site supporters) descriptions of malts etc will help :thumb:

 

[dennisking]

Pale crystal is what you need, as baz says see Robs site. This brewpak guide is good.

http://www.brupaks.com/BRUPAKS%20GRAIN% ... %20WEB.htm

 

[froggi]

Ok, getting that info but can you also answer why, when I added a small amount of crystal to a mainly MO, I got a very dark resulting brew

 

[dennisking]

What do you mean by a small amount.

 

[Baz Chaz]

It's quite surprising how little you need to make a big difference to the colour, although there may not be not a great difference to taste, thats part of the fun of brewing your own, experimentation and constantly checking the taste :thumb: love it :party:

I do use Brewmate a lot now to check the difference in colours, recently gone to lighter brews with more late addition hops, which my personal preference for this summer, I've had the heavier darker brews for winter, so go for what YOU like or fancy :

 

[froggi]

100 grams to 3.4Kg MO

 

[froggi]

Cheers guys and thanks for the input... Seems people have similar ideas to mine.... I'm wanting a lighter coloured, hoppy brew for the summer months along the lines of an IPA but not necessarily as high in strength

 

[dennisking]

To be honest I will normally use more than that but I'm not so worried about the colour. Today I brewed with 250 gms of caramalt in 4400 kg of pale malt which came out a very light colour.

 

[RobWalker]

My LHBS only sells High Colour which is about 80L. The stuff towards 20L is better for a paler brew, the further up the scale you get you get a deeper toffee and roasty flavour. someone on another forum mentioned getting a few kinds, steeping them in mash temp water for half an hour, then tasting the individual malts to see the difference. I'm doing it in a few days to get a better idea.

 

[froggi]

Cheers again people.... The info that's been passed on here has improved my understanding to a better degree for sure.... I now know how I need to be steering for my pale pales.... Many thanks