King Ruddager Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Dear grain-knowledge-having types I've done a couple of brews with specialty grains now and I'm noticing that while some recipes call for a very specific variety there's often only very non-specific grains available in stores. For example, I went looking for 'Crystal 60L' once (didn't know what it really meant) and the bloke in the store gave me a bag of 'Crystal' and, not waning to cause any fuss, decided that it must be the same thing so off I went. But is it? To illustrate this a little further, my local Brewcraft has 7 grains available - pale, black, caramunich, chocolate, crystal, munich and barley - but none of those is caramalt which I see mentioned in all golden ale related recipes. One of them must be close, right? Beerbelly on the other side of town is the complete opposite - they have so much available I don't know where to even begin! There's 43 listed on their web site, plus another four other ... things (like oats). I've had a flick through John Palmer's "How to Brew" hoping for something like a table of grains with descriptions, similarities and possible substitutes (similar to his hops table) but no luck. So, is there a good resource on grains, their basic types and then some nitty-gritty on the subtleties of different varieties? (for reference, here are the grains listed at Brewcraft and Beerbelly, the stores I've been referring to) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
***** Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Hey Ruddager I am sure there are plenty out there, I use Craft Brewer and this one Craft Brewer have heaps. 60L refers to the Lovibond, which is the beer colour measure, it needs to be converted to EBC to make sense to me but finding a straight forward calcualtion, or two that agree is easier said than done. Anyhow 60l is pale malt, preety close to medium crystal around 100 EBC I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Sorry I can't go into depth at the moment, i am just about to go home but you may find THIS SITE interesting... scroll down about 1/3 of the page for Lovibond,SRM and EBC conversions etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
***** Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 and then there is this site I much prefer EBC, I know that crystal 120 doesn't change the colour of a Pale Ale too much and crystal 270 makes it darker. I also know that 200 g of choc malt 600EBC make the English Bitter can as dark as the pic in my signature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyBycrikey Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Seems in Aus we have more rough lovibond ratings for crystal, rather than crystal 60 you'll find crystal 60-80. If you double the lovibond you'll get the rough EBC number : ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damien E1 Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 Seems in Aus we have more rough lovibond ratings for crystal' date=' rather than crystal 60 you'll find crystal 60-80. If you double the lovibond you'll get the rough EBC number : )[/quote'] I thought it was halve it?[unsure] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 I'm pretty sure it's double it. According to Beersmith, "Crystal 120L" has an EBC of about 236. The others are all around the double mark too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hairy Posted October 12, 2012 Share Posted October 12, 2012 EBC is approximately double Lovibond. Here is a calculator that may help: Colour Conversion Calculator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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