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malt, or malted barley, helps give beer its flavour, colour, body, head retention, aroma & alcohol content, it is approx. 51% sugar. Although other grains can be malted, barley is the preferred main provider of fermentable materials. Barley cannot be “mashed” but the malting process breaks down the starches contained in the barley husk into their component parts & allows them to be converted to fermentable sugars by the natural enzymes called diastase. Only the palest malts however contain the enzymes necessary for starch conversion & the bulk of any beer recipe must consist of these malts.

Note that the colour figures given for the malts below can vary vastly, the darker malts by 25% or more either way from a single manufacturer, if you compare the “same product” from different manufactures then you can expect even bigger discrepancies.

For more information see the beer colour chart.

ACID MALT (Colour 3 EBC, 10% max)

A useful malt for producing good mashed lagers as the lactic acid lowers the mash pH to give a softer palate than when using gypsum.

AMBER MALT (Colour 90-110 EBC, 20% max)

The grain is dried to about 3% moisture & then heated quickly to 95+°C, the temperature is then raised slowly to around 140° then held until the required colour is achieved. Gives a biscuit flavour & a rich golden colour to beers, must be used with diastatic malts

BROWN MALT (Colour 120-150 EBC, 10% max)

No longer kilned over hornbeam fires, this amber malt is kilned for long periods to achieve a darker colour. It can be used to make dark copper coloured ales such as mild & brown beers.

BLACK MALT (Colour 1250-1550. EBC, 10% max) (50-200g/23l)

Malted barley is highly kilned to a black colour. It is the preferred colour darkener in sweeter stouts & porters, it also gives them a burnt (acrid) & astringent flavour, sometimes used in mild ales. Does not need to be mashed, used in the mash tun for convenience but can also be used in the copper.

CARAPILS MALT (Colour 3-5 EBC, 10% max)

Bavarian spring barley, with a moisture content of around 50%, is placed sealed kiln & heated to the 65-80°C range, enabling them to mash themselves & then caramelise the sugars produced, the final kilning at around 110° is just long enough to dry the grain with the minimum of darkening. Often used in lagers to help head formation/retention & give body rather than colour & flavour.

CARAMUNCH (Colour80-120EBC, 10% max)

A malt that is only produced in Bamberg, northern Bavaria, in a similar way to Munich Malt but with more caramelization & the kilning is at higher temperatures.

ROASTED CARAMALT (Colour 800 EBC, 5% max)

Another Bavarian special malt. Used sparingly in many dark German beers, especially those from Munich & Kulmbach. It is produced by roasting Carahell malt at very high temperatures, ensuring that there is no burning.

CARAHELL (Colour 20-30 EBC, max 40%, possibly more in low alcohol beers but usually only 3-4%)

This malt is mostly used to accentuate the fullness of flavour in special German festival beers & a flavour enhancer in low alcohol lagers. Produced in the same way as Carapils but kilned somewhat hotter. It also helps head formation & retention.

CARAMALT (Colour 23-28 EBC, 15% max)

Basically a pale crystal malt, the UK equivalent of carahell & produced in a similar manner using British barley. Common used in British style lagers & fairly low alcohol ales. Useful in “sugary” recipes as it helps with head formation.

CARAMUNICH (90EBC)

A light crystal malt used by Belgian breweries to make Abbey/Trappist style ales & can be used for any recipe that calls for crystal malt.

CARA RED (Colour 40-60 EBC, 10% max)

Adds body, malty aroma & dark red colour.

CHOCOLATE MALT (Colour 900-1200 EBC, 5% max, usually 40-90g/23l used)

A highly roasted malt which, when used in small quantities gives colour & a lush sweetish (chocolaty) flavour, without the bitterness or acridness of black & roasted malt, to milds, stouts & porters. Does not need to be mashed, used in small amounts in the mash tun for convenience but can be used in the copper. Can also be used in small quantities to darken Bitters.

COLOUR is measured in EBCs (European Brewing Convention). The American colour measuring system, °SRM (Standard Reference Method), is approximately 0.58 x °EBC as they use a ½ inch “glass” & Europeans use a 50mm “glass”. Lovibond is the same as the SRM & is the colour is for 1 lb in 1 US gall soln. i.e., a 12½% solution. 1 lb in 1 UK gall would be a 10% soln. & consequently be lighter. Just to complicate things, malts have a “colour efficiency”, typically 71-80% but 100% for extracts.

Colour is measured in a 10% solution, thus 1.6Kg extract at 10EBC will give 16 litres of beer at 10EBC.

So, for 23 litres

The beer colour (EBC) = (10 x EBC x Wt(Kg))/ vol (l)

= (10 x 10 x 1.6)/ 23 = 7 in our case.

CRYSTAL MALT (Colour 90-240 EBC, 20% max - note Arkell’s Mash Tun Mild uses approx. 30%!)

Gives bitter beers subtle sweetness to balance the normally high bitterness. Produced in the same way as Caramalt but prolonged kilning darkens the colour which covers a wide range, typically “light” crystal goes up to about 140EBC, “medium” up to about 170 & “dark” is 170+. Crystal gives gravity, a nutty flavour, reddish colour, body & sweetness to beers. Does not need to be mashed, used in the mash tun for convenience but can be used in the copper.

CRYSTAL WHEAT MALT (CARAWHEAT, Colour 125 EBC, 10% max)

A wheat malt with a deeper colour & stronger aroma, often used in darker wheat beer styles like Dunkelweizens.

EBC – See COLOUR.

FLAKED CEREALS can be substituted for TORRIFIED cereals

FLAKED BARLEY (3EBC, 20% max)

Often used in Stouts as to give a grainy flavour & aid head formation/ retention, can be used in quite large quantities in black beers but can cause haze problems in paler styles so generally kept below about 5%.

FLAKED MAIZE (3EBC, 10% max)

Derived from corn kernels, this cereal gives a delicate corn taste to beer when used sparingly. It also helps to produce clear beers with its’ low nitrogen content.

FLAKED RICE - See RICE.

LAGER (PILSNER) MALT (Colour 2.5 EBC, 100% max)

Lager malt is the British version of Pilsner malt, kilned at temperatures from 55-82°C.

LOVIBOND – See COLOUR.

MALT EXTRACT

DIASTATIC & NON-DIASTATIC extracts are available, the former contains enzymes is used in recipes where the adjuncts rice, wheat flour/malt, flaked barley or wheat or torrified barley are used in a partial mash (typically 45min @ 67°C). Non-diastatic extract is used with crystal malt, black malt, chocolate malt, roast barley, Carapils, sugars & syrups etc, as they do not need to be mashed.

WET (310°/Kg/l) & DRY (365°/Kg/l) extracts are available, colours range from extra light to dark, some are also available hopped. A Wheat malt extract is useful, made from 45% barley & 55% wheat malts.

MELANOIDIN (Colour 60-80 EBC, 15% max)

An aromatic malt from Bamberg, Germany that gives flavour & colour, used to good effect in all dark beers.

MILD ALE MALT (Colour 6-7 EBC, 100% max)

Kilned slightly hotter than pale to give a fuller flavour & a luscious sweetness to milds. Cheaper than pale malt & greater diastatic action which helps with the higher quantities of adjuncts used in mild ales, it also has a fuller flavour but with a higher nitrogen content, it increases the risk of protein haze.

MUNICH MALT (LIGHT) (Colour 13-20 EBC 100% max, usually <80%)

A dark lager malt often used to brew the rich, sweet beers associated with Munich. It can also be used in small quantities to enhance the maltiness of other beer styles. Munich Malt is kilned while the moisture content is still quite high (about 20%) & gradual raising the temperature to around 100°C gives some degree of formalisation.

MUNICH MALT (DARK) (Colour 25-30 EBC, 85% max).

Produced in exactly the same manner as the light version but kilned to about 118°C, the main ingredient in Munich “Dunkel” beers.

OATS (Colour 2 EBC)

Adds a silky texture. Used in oatmeal stouts & has a high fat, oil, & protein content.

PALE MALT (Colour 5 EBC, 100% max)

The basis of most British ales, giving them the most “gravity”, also used in many Belgian ales. Maris Otter is considered the best barley followed by Halcyon & Pipkin. British pale malt is kilned dry between 95-105°C.

PILSNER MALT (Colour 2.5 EBC, 100% max) See LAGER MALT.

Largely made from German & Czech barleys, it can be used on its own or combined with other grains to produce the classic Continental lagers. The malt is kilned slowly from 50-67°C to completely dry it before toasting at 80°C.

RAUCHMALZ (Smoked Malt) (Colour 8-12 EBC, 100% max)

This is only produced in Bamberg, Germany where it is used to make Rauchbiers. Kilning takes place over open beech wood fires, phenols released from the wood permeate the malt, giving it a smoky taste & aroma. Can be used in brown ales & porters that were traditionally brewed with brown malt, once also kilned over open fires.

RICE(10% max)

A good substitute for sugar (& is cheaper?). It is virtually flavourless but provides some body without darkening the colour & is low in nitrogen. A very popular commercial adjunct in the USA where it is used in lightly coloured beers, mostly lagers.

ROASTED BARLEY (Colour 1000-1500 EBC, 10% max but may be more in stouts)

An un-malted barley, roasted until black. It gives colour, a dry burnt flavour & a good thick (Guinness-like) head to stouts as it is rich in beta glucans & other head enhancing components. Does not need to be mashed, used in the mash tun for convenience but can be used in the copper. It can give “complexity” to beers.

RYE MALT (ROASTED) (Colour 800 EBC, 3% max)

A difficult grain to malt, it has a unique flavour &is used in conjunction with wheat malt to make Bavarian “Roggenbier” (Roggen means rye), may also be used to increase complexity in top fermenting beers.

SCOTCH WHISKY MALT (Colour 2.5 EBC)

SPECIAL B MALT (Colour 250-300 EBC, 10% max)

The darkest of the Belgian crystal malts, it gives heavy caramel flavours often found in some of the darker Abbey/Trappist Ales.

SPELT

An ancestor of wheat grown mostly in Europe. Once demoted to animal fodder, the nutritious & nutty flavoured grain is now finding finding favour with health food lovers & of course beer lovers.

SRM – See COLOUR.

SUGAR

Often used as a cheap substitute for malt sugars in beer, it tends to give a thin flavour (especially ordinary household sugar - said to cause bad heads the next day). The max amount which can be used is generally quoted as up to 30% of the total ingredient content, generally the less the better but it can “lighten” “heavier” brews.

High sugar content beers have a low Final Gravity.

850g cane sugar is equivalent to 1Kg Invert sugar. Golden Syrup (treacle) is an expensive invert sugar.

SYRUPS:- Barley & maize (corn, glucose, maltose, dextrose & liquid brewing sugar) syrups are poor, cheap substitutes for malt, made using industrial enzymes (!), although maize syrups can be used in small quantities for flavour (but not in 1.5 & 1.8K beer kits). Another use can be to replace sugar in the aforementioned kits to add extra body but nothing else.

TORRIFIED CEREALS can be substituted for FLAKED cereals

TORRIFIED WHEAT (10% max)

Like an exploded Puffed Wheat, this is available whole & flaked & is used to aid head retention.

TREACLE commonly comes as a “golden syrup” in the form of a partially inverted syrup around 77.5% sugar.

UN-MALTED GRAINS (Rice etc.)

Best used in flaked form, produced by cooking the raw grains in water to gelatinise the starches & then dried & flattened, this process makes it easier for the starch to be converted by the malts’ enzymes.

VIENNA MALT (Colour 6-9 EBC, 100% max)

The basis of the German golden, full malty Marzen/Oktoberfest type beers. As formalisation is not required it is dried whilst fairly cool & then roasted at around 105°C. Can be considered as the Euro equivalent of our pale malt but with a higher nitrogen content.

WHEAT FLOUR

Used to give a good retentive head, nothing else, being replaced by torrified wheat.

WHEAT MALT (Colour 3-4 EBC, 70% max)

Wheat is difficult to malt as it has no husk protecting the delicate acrospire, it does, however, possess many benefits to brewers to make the process worthwhile. It is mostly used in top fermented beers, especially the Bavarian Weiss biers, but can be used to enhance flavour & head formation to most styles.

WHEAT MALT (DARK) (Colour 15-17 EBC, 70% max)

Only produced in Germany, it is richer in flavour than normal wheat malt & is largely used for Weiss biers, Kolsch, Alt & other top fermented beers.

WHEAT MALT (CARAMEL) (Colour 100-120 EBC, 15% max)

A rare Bavaria malt that can be used in all German style top fermenting beers to give body & aroma.

WHEAT MALT (ROASTED) (Colour 1000 EBC, 2% max)

Roasted to a very high colour & used in top fermented ales such as Alt & dark wheat beers to enhance aroma & give colour.

TYPICAL SUGAR CONTENTS OF SOME BREWING MATERIALS

Note all figures are approximate & can vary from batch to batch & also change with time as moisture levels increase.

TABLE NOTES

Colours are for a 10% soln. i.e., 1Kg solid in 10 litre water.

# Does not need to be mashed, used in the mash tun for convenience but can be used in the copper.

* The figures show the theoretical & the expected extraction, allowing for a mash efficiency of 75%, a reasonable figure for the home brewer, weaker beers are more “efficient”.

** These adjuncts need to be mashed with pale/lager/mild ale malts or diastatic malt extract.

GRAVITY CALCULATIONS

ORIGINAL GRAVITY

(O.G. or OG) = wt (Kg) x °Extraction / Vol brewed

So, if a 23l brew contained say 0.2Kg of chocolate malt then the gravity contributed by it would be:-

S.G. = 0.2 (Kg) x 201 (°extraction) / 23 (litres) = 1.75° or 1001.75

O.G. = wt (Kg) x °Extraction / Vol brewed (litres)

EXAMPLE 1

Consider a beer with an original volume of 23l consisting of 1.5Kg malt extract, 0.5Kg crystal malt & 0.8Kg sugar,

Again OG = wt (Kg) x °Extraction / Vol brewed

So the gravity from 1.5Kg malt extract = 1.5 x 310 / 23 = 20.2°

Gravity from 0.5Kg crystal malt = 0.5 x 201 / 23 = 4.3°

Gravity from 0.8Kg sugar = 0.8 x 375 / 23 = 13°

We could therefore expect our beer to have an O.G. of (20.2+4.3+13) = 37.5° or 1037.5 (what it would taste like I’ve no idea).

EXAMPLE 2

If we used 5Kg pale malt & 800g sugar, an initial volume of 25 litres& a brewing efficiency of 65% then:

Again OG = wt (Kg) x °Extraction / Vol brewed

For the 800g of sugar OG = 0.8 (Kg) x (375˚ x 100%) / 25 = 12˚

= 12 (I think we can drop the “degrees” now)

For the malt the extraction will now be 65% of the theoretical yield of 300˚

So OG = 5 (Kg) x (300 x 65%) / 25 = 39 (65% is 0.65 in the calc's.)

Thus giving a total OG of 12 + 39 = 51 or 1051

FINAL GRAVITY

F.G. or FG calculations are very inaccurate owing to the many variables involved.

Final Gravity (F.G. or FG) = OG – Attenuation (or gravity drop)

For simple sugars the attenuation is the same as the OG as they are 100% fermentable, so this is a good place to start

In this case The sugar attenuation = OG = 12

For the 5Kg of malt the attenuation calculation isn’t so easy!

Malt attenuation = (Malt OG x “% Fermentability”) / Yeast efficiency

From the above table the “% fermentability” for pale malt is 62 or 0.62, yeast efficiencies typically range from 66-68%. I will assume a figure of 75% or 0.75 so now

Malt attenuation = (39 x 0.62) / 0.75 = 32 to the nearest whole number.

Adding the sugar & malt attenuations gives us 12 + 32 = 44 total attenuation

Therefore our FG = OG – Attenuation = 51 - 44 = 7 or 1007

ALCOHOL CALCULATIONS

% ABV = (OG – FG) / 7.45 (Approx.)

The denominator is very approximate, you will see several values but, like my 7.45, they are only correct for one “specific” (no pun intended) OG.

For our beer alcohol content = (OG – FG) / 7.45

= (1051 - 1007) /7.45 OR (51 - 7) /7.45

= 5.9% ABV approx.

Approximate values can easily be calculated using this simple “rough & ready” method for BEERS ONLY:-

Just take a beers’ OG in degrees & divide by 10, that’s it!

In the case of our beer, the calculated OG is 1051 or 51˚

Calculated alcoholic strength = OG˚ / 10 = 51/ 10 or 5.1% ABV

I have added a little refinement to this “rule of thumb” because adding sugar to a recipe brings in extra errors.

If a beer wort consists of 10% sugar by weight then an extra 10% should be added to this rough estimate.

In our case the cane sugar content is 13% so now our

Amended calculated alcoholic strength = OG + 13% OG = 5.1 + 0.66

= 5.8% ABV say.

All these calculations ignore the effect of any priming sugars, they can typically add 0.2% or more to the ABV.

MALTS

Extraction
°/Kg/l*

Colour EBC
(10% soln.)

%
Fermentability

Notes.

Lager malt

300/225

2.5-3

Pale malt

300/225

Mild ale malt

293/219

40365

Amber malt

280/210

90-110

Colour, biscuit flavour

Brown malt

280/210

140-160

Colour, biscuit flavour

Roast barley #

270/202

1000-1500

Thick (Guinness) head, colour, flavour

Crystal Malt #

268/201

100-300

Nutty flavour, body, colour, sweetness.

Carapils #

268/201

Chocolate Malt #

268/201

900-1200

Colour, flavour

Black malt #

265/200

1250-1550

Colour, flavour

ADJUNCTS**

Extraction
°/Kg/l*

Colour EBC
(10% soln.)

%
Fermentability

Notes.

Wheat malt/Malted wheat

279/209

3.5

Flavour, head retention

Flaked maize

313/234

Flavour

Flaked rice

310/232

Flavour

Flaked wheat

279/209

Flavour, head retention

Torrified wheat

273/204

Flavour

Flaked/Torrified barley/oats

253/189

Flavour, head retention

Wheat flakes

173/130

Flavour

Wheat flour

304/228

Flavour, head retention

(Colours not really important as very small quantities are generally used.)

EXTRACT, SUGARS &
SYRUPS

Extraction
°/Kg/l*

Colour EBC
(10% soln.)

%
Fermentability

Notes.

White sugar

375

100

Brown sugar

370

100

Invert sugar

319

100

MALT EXTRACT (WET)

310

10 (light)

Available in a range of colours, some hopped.

MALT EXTRACT (DRY)

365

9 (light)

Available in a range of colours, some hopped.

Glucose (maize) syrup

300

Maltose (maize) syrup

300

Barley syrup

279

Dextrose Monohydrate

319

Malto-dextrin

319