Malts
Two numbers, and a ceiling nobody prints.
Colour in degrees Lovibond and potential extract in PPG are the two figures every recipe calculation needs, and both are on the sack. The third column here is the one that is not: the share of the grist above which a malt stops helping. Some of those are taste and some are chemistry, and each entry says which.
These are the same figures the recipes compute from. A recipe names a malt and reads its colour and extract from this table rather than restating them, so correcting a value here corrects every recipe on the site at once.
Reading the colour swatch
The chip beside each malt is that malt’s Lovibond figure rendered on the beer colour scale, which is a convention rather than a prediction: 500 Lovibond roasted barley and 350 Lovibond chocolate malt both come out black, and neither makes a black beer on its own. What the finished beer will look like depends on how much you use and how much wort it is diluted into, which is what the colour calculator is for.
Base malt
7 entries
Pale, enzyme-rich, and the bulk of every grist. These are the only malts that can convert themselves, so a recipe needs enough of them to convert everything else as well.
| Malt | Lovibond | EBC | Extract | Up to | Enzyme |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pale two-row malt Clean, lightly grainy and faintly sweet. The default American base malt and a neutral platform for anything else. | 2 | 4 | 37 ppg | 100% | Self-converting |
| Maris Otter Rich, biscuity and noticeably fuller than generic pale malt. A 1966 variety kept in production because brewers refused to give it up. | 3 | 6 | 37 ppg | 100% | Self-converting |
| Pilsner malt The palest base malt, kilned gently to keep a delicate honey-and-cracker character. High in the precursor that becomes DMS. | 1.8 | 4 | 37 ppg | 100% | Self-converting |
| Golden Promise The Scottish counterpart to Maris Otter: slightly cleaner and sweeter, with less of the biscuit and more of the honey. | 2.5 | 5 | 37 ppg | 100% | Self-converting |
| Six-row malt Huskier and more astringent than two-row, with less extract and far more enzyme power. Historically the American brewing barley. | 2 | 4 | 35 ppg | 100% | Self-converting |
| Wheat malt Bready and slightly tart, with high protein that builds head retention and a permanent haze. | 2 | 4 | 37 ppg | 70% | Self-converting |
| Rye malt Dry, peppery and distinctly spicy, with a slick, oily body that no other grain gives. | 3.5 | 7 | 36 ppg | 30% | Self-converting |
Kilned malt
10 entries
Base malts taken further in the kiln. Colour and flavour without any roast bitterness, and most still carry enough enzyme to be used in quantity.
| Malt | Lovibond | EBC | Extract | Up to | Enzyme |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vienna malt Light toast and a golden colour, still clean enough to build an entire beer on. | 3.5 | 7 | 36 ppg | 100% | Self-converting |
| Munich malt Bread crust and malty sweetness without caramel. The single most useful malt for making a beer taste like it has more malt in it. | 10 | 20 | 35 ppg | 100% | Self-converting |
| Dark Munich malt Deeper bread crust with a light toffee edge, moving toward toast without reaching roast. | 20 | 39 | 34 ppg | 60% | Self-converting |
| Melanoidin malt Concentrated malty intensity and a red-amber colour, produced to imitate the effect of a decoction mash. | 30 | 59 | 33 ppg | 10% | Needs base malt |
| Biscuit malt Toasted bread and digestive biscuit, dry rather than sweet. | 25 | 49 | 35 ppg | 10% | Needs base malt |
| Victory malt Nutty and toasty, close to biscuit malt with a little more sweetness underneath. | 28 | 55 | 34 ppg | 15% | Needs base malt |
| Aromatic malt An intense malt aroma, more perfumed than Munich, from a very high-kilned Belgian malt. | 20 | 39 | 35 ppg | 10% | Needs base malt |
| Amber malt Dry, toasted, faintly bitter biscuit. A historical English malt that survives mostly in porter recipes. | 35 | 69 | 33 ppg | 15% | Needs base malt |
| Brown malt Dry, roasty and coffee-adjacent without the acridity of black malt. The historical heart of English porter. | 65 | 128 | 32 ppg | 10% | Needs base malt |
| Beechwood smoked malt Bacon and campfire over an otherwise pale malt base. Bamberg maltsters kiln it over beech logs. | 3 | 6 | 37 ppg | 100% | Self-converting |
Crystal and caramel
8 entries
Stewed wet in the husk before kilning, so the starch converts to sugar in the grain and then caramelises. Adds colour, sweetness and unfermentable body, and has no enzymes at all.
| Malt | Lovibond | EBC | Extract | Up to | Enzyme |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carapils Almost no colour and no flavour, but a large dose of unfermentable dextrin that thickens the body and holds the head. | 1.5 | 3 | 33 ppg | 10% | Needs base malt |
| Crystal 20L Light honey and a touch of sweetness, with barely any colour shift. | 20 | 39 | 34 ppg | 15% | Needs base malt |
| Crystal 40L The standard caramel malt: toffee, light raisin, and the amber colour most pale ales get their tint from. | 40 | 79 | 34 ppg | 15% | Needs base malt |
| Crystal 60L Darker caramel with a raisin edge, and the classic English bitter colour. | 60 | 118 | 34 ppg | 15% | Needs base malt |
| Crystal 120L Burnt sugar, prune and raisin, verging on a light roast character. | 120 | 236 | 33 ppg | 10% | Needs base malt |
| Special B Belgian, and unlike anything else: dark raisin, plum and a faint burnt-toffee bitterness. | 180 | 355 | 31 ppg | 8% | Needs base malt |
| Caramunich A German caramel malt with more bread and less toffee than an English crystal, and a redder colour. | 60 | 118 | 34 ppg | 15% | Needs base malt |
| CaraRed Light caramel with a distinctly red hue, giving colour disproportionate to its Lovibond figure. | 20 | 39 | 34 ppg | 15% | Needs base malt |
Roasted
6 entries
Taken to coffee-roast temperatures. Enormous colour per kilogram and enormous flavour, so these are measured in grams rather than kilograms.
| Malt | Lovibond | EBC | Extract | Up to | Enzyme |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chocolate malt Cocoa and light coffee, roasted but not sharp. Much smoother than roasted barley at the same colour. | 350 | 690 | 28 ppg | 10% | Needs base malt |
| Pale chocolate malt Milk chocolate and biscuit, the gentle end of the roasted family. | 200 | 394 | 30 ppg | 10% | Needs base malt |
| Roasted barley Sharp espresso and a dry, almost astringent bite. Unmalted, and the defining flavour of Irish stout. | 500 | 985 | 25 ppg | 10% | Needs base malt |
| Black malt Colour more than flavour, with a hard, ashy edge if overused. | 500 | 985 | 25 ppg | 8% | Needs base malt |
| Carafa Special Dehusked before roasting, so it gives the colour and cocoa of a dark malt with almost none of the astringency. | 400 | 788 | 27 ppg | 10% | Needs base malt |
| Midnight wheat Enormous colour with a remarkably smooth, low-astringency flavour. The American answer to Carafa. | 550 | 1084 | 25 ppg | 8% | Needs base malt |
Adjunct and unmalted
8 entries
Grains and flakes that bring starch, protein or texture but no enzyme. They need a base malt to convert them, and several will not run off without help.
| Malt | Lovibond | EBC | Extract | Up to | Enzyme |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flaked oats A silky, almost oily mouthfeel that no crystal malt reproduces, plus a soft, creamy haze. | 1 | 2 | 33 ppg | 20% | Needs base malt |
| Flaked barley Grainy and full, with high protein that builds the dense, tight head an Irish stout is judged on. | 2 | 4 | 32 ppg | 20% | Needs base malt |
| Flaked wheat Unmalted and starchy, giving the pale, dense haze and soft body of a witbier. | 2 | 4 | 35 ppg | 40% | Needs base malt |
| Flaked maize Light, grainy sweetness that thins the body without thinning the alcohol. | 1 | 2 | 37 ppg | 40% | Needs base malt |
| Flaked rice Even more neutral than maize: it dilutes malt character almost without adding one of its own. | 1 | 2 | 38 ppg | 40% | Needs base malt |
| Torrified wheat Puffed unmalted wheat, contributing protein for head retention and very little flavour. | 2 | 4 | 36 ppg | 15% | Needs base malt |
| Acidulated malt Malt soured with lactic acid, used to drop mash pH rather than for flavour. | 3 | 6 | 33 ppg | 5% | Needs base malt |
| Rice hulls No colour, no sugar and no flavour. Pure husk, added to keep a huskless grist from compacting. | 0 | 0 | none | 5% | Needs base malt |
Sugar
6 entries
Fully fermentable, so it raises alcohol and thins the body at the same time. The traditional fix for a strong beer that would otherwise finish sweet.
| Malt | Lovibond | EBC | Extract | Up to | Enzyme |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dextrose Corn sugar. Ferments out completely, leaving alcohol and nothing else. | 0 | 0 | 46 ppg | 20% | Needs base malt |
| Table sugar Sucrose. Functionally the same as dextrose once yeast has inverted it, and cheaper everywhere. | 0 | 0 | 45 ppg | 20% | Needs base malt |
| Dark candi syrup Raisin, fig and dark caramel with none of the cloying sweetness of crystal malt, because it ferments out. | 180 | 355 | 32 ppg | 15% | Needs base malt |
| Lactose Milk sugar, which brewing yeast cannot ferment at all, so every gram stays as sweetness and body. | 0 | 0 | 35 ppg | 10% | Needs base malt |
| Honey Ferments almost completely, so it adds alcohol and dryness and takes most of its own aroma with it. | 2 | 4 | 35 ppg | 20% | Needs base malt |
| Maple syrup Ferments dry like any sugar, leaving a faint woody note rather than the maple flavour people expect. | 35 | 69 | 30 ppg | 15% | Needs base malt |
45 entries. Figures are typical published values and vary between maltsters by a point or two of extract and several degrees of colour; the analysis sheet for the sack in front of you always wins.