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Malts and grains: a brewer's guide

A reference guide to 15 brewing malts and grains, each with its colour, flavour and typical proportion of the grist.

Base malts and specialty malts

The grist of a beer starts from a base malt, a lightly kilned malt that keeps the enzymes to convert its own starch and usually much of the specialty malt too. Pale, pilsner and pale ale malts are the common base malts.

Specialty malts are added in smaller amounts for colour and flavour: kilned malts for bready and toasty depth, crystal malts for caramel and sweetness, and roasted malts for the chocolate, coffee and black colour of dark beers.

Reading a malt's colour

Malt colour is given in degrees Lovibond, or the metric EBC. A pale base malt is around 2 degrees Lovibond; a crystal malt might be 40 or 80; a roasted malt runs into the hundreds.

The colour is a rough guide to flavour intensity as well: darker malts bring stronger, more roasted flavours, which is why the darkest are used only in small amounts.

Adjuncts and sugars

Beyond malt, brewers use adjuncts such as flaked oats, maize and barley for body, head or a lighter finish, and sugars such as Belgian candi sugar to raise strength while keeping a beer dry.

Each has a job: oats for silkiness, maize for a crisp light body, candi sugar for a strong but dry Belgian ale. Used with judgement they extend what malt alone can do; used carelessly they thin a beer out or make it taste of the adjunct rather than the beer.

Building a grain bill

A recipe starts from the base malt, which supplies most of the fermentable sugar, then adds specialty malts in smaller amounts for the colour and flavour the style calls for. A pale ale might be almost all base malt with a touch of crystal; a stout adds roasted grains on top of the base.

The malt pages here give the colour, flavour and a typical proportion for each grain, which together are enough to sketch a grain bill for a style before you fine-tune it to taste.

Related

Sources: How to Brew (John Palmer)