Their uses have been widely debated for adding body and stabilizing foam. Do you use chit, spitz, carapils or carafoam in your helles? If so, which do you prefer?
I generally don’t use any of those, but I definitely plan on incorporating some. I plan to use some Carahell in my next helles, 5% I’m thinking. I usually do 90% pils, and 10% either Vienna or Munich I.
Just a comment, carafoam is Weyermann’s carapils in the rest of the world. They didn’t get the trademark for carapils in the USA, Briess did.
I have been using carafoam to keep it all German.
Spitz and Chit are essentially the same: undermodified malt. The malting process reduces the betaglucan content of the raw malt. I prefer to use very small quantities of flaked barley or flaked wheat to produce a similar effect (improving body and heading). It does take more of the wheat product to produce an equivalent betaglucan contribution of flaked barley. Be careful with flaked barley since I find it does have a raw grainy taste that can be objectionable in pale beers. (it pairs well with roasted grain flavors though 
)
By the way, where can a fella buy some chit malt? I see this Brew Brothers place has it, but are there any other places? A web search isn’t turning up a whole lot of results…
I get mine from Brew Brothers. Not a lot of sources for homebrewers.
That is where I ordered mine from as well.
lately, been using carahell with good results for added foam and body. anywhere from 2-5% depending on beer.
edit: 9% in my o’fest…lovely contribution.
Great. Thanks for the info fellas.
Best Malz
I only just started experimenting with chit malt, so I can’t answer the original question.
Currently, 8% chit in an amber lager is feeling like a bit much though…
I can get chit malt from Country Malts.
Country Malts doesn’t let me order from them, must be a pro brewer thing. And Best Malz doesn’t either. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough…
I might order some from Brew Brothers eventually, but shipping is insane! I don’t want to order 5lbs of chit malt and pay $15 for shipping. I don’t need much else for ingredients…guess I’m SOL for now.
Yeah I wasn’t happy with that either.
Can chit malt be used in a single infusion or does it have to be stepped if it is under-modified?
It is sprouted enough so that it meets the RHG. It is so under modified, it is almost an adjunct. Bottom of the page.
Cool. Thanks for that!
Great link, guess I need to actually read that book soon, as I bought it a while ago
With that said, my comment regarding the use of flaked barley becomes more salient. Why go to the trouble of sourcing chit malt when it is a less strong version (beta glucan wise) of raw barley? Flaked barley is a gelatanized version of raw barley.
I might have to revisit using a small amount of flaked barley in some of my Pilsners. When I started brewing Pilsners Jeff Renner gave me the advice that a small % of flaked would emulate Chit. Used that for a while, can’t really say why I stopped.