In this recipe:Alaskan Smoked Porter Clone - Beer Recipe - American Homebrewers Association
Would you choose crystal 60, 80, or even higher for the specified medium dark crystal?
Personally, I’d go with 60L. It’ll work fine.
+1 - I generally think of Dark crystal in the 80L range and Extra Dark in the 120L range. I’ve never really heard of crystal referred to as “Medium dark”, but I think something in the 60L range sounds reasonable.
I agree. Medium crystal is 55L and dark is 77, so medium dark would be 66?
Thanks for the replies. I’ll give the 60L a try then.
Medium dark crystal has always meant 40L crystal to me.
For my tastes, I’d say that means a 50-60L UK crystal as opposed to domestic. But that’s just me.
Is using the descriptors" medium" “dark” etc rather than lovibond typical for English malts?
It’s pretty common for most maltsters over there. Medium is usually 60-ish, dark more like 80, and there’s a darker one that’s more 120-ish. Just have to read the fine print, because the maltsters aren’t all on the same page with the name and lovibond rating combo.
+1, that’s how I read it. A lot of great flavor and IMO not as sweet as 60L.
I saw a list of malts the other day, one of them was “Scottish Crystal”. I’ve never seen that before. Has anyone ever seen “Scottish Crystal” before? Or is that just a one off nickname someone on the interweb invented? If I recall, it was in a list of UK grains and I think it was 80L
Most of Bairds’ operations are in Scotland, and their dark crystal is 70-80L. Just a guess.
http://www.bairds-malt.co.uk/Bairds-Malt/About/our-locations
I dug it back up. Its from an HBD info page way back in 1994. " Scottish Crystal - (Caramel Malt) 90 LWill lend a deep amber to red color and a full bodied, toasted/caramel like flavor to the finest Scottish and European ales."
Probably the term just never caught on…