Carapils or Caramalt

[Davy6Mac]

Hi All
Think i may have ordered the wrong malt for a smash recipe, the recipe asked for Carapils malt, however i ordered Caramalt!!..schoolboy error.
Will this have a detrimental effect to the finished brew if i add it in the same quantity etc, it seems slightly darker than the Carapils, so I'm assuming the finished brew will be darker.
Any answers greatly appreciated.

 

[Brew_DD2]

A SMASH beer only has one type of malt in it. Are you saying you plan to use just Caramalt on its own?

 

[Sadfield]

Presumably, as pointed out, its not a Single Malt And Single Hop recipe, but contains a portion of carapils. A caramalt substitution won't make a big difference.

 

[peebee]

Cara as in "caramel". Both are exceptionally light coloured "crystal malts".

Carapils, the so-called "dextrin malt", is EBC2-3. Of doubtful value but many will disagree. It's malted by some sort of protected process such that it "converts" to dextrin that can't ferment or be converted further in the mash (something about the "bonds" that hold the terminal sugar molecules in place).

Caramalt was often called Carapils until the owners of the protected "Carapils" got fed up with this "confusion" and put a stop to it. You still see Caramalt called Carapils in old brewing books (like the Durden Park Beer Circle publications). No particularly special manufacturing process and EBC about 30. A much larger proportion of the dextrin in the malt can convert in the mash.

So different. But not wildly.

At least that's what I gleaned recently, brewing from the Durden Park Beer Circle publications, and noticing discrepancies it what it was saying.

 

[foxy]

Hi All
Think i may have ordered the wrong malt for a smash recipe, the recipe asked for Carapils malt, however i ordered Caramalt!!..schoolboy error.
Will this have a detrimental effect to the finished brew if i add it in the same quantity etc, it seems slightly darker than the Carapils, so I'm assuming the finished brew will be darker.
Any answers greatly appreciated.

https://www.brewingwithbriess.com/blog/understanding-carapils/

 

[Northern_Brewer]

the recipe asked for Carapils malt, however i ordered Caramalt!!..schoolboy error.

Carapils, the so-called "dextrin malt"

Carapils is one of those things that you have to be a bit careful with, as it refers to different products on different sides of the Atlantic.

In the beginning was Weyermann's Carapils , which is a very pale caramel malt akin to a chit malt, it's not a true crystal malt. The high proportion of dextrins means it gets used in eg quite a few NEIPAs to add body and head stability.

Weyermann trademarked Carapils in most of the world, but when it came to the US, they found that Briess had already grabbed the name, so in the US Weyermann have to call their product Carafoam.

But since so many recipes originate in the US, by "Carapils" they mean the Briess product, which is 100% glassy, making it a true crystal malt whereas the Weyermann product isn't.

Whilst most Cara... products are Weyermann trademarks, Caramalt is a generic term used by British maltsters for a light crystal malt. So it's more similar to the Briess product than the Weyermann one, and tends to be a bit darker than either, around 30EBC versus 3-6EBC.

It'll be fine, although I might knock down the quantity a bit if you still have that option. RDWHAHB.