Too Much CaraPils ??

Yesterday I brewed a recipe from Jamil's "Brewing the Classic Styles" book. It was the Janet's Brown Ale recipe. The recipe called for 1.25 Lbs of CaraPils Dextrinous Malt for a 5.5 gallon batch. I brew 11 gallon batches, and normally wouldn't use more that 1 pound for 11 gallons. I used 2 instead of 2.5. The wort had a thick foamy head on it! is this normal when using this much CaraPils? Am I going to have any problems with this beer once carbonated?

Thanks!

That does seem like a lot, but I'd trust Jamil and his recipes. None of them have done me wrong so far

that was my thinking exactly. the weird thing was, you know when your wort first starts to boil you get a lot of of foam that rises up, then after a couple minutes of boiling it goes away? well that happened, but then when the wort was re-circulating through my plate chiller and chilling down the foam came back! and lots of it. anyone experiace this before? I couldn't even read my hydrometer the wort had som much head on it. Weird.

It's just the lightest crystal malt, 2.5 lbs is not a ton of crystal in that batch size

AndMan3030 said:

Yesterday I brewed a recipe from Jamil's "Brewing the Classic Styles" book. It was the Janet's Brown Ale recipe. The recipe called for 1.25 Lbs of CaraPils Dextrinous Malt for a 5.5 gallon batch. I brew 11 gallon batches, and normally wouldn't use more that 1 pound for 11 gallons. I used 2 instead of 2.5. The wort had a thick foamy head on it! is this normal when using this much CaraPils? Am I going to have any problems with this beer once carbonated?

Thanks!

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I used 15% carapils based on a Helles recipe in the book Helles by Horst D. Dornbusch. I think it was something like 2 lbs. The beer had a unique flavor, not necessarily sweet, but you could readily attribute the flavor to the dextrin malt. It also had a very full body and an incredible head. At first I was a little taken aback, but the flavor grew on me and I really enjoyed it. It was a little bit more out there than the commercial Helles I've had, but that's probably because I only lagered it for two months. So the short of it is, no it's not too much, but you will definitely know it's there.

fizgig said:

It's just the lightest crystal malt, 2.5 lbs is not a ton of crystal in that batch size

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Is this true? I thought a Dextrin malt was different than the Crystal and Caramel specialty malts??

AndMan3030 said:

Is this true? I thought a Dextrin malt was different than the Crystal and Caramel specialty malts??

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Yes. Think of how crystal (not caramel) malts are made. Green grain stewed and kilned. That is where the dextrins come from. Like mashing on a micro scale. The difference is the color which is a function of time and temp. Crystal malts also contribute dextrins, but you get progressing color and flavor.

Caramel malts are made differently. They are less "glassy", so the flavor is different. I think the term is more "mealy". It has to do with the temp. You can only make crystal malts at very high temps. Caramel malts don't achieve these high temps.

They're all made the same way, different malt houses use slightly different processes, temperatures and leave more/less residual moisture, but they're basically the same.

fizgig said:

They're all made the same way, different malt houses use slightly different processes, temperatures and leave more/less residual moisture, but they're basically the same.

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There is a significant difference in process.

http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/Homebrewing/FAQs.htm#a

Read the response to question 1.

It's not really all that different.