leases enzymes that convert starches into sugar. Normally the malt is dried out before the enzymes finish converting the starches so that they can do that work later, in the mash. Caramel malt is allowed to saccharify, or convert into sugar. Once that happens it is then kilned to a light, medium, or dark color. This caramelizes those sugars, which not only changes the flavor but makes those sugars unfermentable: the yeast won’ t eat it. Now why would we want unfermentable sugars in our beer? Isn’ t the whole reason for making beer so that the yeast eats sugar and turns it into alcohol? Well, yes, but if all the sugars in beer were to be converted into alcohol, there wouldn’ t be very much flavor or body. All malt gives different percentages of fermentable and non-fermentable sugars. Pale malts provide the highest percentage of fermentable sugars. This is why lighter-colored beers tend to be lighter bodied and more refreshing and darker beers have fuller bodies and are more filling.
Caramel malt is relatively new by brewing standards. It was an answer to one of the problems of modern malting. Early malt required several mash steps. To raise the temperature, brewers boiled part of the mash and then added it back. This process, called decoction, caramelized the sugars, creating depth of flavor and body. In the mid 19th century, new kilning techniques revolutionized malting. The beers made from this new malt were marvels of science and ingenuity, but they lacked the complex sweetness and body that came from those unfermentable sugars. Maltsters crafted caramel malts to put these flavors back into the beer without having to use the old decoction method. These specialty malts were also able to produce a more consistent product with more varieties of flavor.
After prohibition, adjunct lagers, beers made with rice and corn, became the mainstays of American brewing. The malt required to make these beers was designed to be very light in flavor and when the craft beer movement started, it was the only American pale malt available. It definitely needed some help, so early craft brewers relied heavily on caramel malt to give flavor and body to their beers. It doesn’ t take much, either. Only about 10 % of the grain bill of a standard American amber ale is caramel malt. A little goes a long way!
Most varieties of caramel malt differ primarily in how dark they’ re kilned. The Lovibond scale measures malt color from light to dark. Standard malt will go from. 5 at the lightest all the way to 600 at the
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