A Guide to Choosing Brewing Malts

The short answer: build a grain bill in layers. A base malt (pilsner, pale, Maris Otter, or Vienna, Munich and wheat malt) gives most of the fermentable sugar and the enzymes to convert the mash, usually 70 to 100% of the grain. Specialty malts add colour, flavour and body, usually 5 to 20%. Roasted malts add colour and roast to dark beers, from 1% up to about 15% in a stout. Crystal and roasted malts have no enzymes, so they rely on the base malt.

Type	Examples	Typical share	What it adds
Pale base malt	Pilsner, 2-row pale, pale ale, Maris Otter	Up to 100%	Fermentable sugar and enzymes
Vienna and Munich	Vienna, light Munich	5–100%	Bready, toasty malt depth; enough enzymes to be the whole grist
Wheat malt	Pale wheat malt	5–70%	Body, foam, a soft bready flavour
Crystal / caramel	Crystal 10–120, Caramunich, Special B	3–15%	Sweetness, body, colour
Toasted	Biscuit, Victory, aromatic, melanoidin	2–15%	Biscuit, toast, bread crust
Roasted	Chocolate, black malt, roasted barley	1–15%	Roast, coffee, colour
Flaked adjuncts	Oats, flaked barley, corn, rice	5–20%	Body and foam (oats, barley) or a lighter body (corn, rice)

How to build a grain bill

1. Start with the style. Look up its gravity and colour range in the BJCP guidelines, or start from a proven recipe.
2. Pick the base malt. It’s most of the beer, so its flavour matters most. Pilsner malt for lagers, Kölsch and Belgian ales; North American 2-row for clean, hop-forward ales; Maris Otter or pale ale malt for British styles; wheat malt for wheat beers.
3. Add one or two specialty malts for the character you want: Munich for maltiness, a little crystal for caramel and body, biscuit for toast.
4. Add roasted malt only for colour and roast. For colour with little roast flavour, use a dehusked black malt.
5. Use adjuncts for texture. Oats or flaked barley for body and foam; flaked corn or rice for a lighter, crisper beer.
6. Check the numbers in your brewing software: original gravity, colour and the total share of specialty malt. Most good recipes use two to five malts. More than that usually muddies the flavour.

Base malts compared

Malt	Colour (°L)	Flavour	Use it for
Pilsner	1.5–2	Light, grainy, slightly sweet	Pilsner, helles, Kölsch, Belgian ales. Give it a strong, rolling boil to drive off DMS (cooked-corn flavour).
2-row pale	About 2	Clean and neutral	American pale ales and IPAs, where the hops lead
Pale ale / Maris Otter	2.5–3.5	Richer, biscuity	Bitters, ESB, porters, stouts
Vienna	3–4	Light toast	Vienna lager, Märzen; adds depth to pale beers
Munich	6–10	Bready, malty	Dunkel, bock, Märzen; 5–15% in amber ales
Wheat malt	About 2	Soft, bready	Hefeweizen and American wheat. It has no husk, so add rice hulls when it’s a large share.

Specialty malts: what they taste like

• Crystal 10–20: honey and light caramel, body with little colour.
• Crystal 40–60: caramel and toffee. The classic choice for pale ales, ambers and reds.
• Crystal 80–120 and Special B: burnt sugar, raisin and dark fruit.
• Carapils / dextrin malt: body and foam, with almost no colour or flavour.
• Biscuit, Victory, aromatic and melanoidin: toast, bread crust, a richer malt flavour. They still contain starch, so mash them with a base malt.
• Acidulated malt: lowers mash pH, by about 0.1 for every 1% of the grist. See mash pH.

Crystal malt is where recipes most often go wrong. Past about 15% of the grist, the beer tends to taste sweet and heavy. For the dark end, from chocolate to roasted barley, see how roasted malts change beer flavour.

Example grain bills from our recipes

Beer	Grain bill (rounded)
German pils	95% pilsner, 3% Carapils, 2% acidulated
American pale ale	88% 2-row, 7% Crystal 40, 5% Carapils
Hefeweizen	56% wheat malt, 41% pilsner, 3% rice hulls
Märzen	49% Munich, 37% Vienna, 12% pilsner, 2% Caramunich
Irish red ale	90% Maris Otter, 6% Crystal 60, 3% Crystal 120, 1% roasted barley
Hazy IPA	71% pilsner, 11% flaked oats, 11% wheat malt, 4% Carapils, 4% rice hulls
Dry stout	74% Maris Otter, 13% flaked barley, 11% roasted barley, 3% chocolate

Notice the pattern: one base malt doing most of the work, and small, deliberate additions. The Irish red gets its red tint and dry finish from just 1% roasted barley. All 61 of our all-grain recipes scale from 5 to 30 gal, and the Brew Day Planner works out water volumes and strike temperature for Bräu Supply systems.

Buying, crushing and storing malt

• Whole malt keeps for many months, often a year, in a cool, dry, sealed container. Buckets with tight lids also keep pests out.
• Crushed malt goes stale faster. Use it within a few weeks.
• Check it before you brew. Good malt is crunchy and tastes sweet and grainy. Malt that’s chewy or tastes flat has picked up moisture.
• Crush for your system. For a recirculating system, a roller gap of about 0.040–0.045" (1.0–1.15 mm) works: husks mostly whole, kernels cracked into a few pieces. More on crush in improving mash efficiency.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between 2-row and 6-row malt?

Six-row barley has more protein, more enzymes and more husk. It’s used for mass-market lagers brewed with a lot of corn or rice. Two-row gives a little more extract and a cleaner flavour, and it’s what homebrew recipes almost always mean.

Can I swap one base malt for another?

Yes. 2-row, pilsner and pale ale malt give similar gravity, so the recipe still works. The flavour changes: pilsner is grainier, Maris Otter richer and more biscuity.

Do specialty malts need to be mashed?

Crystal and roasted malts don’t: steep them in hot water and you get their colour and flavour, with little starch left to convert. Munich, Vienna and toasted malts like biscuit do. They still contain starch and need the enzymes in the mash.

What does °L mean?

Degrees Lovibond, the colour scale for malt. Higher is darker: pilsner malt is about 1.5–2°L, black malt over 500°L. Beer colour is given in SRM (about the same scale) or EBC (roughly double SRM).

Related guides

How malt is made: the malting process. On brew day: the mash temperature chart, step mashing and water chemistry.