amber malt? treating alkalinity?

[grubac]

Hey Guys

two quick questions here:

1. I'm thinking about making a brown ale and the recipe calls for 0.9 kg of amber malt. Now, I've checked my inventory and I've got 5 kg of CARA - amber. Would this CARA amber do the trick, or is recipe calling for a different amber malt?

2. I'm currently in the process of getting the chemical analysis of the water I use for my beer. It being, that I'm going to make a porter this weekend, I would like to treat the water a little, to make it more suitable for a porter. What I'm wondering is, if there are any easy-to-get products in the local supermarket, which I can use to increase or decrease the water's alkalinity, without having to go to the closest brewshop (which isn't actually that "close")?

Any help or pointers would be much appreciated.

Grubac

[mysterio]

1) No not really, Amber is a toasted malt, cara-amber is a type of crystal malt... they are not really interchangeable. If you have some uncrushed maris otter, you could make your own amber in the oven quite easily.

2) Chalk (Calcium Carbonate) is what is normally used, as for the supermarket, just choose a cheap mineral water with carbonates in the 200s or 300s and dilute your own water with it accordingly (cheers to Chris for that idea).

[steve_flack]

1. They're different. One is a caramel malt and the other is a roasted malt so they have different flavours.
2. The main things in water treatment are to remove chlorine, to correct alkalinity and to have enough calcium. I'm not sure you need the things you'd need to do that in the supermarket - other than some water to cut your own (hard water if you have soft and vice versa))