Malt & Grain Calculators

The UK is home to some of the world's finest maltsters — Crisp, Simpsons, Muntons and Thomas Fawcett have been producing premium base malts and specialty grains for generations. Maris Otter, a traditional two-row winter barley variety, remains the backbone of British brewing and is prized for its rich, biscuity character that shines in bitters, milds and porters. The grain bill calculator helps you work out exactly how much base malt and specialty grain you need for your target OG, while the base malt calculator focuses specifically on getting your Maris Otter or Pale Ale malt quantity right for your batch size and mash efficiency.

Specialty malts add colour, flavour and body. Crystal malts (ranging from light Crystal 40 to dark Crystal 400 EBC) contribute caramel sweetness, while roasted barley and chocolate malt give stouts and porters their characteristic depth. Use the colour calculator to predict your beer's colour in EBC or SRM from the grain bill — essential when targeting style guidelines for homebrew competitions. The specialty malt calculator helps you balance these additions as a percentage of the total grist, typically keeping specialty malts under 15-20% to avoid harsh or cloying flavours.

For extract brewers looking to move to all-grain, or all-grain brewers wanting to simplify a recipe, the extract substitution calculator converts between grain and malt extract equivalents. The mash efficiency calculator tracks how well your system converts grain starches to fermentable sugars — most UK homebrewers achieve 65-75% brewhouse efficiency. Understanding grain absorption is also important for water planning; the grain absorption calculator estimates how much liquor your grain bed will retain, typically around 0.8 litres per kilogram. Finally, the grain mill gap calculator helps you set the right crush for maximum efficiency without a stuck mash.