German Brewing

Their uses have been widely debated for adding body and stabilizing foam. Do you use chit, spitz, carapils, carafoam in your helles? If so, which do you prefer?

You can use any, depending on what you are going for. I suggest you start off with the "Daddy N" baseline and tweak from there. There are too many variables at play to give a straight answer. There is no magic malt bullet.

My current helles recipe, has no dextrine malt.


P.S. You waste your time with those hacks over there.

I understand what you are saying, but after 30 views went without a response here, I figured it couldn't hurt to try. Carahell it is...

Sorry, sometimes I have to work!

Carapils seems to be a very general use term, and it's properties are maltster specific. Some are glassy, caramel malts, some are nearly identical to chit malt. Some are highly modified, some are undermodified. Some are dextrin rich, some are mostly caramel sugars. Some have diastatic power, some have none. Each (theoretically) should have its own flavor and impact on the helles profile.

Well, Briess has the registered trademark on "Carapils".
So, I guess I don't technically use carapils, ever.

Undermodifed, greener malt is what you want.
Basically, stay away from the crystal malt trash, for this type of modification.

Agreed

Is there a formula for determining Kolbach if you mix chit with base malt?

Kolbach (grain 1) * % grist (decimal) + kolbach (grain 2) * % grist (decimal). For example, Pilsner kolbach of 41 @90%, chit kolbach of 32 @ 10%, (41*.9 + 32*.1)=40.1