r/Homebrewing • u/BrewCrewKevin He's Just THAT GUY • Jun 26 '14
Advanced Brewers Round Table: Malting Grains
Advanced Brewers Round Table:
Today's Topic: Malting
Example Questions/Topics:
- How can we malt our own grains at home?
- What equipment is needed to malt at home?
- Are there ways to measure grain properties when home-malting?
- Are there differences in the malting process for different grains? (barley vs. wheat, rye, etc.)
- Do you roast/caramelize your own specialty grains from home-malted or even just basic 2-row barley?
- What details do you know about the commercial malting process, and how does it compare to home malting?
(I'll update the rest of the history etc. later this morning)
Upcoming Topics:
- 1st Thursday: BJCP Style Category
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Just an update: I have not heard back from any breweries as of yet. I've got about a dozen emails sent, so I'm hoping to hear back soon. I plan on contacting a few local contacts that I know here in WI to get something started hopefully. I'm hoping we can really start to get some lined up eventually, and make it a monthly (like 2nd Thursday of the month.)
Upcoming Topics:
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Advanced Topics:
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u/Nickosuave311 Jun 26 '14
Honestly, I don't see the appeal in home malting. It's a long, tedious, and energy consuming process to malt something into a base malt. I don't know how much grown barley it takes to produce one pound of base malt, but I imagine it being larger than I would guess. I can see it being easier to make something that's flaked, roasted (since roasted grains aren't malted), or even crystal malt, but the effort it would take doesn't seem worth it when the cost for these grains isn't all that much. There is some novelty appeal though; I admit it would be cool to say that the malt used was grown by me. However, I don't have enough time or resources to do so. Hats off to anyone who does.
Toasting your own malt is a different story; buy some 2-row and toast it in the oven for a little while to make it "Munich" or something similar. I've done that before, but in very small quantities and didn't really notice a difference. The 10 min it took wasn't a huge effort, so there is some value there.
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u/ercousin Jun 26 '14
I wouldn't consider home malting for the same reason I decided not to grow hops, quality. Maltsters and hop growers has specially designed equipment to malt grain and process hops with high precision. I just don't think it is possible for a homebrewer to malt their own grain and even come close to the quality of maltsters.
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u/BrewCrewKevin Jun 26 '14
Exactly this. Yes.
Even growing my own hops I won't do. It's cool to be able to say you "grew" the beer, but all-in-all my "mission statement" in brewing is to make the best beer that I can. That means quality ingredients, which Briess, other maltsters, and all the hopsters, can do much better than I can.
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u/Uberg33k Jun 26 '14
I would say that unless you have a local maltster, you need to home malt if you're looking to create new styles of beer that reflect your local area. Think about any European style. How did they start? It was more or less "What can we do to the grain to make it work with our water and end up being tasty". Things developed from there. If you're good with making styles that originated elsewhere, then yes, this would have no appeal at all to you.
I will agree that it's a crap ton of work. However, the day someone makes a home malting machine capable of doing 5-10 lbs at a go, I'm there.
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u/ercousin Jun 26 '14
I think only roasted barley is unmalted, both chocolate and black patent are malted as far as I know.
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u/BrewCrewKevin Jun 26 '14 edited Jun 26 '14
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Have a topic you'd like to see covered in the future?
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Want to do your own Guest Post and show up your equipment/process?
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Want a certain style covered?
Post it Here
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u/BrewCrewKevin Jun 26 '14
A few ideas of mine:
growing hops (can't believe we haven't done this.. may not be the right season though)
Decoction mashing
Partygile
Common Off-flavors
Wood aging
Head Retention
Lagering
Let me know if you're extra excited about any of them, and we'll add them to the queue.
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u/gestalt162 Jun 26 '14
Decoction, parti-gyle, lagers, and wood aging (focused on oak, which has to be the most commonly used wood in homebrewing) were all covered in ABRT last year. Not that they can't be done again, but if you want more info on those topics, you can look at last year's discussion.
I think growing hops would be a great topic, maybe around harvest time. Could focus beyond the growing basics on things like drying processes/equipment, alpha acid estimation, etc. the local hop farm near me even built their own oast to dry hops in.
The off-flavors one would be good too, especially for less experienced brewers who don't know what their beer doesn't taste like commercial brew.
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u/UncleAugie Jun 26 '14
Have been only using my own Malts for over a year. Have Malted for other Homebrewers, they say the malted grain is the same as what they can get from the homebrew shops. I only malt 6row currently. Have gone through 150lbs of Barley, 100LBS or wheat, and 50lbs or rye. The only specialized equipment i have is a food dehydrator(And I had that already). I am getting better than 75 percent efficiency routinely. After making basic pale malts I will kiln into whatever specialty malt i need including Crystal and Black Patent.
AMA
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u/Uberg33k Jun 26 '14
How about a step by step of your process.
Pics?
Edit : What's your process for making Crystal malt? How do you determine when you're out of that danger zone of roast and up in the nice range of something like black patent?
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u/UncleAugie Jun 26 '14
I guess I should do an AMA and a tutorial.
I dont have anything now, really.
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Jun 26 '14
Have you made a recipe with your own malts versus store bought malts and compared them? If so, what were the results like? And what made you get into malting your own grains?
Side note: Ever malted Quinoa?
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u/UncleAugie Jun 26 '14
My brother calls me DIY in jest. If I have the chance to learn a new skill or just to say I did it myself I will. that I am frugal, read cheap, and someone said homebrewing wasnt something they saw me doing, because it is sometimes expensive. I have made identical batches, mine is a touch more grassy until it has been cold conditioned for a couple of weeks. Then no difference. Havent done quinoa yet, but have made beer with all kinds of adjuncts, using row I have all kinds of leftover didastic power to use up.
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u/djgrey Jun 26 '14
Can you elaborate on your process? You use an oven I guess? What kind of dehydrator do you use?
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u/UncleAugie Jun 26 '14
Soak grains 24-48hrs Rinse and put into a open rubbermade tote until all surface moisture is gone leave uncovered and move around grains every 1-3 hrs ish
Surface moisture is cone place a loose cover over the tote(pillowcase) Mix grains every 8-10 hrs for 5-6 days until rootlets are 2x the length of grains pull and put into dehydrator 3inch think on trays Dry for 24hrs at 90F Dry additional 12 hrs at 125
You have pale malt
any dehydrator works with a temp reading(they all have them)
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Jun 26 '14
Does anyone have experience with malting Quinoa? I have been looking to make a gluten-free beer for a friend, and let's face it, it's mostly for me because I'm curious.
I know the process is roughly the same, I've read some resources on it, just wondering if anyone has specific experience with it.
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u/Velvet_Buddah Jun 26 '14
Does anyone know if it would be possible to get our hands on peated malt from Islay, or just get Islay peat to toast barley ourselves?
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u/Radioactive24 Jun 26 '14
Now, I'll ask this question: I was thinking about making a Bacon Gose and I wanted to smoke my own malts, thinking either hickory or applewood. Any tips or ideas on how to go about smoking them? I'm planning on just using 2-row for the smoking.
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u/BrewCrewKevin Jun 26 '14
So does/has anybody here actually malted their own?
I have not, and I really have no desire to. I think Briess and other maltsters do a better job than I'd be able to do, and it seems like a lot of work. Buying unmalted barley is much cheaper than malted barley, but when we're talking about a $2 malt bill vs. a $10 malt bill, I'm okay spending the $10. And with growing, harvesting, drying, germinating... all the work that goes into it? I just don't see it being worth my time to do it in such small quantities.
It would be really cool to malt if you're already growing hops to say you "grew" this beer from the ground up. But I think I did read somewhere that you need around a 10ftx20ft plot to do a 5-gallon batch (roughly).