Making Crystal Malt

I am buying a few sacks of malt this week and have decided that I am going to try my hand at making a nice range of specialty malts. Ranging from toasted (very easy) to a variety of crystals.

I have the standard methods as described by Radical Beers and How to Brew for making these malts. I have also read threads on this site before but figured a rehash of the topic might be of use.

I am wondering if anyone has specific temps and times FOR A CONVECTION OVEN as I plan to use that feature of my oven to speed the process.

I am looking to do a standard range of light, medium, and dark-ish, crystals.

I am also wondering about different temperature profiles and the resultant changes in flavor.

crystal malt is made with green malt. you cant really make it because your malt has been kilned dry. you can however make toasted - roasted malt.

This is not true. EDIT: It is partially true but it is by no means the only way to make crystal malt. Switching the order of two steps has virtually no effect on the finished product. Meaning you can take green malt crystallize it and then caramelizes the crystals with kilning OR you can take kilned malt, crystallize that in the exact same way and then caramelize that result. Only with this latter process there is less kilning to get to the same level of malt.

crystal malts arnt kilned thay are roasted still wet and green.

non crystal malts are dryed with fans and blowers and after thay are mostly dry thay are kilned to total dryness ,lager malts (ie 2row or pale) are just kiled till dry, the rest from Pilsen, Vienna, Pale Ale, Munich Chocolate Malt and all the way down to black malt are kilned till dry then they ramp up the temp till the desired amount of toasting has happoned.

crystal malts are made by taking freashly malted barley, still grean full of mosture and active enzymes , and heating at high temps with little to no ventilation during the crystalizeing phase. most malters use a drum roaster to do this rather than a kiln.

i am not saying you are worng but, unless you make you own malt and then make crystal i dont see how you are going to do this and make a good product, you will have to rehydrate you dryed pail malt and it will not have the same active emzines and protines that green malt does.
how ever the malting part is easy i malted 50lbs last week and the hardest part is the kilning to make pail malt , its hard to keep the temps that low with good ventaltion , but it would be easyer to make crystal because you do it hotter and with less airflow.

i found this and it has a good break down http://brewery.org/library/Malt_AK0996.html

Clayton said:

crystal malts arnt kilned thay are roasted still wet and green.

non crystal malts are dryed with fans and blowers and after thay are mostly dry thay are kilned to total dryness ,lager malts (ie 2row or pale) are just kiled till dry, the rest from Pilsen, Vienna, Pale Ale, Munich Chocolate Malt and all the way down to black malt are kilned till dry then they ramp up the temp till the desired amount of toasting has happoned.

crystal malts are made by taking freashly malted barley, still grean full of mosture and active enzymes , and heating at high temps with little to no ventilation during the crystalizeing phase. most malters use a drum roaster to do this rather than a kiln.

i am not saying you are worng but, unless you make you own malt and then make crystal i dont see how you are going to do this and make a good product, you will have to rehydrate you dryed pail malt and it will not have the same active emzines and protines that green malt does.
how ever the malting part is easy i malted 50lbs last week and the hardest part is the kilning to make pail malt , its hard to keep the temps that low with good ventaltion , but it would be easyer to make crystal because you do it hotter and with less airflow.

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I see what you are saying. To a degree.

Saying that the enzymes aren't there is where we part ways on this. Obviously the enzymes are there in plentiful amounts or else we would not be able to mash these grains. And this is exactly what is done. You soak the grains for around 24 hours until they are completely saturated. Then you stew them at mashing temps for 2-3 hours and the enzymes convert the starch to sugar. They are still very moist when done this process. And now very sweet.

This is when you start to caramelize that sugar to varying degrees. It takes anywhere from 2-4 hours to go from a pale crystal to dark amber caramel (120-130l)

If you haven't done this, then you might want to give it a try before saying it can't be done. I am not talking about trying some untested process here. I learned the process directly from Randy Mosher and he made some excellent crystal malts when he did it. Some of the best tasting I ever had actually.

The only thing new that I am trying here is using a convection oven to speed the caramelizing process. Randy says that this should be much faster but from experience I know that it is very easy to go from a nice roast to carbon within minutes.

I am amazed that you are malting your own. Are you growing it too? At what temp are you kilning it to get pale malts. I have several drum roasters with the biggest probably able to handle 15 - 20 lbs of grain. Not saying that I am heading in your direction but I do find it fascinating.

Clayton said:

i found this and it has a good break down http://brewery.org/library/Malt_AK0996.html

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Thanks for the link.

Have you made crystal malt from green malt?

I'll be interested to see how mine turns out. Mosher's tasted just better, I don't know how to describe it. It tasted like a decent snack and seemed a little sweeter with a toastier quality to it than the ones I buy from the hbs.

well i typed out all long responce and then nicked the back button and lost it
when you are retarted like me it takes a really long time to make a post hafe way readable.

No I have not made crystal, but hope to next time I make malt.
The first thing I made was Black Roasted Barley, but thats not malted
going to try some Chocolate and Black Malt with this latest batch of pale malt.
Here is a little more info not much but a little i was not going to post this and only did because of the snakes https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/copper-head-road-malting-137863/
the plan is to make an butt-ton of Dry Stout for the holidays with my home grown kent golding have a lot of family comeing. we really like dry stouts and that style is really forgiveing of homemade malt. I get the flaked and whole barley from the feed store for around $10 for a 50 Lbs sack. No i have not grown my own but will next year I have set aside a plot that is about 100x100 but I have a huge garden every year and even grow and sale pumpkins for holiday-homebrew money. my wife got me this for my b-day I know most would think its nerdy but I think is the coolest **** and really wanted it http://www.scythesupply.com/outfits.htm


I am not saying there are no enzymes in dry malt, there are tons of diastatic
enzymes. what I was refering to, as I understand, it is the enzymes called peptidase that are most active during germentation and break down proteins in to amino acids.
thoes amino acids when combine with sugars from the diastatic enzymes and starch, with wet heat form maillard reactions. thoes reactions make melanoidins and pigments, the melanoidins are big time flavor compounds like malty and toasty, and the pigments are the color that crystal is know for. but useing that mash-crystal tech you were talking about sounds interesting

dontman said:

I see what you are saying. To a degree.

Saying that the enzymes aren't there is where we part ways on this. Obviously the enzymes are there in plentiful amounts or else we would not be able to mash these grains. And this is exactly what is done. You soak the grains for around 24 hours until they are completely saturated. Then you stew them at mashing temps for 2-3 hours and the enzymes convert the starch to sugar. They are still very moist when done this process. And now very sweet.

This is when you start to caramelize that sugar to varying degrees. It takes anywhere from 2-4 hours to go from a pale crystal to dark amber caramel (120-130l)

If you haven't done this, then you might want to give it a try before saying it can't be done. I am not talking about trying some untested process here. I learned the process directly from Randy Mosher and he made some excellent crystal malts when he did it. Some of the best tasting I ever had actually.

The only thing new that I am trying here is using a convection oven to speed the caramelizing process. Randy says that this should be much faster but from experience I know that it is very easy to go from a nice roast to carbon within minutes.

I am amazed that you are malting your own. Are you growing it too? At what temp are you kilning it to get pale malts. I have several drum roasters with the biggest probably able to handle 15 - 20 lbs of grain. Not saying that I am heading in your direction but I do find it fascinating.

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Wouldn’t stewing pale malt cause the sugars that are released by the enzymes to get lost in the stew water once they are drained?