jcf98

Recipes 

I'm new to the home brew thing.....I am really interested in the basic science of distilling grains into alcohol and would like to brew from 100% scratch.....from growing the grains (not the hops, however) and turning them into different malts.....then of course brewing it........I had a few questions about what the different kinds of malts did...how to make them and what different affects they had on the finished product....also......what kind of materials could I scrounge from the stores without ordering an actual kit from a home brew store

BrewMasta

Recipes 

Sounds like you want to get into all grain brewing. When you all grain brew your essentially creating the malt when you make the mash. I would do your research on AG brewing as most hard core home brewers usually always move up to AG brewing from extract brewing. If you want there are a plethora of recipes available in this forum, and on other sites that give you the list of ingredients u need, then you can contact your local brew store and they can put the ingredients together for you. Keep in mind the equipment necessary for AG brewing is more extensive than extract, or partial mash brewing.

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" life is like a case of beer, you must enjoy it every day"

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* Member of the Maniacal Association of Shoreline Home-brewers, CT

Aschecte

Recipes 

Not trying to sound too negative but, walk before you run. I would recommend trying your hand at extract brewing for awhile just to get the basic feel of the brewing process. Get your temps down .... Sanitization down.... Basic brewing equipment.... See if you really like it first... Read a lot of books ... How to brew by John Palmer and the complete joy of home brewing by Charlie papazian. Then move up to all grain as it can be a huge learning curve and incorporates a lot more techniques that you will overlook if you start to quick. As to malsting that's a whole different topic most of us would not want to get into. I've been in a malsters shop and you need crazy equipment to have control and consistent results. You need to grow one of multiple strains of barley and or wheat and or rye etc then seperate with specialized machines , wet the grain till a acrospire grows then use a specialized tumbler to remove the germinated acrospire then dry it. then it goes into special oven where professional malsters "test" the grain for quality and desired roast. I would say by far the malting is the harder of the two processes. All this said if you have the time the dime and the ambition go nuts.

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Funky Onion Brewing est.2010
Primary-Turbid mashed Lambic
Primary-Flanders Red
Primary-Aaron's Ordinary Bitter

NewJersey

Recipes 

yeah, i dont think the OP has any idea how involved actually processing malts is. i thought about it for a split second and then actually read about it. over it. lol
growing hops on the other hand is something i will try in the future.

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Aschecte

Recipes 

Ohhhh yeah hops are easy..... First year I grew hops I ended up with over a pound with only a few plants (3) that needed minimal care and in in lower New York which is not known as a great hop growing area. I say forget the grain grow the hops.

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Funky Onion Brewing est.2010
Primary-Turbid mashed Lambic
Primary-Flanders Red
Primary-Aaron's Ordinary Bitter

Demus

Recipes 

Is your interest brewing beer or the gardening aspect? Try to keep in mind you are basically trying brain surgery and asking what band aids are. I'm not trying to discourage you, but if you are serious you have more learning to do than anyone will be willing to write in a reply to a post...