Millet

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Safa

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Anyone tried millet with success?

I had a loaf of millet bread up in Vermont this summer and it was absolutely amazing. Super super close to bread, in taste and texture both.

Thought it might be worth transferring over to beer.
 
Quite a few recipes on here are millet based. Just do a little search for them and work out what you want to do.

This has got me interested in millet bread, though. Think I will give it a try. Normally just buy it or use mixes at home.
 
Millet is awesome. Malted millet is the future of GF beer. I personally don't see a whole lot of point in using other grains, because the flavor of millet can be soooo close to barley it's just uncanny.
 
Thanks guys! That's glorious. I'll definitely be ordering some from the Colorado people soon.

What's the diastatic power like?
 
The one batch I've done with CMC's red proso millet pale malt seemed to compare unfavorably with the Grouse white proso millet pale malt that I've used, but crush may have been a factor. I was trying out my new monster mill and believe a double-crush should have been in order (which I did not do, unfortunately). I think the gel point was a bit higher with the CMC stuff...I took it all the way up to 180°F after doing a partial conversion rest, and then dropped it back to 152°F and added some amylase. The Grouse malt seemed to fully gelatinize at around 158°F. I also noticed considerably more intact acrospires in the CMC malt than in the Grouse.

On the other hand, CMC's C20 and C60 millet were AWESOME in color and aroma, very sweet and roasty...the C60 smelled a little bit like roasted marshmallow and burnt sugar.

The finished beer came out about 13 gravity points lower than I was expecting based on my experience with Grouse malts, (1.040 vs 1.053), but again, that could have been crush. We'll see what the attenuation is like. I intend to brew again in a couple weeks with an extra crush on the grains to see if I can get my efficiency up with these malts. If that fails to improve things, I'm sticking with Grouse for pale malt. They're going to be offering non-organic malts soon at a lower price, which basically eliminates any advantage CMC had over them.
 
What gap do you use on your monster mill? I have an MM2 and set it to .010". Works well with a double crush. White millet has less hull and more starchy goodness than red millet. Both grouse and CMC have pretty heavy backorders. I have shipments coming from both. Still haven't received either, 2 months later.....
 
When you use buckwheat with the millet, do you find any noticeable difference in taste,aroma, head? Is buckwheat even worth using if I'm partial mashing with sorghum and d180 with a little honey?
 
Osedax--I set my MM2 to as close as the rollers get, haven't actually measured the gap because I don't have the tools for it. I suspect I may be getting "special treatment" from both suppliers because of hints I'm dropping about possible commercial futures, so far they've both been right quick to get me what I need (and then some)!

EvanLouis--I don't find buckwheat to contribute much of anything, especially in a partial mash, unless you roast it suuuper dark. Even then I'm not sure if it's any better than dark-roasted millet. That is something I aim to investigate in the next couple of stouts that I brew.
 
Go to Sears and get yourself a feeler gauge/sparkplug gapper. Super cheap and great for consistency. Also, I find an air popcorn popper great for roasting small amounts of buckwheat very rapidly and with good results. Just watch for inflating buckwheat.

I actually just found out my CMC order will be here next week. I guess they weren't sending anything out because of a back order for quinoa. I cancelled the quinoa and its on its way.
 
Based on my partial mash experiments with millet and buckwheat, I really like what buckwheat brings. My buckwheat batch had a frothy head with a lot more staying power than my millet partial mash and my extract batches. I agree with others that the millet malt flavor comes through much more noticeably. If you like the millet flavor, I think it is much easier to work with. I have not tried the Grouse white proso millet yet and it worries me if there are big back orders that us mortals may have difficulty getting malted grain.
 
What did you use as your mash schedule for the millet? I want try brewing with cmc malted millet just not sure where to start
 
The original thread of my experiment is here and the mash schedule is shown at the bottom of the thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/partial-mash-test-millet-versus-buckwheat-430639/

Both of these worked out really good especially after allowing a few weeks to age. I will be using more flavoring and finishing hops in later partial mash batches. Also had some good success with steeped millet crystal from CMC.
 
That's milo and long grain rice. I've used both. Wouldn't recommend it. Millet can self convert.

Sent from space for your convenience
 
oops, here's the red millet:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1-H04mQffqtZklLdXpRR2w2QVNSank1YmU4R1ZNanplSURn/edit?usp=sharing

how do we interpret the DP number from this? How does it convert to degrees Lintner?

Short answer: no one knows. The CMC guys don't know what to make of the analyses, and neither (as far as I can tell) do the folks at Grouse. The kind of analysis that typically works for barley doesn't seem to give us the info we need as brewers for working with GF malts. I won't go so far as to say these CoAs are worthless, but I've yet to speak to someone who knows how to translate them into something brewers can use to evaluate the potential of grains to make beer.
 
They do have very useful things like soluble protein and beta glucan content. Wort pH is sort of important but, I wouldn't rely on it.

Point is; don't worry too much about DP. The malt converts just fine. I threw some alpha amylase in my primary last batch to see how much left over starch there was. A very tiny amount. Dropped a few points as I suspected but, nothing crazy. It actually cleared the beer like crazy. I must of had some extra starch haze on that batch. Lightened the body a tad but, made it crisper.

Honestly, these malts have some crazy compounds that I would worry more about. You have to remember that millet is not the same as barley. It has its own chemical make up. Example: All millet + brett c = metallic taste. This is due to certain acids and precursors. Buckwheat is full of an acid that brett will turn into pineapple aromas. Brett tends to turn "off flavors" on their head.

Ramble done. :D

Sent from space for your convenience
 
Ok, so for those of you who have used it - can you give me some guidelines on mash temp and expected extraction rates?
 
They do have very useful things like soluble protein and beta glucan content. Wort pH is sort of important but, I wouldn't rely on it.

Point is; don't worry too much about DP. The malt converts just fine. I threw some alpha amylase in my primary last batch to see how much left over starch there was. A very tiny amount. Dropped a few points as I suspected but, nothing crazy. It actually cleared the beer like crazy. I must of had some extra starch haze on that batch. Lightened the body a tad but, made it crisper.

Honestly, these malts have some crazy compounds that I would worry more about. You have to remember that millet is not the same as barley. It has its own chemical make up. Example: All millet + brett c = metallic taste. This is due to certain acids and precursors. Buckwheat is full of an acid that brett will turn into pineapple aromas. Brett tends to turn "off flavors" on their head.

Ramble done. :D

Sent from space for your convenience

Osedax, where do you learn about this stuff? I have noticed myself that millet wort and sorghum wort both pull different hop and yeast flavors out of hops and yeast than what is expected from barley. Sorghum seems to ramp up any and all citrus components of hops to an absurd degree, while millet does just the opposite, making for soft and subdued hop character that is more fruity, floral, and grassy. Buckwheat is also rich in its own aroma compounds, and can impart a fruity/berry taste sometimes. I would love to learn more about the brewing chemistry of these grains, but can't really find any sources on it. Can you hook a brother up? :D
 
I really wish I could be more help on the subject. Sadly, I never had a single chemistry class in college (engineering). Most of this is hypothesis. It was brought on by articles like this one: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2011/05/buckwheat-sour-amber-ale-recipe.html He talks about how buckwheat has an acid that reacts with brett differently than an all barley batch.

I have made a few all brett batches. Not a single one came out like I was reading on here. Way too metallicy. At the same time, my brett ciders turned out perfect. I have since sidelined my wild batches for the time being. I wanted to know why my batches seemed so "off".

As you have pointed out, different grains seem to make yeast and hops do different things. When I used sorghum, my hop profiles were very bright. Millet seems to round them out. I like the danker hops with millet. I really believe that the right amount of sorghum in an IPA could really make it pop. (Groban likes his IPAs to pop.:cross:)

I then started to think about the malt completely differently. I realized I was approaching each batch like it was barley based. We don't use barley, so why brew like we use it?

I have read some interesting articles on the Wiley library online. A lot seems wrong with them compared to my empirical data. I don't think food and malt scientists fully understand the relationships yet. Through experimentation I am slowly realizing what certain malts do past the taste side of things.

A thread containing data and articles about how the different gluten free malts create varying reactions might be interesting....
 
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