Home Toasted Malts, and the Waiting Game

Per the instructions in John Palmer's "How to Brew" I home-toasted some malt. It's sitting in a little brown, paper bag over there, aging a little.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter20-4.html

I'm hearing conflicting reports about how long I have to wait to brew the beer. Palmer's instructing a pretty long wait, but it looks like folks on the interweb have done all kinds of stuff (as homebrewers do) and these rules fly out the window.

Experienced toasters, I ask you: How long must I wait?

I took half rahr red wheat, and half rahr 2-row and soaked it for an hour before roasting for an hour at 350 degrees, with occasional stirring and extra water additions to caramelize it a little while toasting.

Should I wait 24 hours (as some do) or wait a whole week (as the book suggests). What are your experiences suggesting?

(I plan on using this toasted malt to kick up a plain-jane hefeweizen recipe, if that helps you advise.)

I waited about a week, but that was out of circumstance. I would have used the toasted malt the same day if I could have. I don't care much for rules, and I tend to bend them a lot. I was very happy with the results, by the way.

I've done same day, out of the oven into the mash, without any problems. I let them sit if I can but if need be I just toss them in when I need them.

I toast a fair amount of malt for my English bitters and have found that in a delicate beer, letting the grain sit for a week gives the cleanest flavor.

I had one batch of toasted malt that went right from the oven to the mash tun and the resulting beer had a very unpleasant grainy-peanut butter flavor that I can only attribute to not letting the grain sit. But on the same note, I've the same thing for darker beers with no problem.

For toasted I use them same day I toast them. For Roasted, I let them sit a week at least.

Thanks for your responses! I think I shall use them tonight, and it should be fine. They smell fine. Deliciously fine, in fact. They seemed a little astringent right out of the oven, though. I don't know if I would do same day unless they were very mild. These homemade toasted malts have the same color as some Caramunich I have around. Will update with results. Maybe.

Oh, and I think if I wasn't doing a Hefe with crazy yeasty flavored, I'd wait a week. Clean ale yeasts probably would enhance anything harsh. I think you're probably right about that for British beers. It's what Palmer says, too.

if its anything like roasting coffee, the grain needs time to settle back down and develop the flavors that you roasted it for in the first place.

The beer is fermenting away in the primary. It's the best-smelling Danstar Munich fermentation I've ever had, and I suspect the toasted malts are the reason for that. For lighter toasts, 24-48 hours is probably enough. We'll see what it tastes like in a few weeks, though!

Not to hijack the thread, but is there anyone out there with experience concerning toasted/roasted specialty grains?
What about roasting malts in a pan? If the base malt is highly diastatic one shouldn't have to worry about protecting enzymes in the roasted portion, right?

Just a followup note to add that the beer came out great.

I'm pretty hooked on this home-toasting thing, now, and I've even started making my own crystal malts from base malt. It isn't exactly like crystal malt from green malt, but that's also sort of why it's so nifty, because it has a toastier flavor while still imparting sweetness!