First Malting Attempt

I'm on a quest to brew a drinkable beer for my GF wife. Last week I refreshed my skills and did a (regular) partial extract Pale Ale. While its waiting for it to ferment I've been reading pretty much every thread in this forum. I'm impressed with your collective efforts and anxious to get started!

Yesterday my wife managed to dig out three candidate GF grains for me to play with, and I started a malting experiment. 8 oz each of Sorghum, White Quinoa, and Millet. I rinsed each heavily, and then let soak.

I drained the Quinoa after two hours of soaking. I let the Sorghum and Millet soak overnight before draining them. I have been rinsing all of them every ~8 hours.

So... after 24 hours the Quinoa has started to sprout. The other two are lagging for now.

Quinoa on left, Sorghum at top, Millet at bottom:




Derrick

If the miller is hulled, I don't think it will malt. It might be the same with sorghum.

Other grains that can be malted are buckwheat (can be hulled) and amaranth.

Well, darned if I know...

A quick search on hulled millet didn't turn up much, and my millet certainly isn't showing any signs of sprouting yet. The hulled sorghum I have is about three years old and no signs from it either. I put them both back in water for the moment and we'll see if anything develops.

I called the Quinoa done after 2.5 days. I have dried it and am currently trying to knock off the sprouts and rootlets using the pillow-case-in-the-dryer method.

I'd guess only a third (or maybe less) of the quinoa actually sprouted. Is this typical? Seems like it'd be a huge drag on the 'yield'. BTW I pulled out a handful and will continue to sprout that to see what develops.

Next step: roasting.

REINFORCE THE PILLOWCASE!!!!!!!!!!!
learn from my mistakes.. my dryer is still spitting out quinoa in the lint catch

So, a (not-so-brief) update.

The sorghum and millet are dead. Never got them to malt.
Thanks for the dryer warning Dirtbag... mistakes like that would certainly dampen the SO's enthusiasm for this endeavor. All went well.

I called the Quinoa done at 2.5 days. I roasted it to several different levels, and then steeped it at 150 F for about 30 minutes.

To recap, here's the malted grain:


Several roasts. I set the oven to 350 F and stirred every five minutes. Left to right, top to bottom I numbered them #1-9. Pulled samples at 0 (unroasted), 15, 25, 35, 45, and 65 minutes. At this point the roasting seemed to be topping out, so I moved the oven to 400 F. Took samples again at 85, 110 and 140 minutes. Probably could have roasted these higher/longer. Getting excited at this point, they all look gorgeous!


Now the steeped liquors. I added about 50 mL water to 20g of roast and steeped at 150 for 30 minutes.


Notes:
1- starchy, just a hint of sweetness, pretty bad stuff
2- just a touch of flavor, but much better than #1
3- slightly stronger than #2, mild, smooth, faintly nutty
5- sweet, nutty, some faint coffee flavors, light roasty
6- a little odd sweetness, not good
7- same as #6
8+9- (combined these) coffee-like, roasty. good potential

The darkest ones (6, 7, 8+9) in glasses


Conclusions:
- I'd be inclined to try adding some #8/9 to a brew at some point, maybe along with some #5 as well.
- 1-3 were pretty nasty. For the work required, I think it makes sense to go dark and then use this as a specialty grain.

That said, I plan to take this in baby steps. First, a regular gluten brew (fermenting as we speak). Then a single hop sorghum (+rice extract) beer. Then branch out into other ingredients, including malted quinoa. I am particularly excited about doing split batches (e.g. with and without maltodextrin) to get a feel for what these ingredients provide.

Thanks to all you folks who have pioneered the way.

Interesting.

I have malted millet but did not crush it good enough for mashing.
I like this place for grains. Check the "sprouting" seeds.

The quinoa does look good. I am going through my first malting experience right now too with quinoa. I was curious, do you think you could get a different flavor profile by stair stepping the heat vs. throwing it all in at the 350 to dwell? Do you think there is anything to be gained by doing 20-30 minute increments at 200, 250, 300, and then 350 degrees?

I have no idea. I know sometimes very specific stepping is done, but I don't know the reasons for it.

I suspect for us the key thing is not to burn it by starting at 450 F

dktoller said:

I suspect for us the key thing is not to burn it by starting at 450 F

Click to expand...

Hmmm, seems to reason.