The Non-Malt Challenge

I'm new to beer brewing.

Infact, I've only made ginger beer so far, very nice it is too. However, as I mentioned in my introduction, I live in a third world country that grows barley and uses it to make beer for domestic sales and sells the rest internationally. Non of it ends up in the shops in any raw form, be it pearl barley, malt drinks or flour let alone malt extract for brewing, and I won't consider buying malt online considering the prohibitive cost of shipping a pound of malt, it would be cheaper to buy a 10year old bottle of whiskey.

I want to make beer, but I want to use things that I can get hold of readily. I can buy 500kg of malt if I want, but that exceeds my needs and my wallet.

Can anyone throw a beer or ale recipe my way that makes use of non malt produce.

I heard the Japanese are making beer from soybeans. Kirin, I would love to have a go at that, but have no idea how to process the soybean.

Any suggestion are more than welcome before this thread drifts into obscurity.

You could look at malting your own barley. If your country does grow a lot then there would probably be sufficient seed around there and probably some local know-how on growing. Do you have any land? There are books out there which detail ways to harvest and produce your own barley.

It sounds like that would be the cheapest way in your situation. That is given you have access to land and a green thumb.

Where are you from?

I wonder how much barley a typical 1/4 acre home garden would produce?

Parker36 said:

Where are you from?

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Uruguay...

Orfy said:

Uruguay...

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Thanks Orfy, I am indeed in Uruguay, but I am originally from Cheshire in England too.

Yes growing Barley is definitely on the list. My wife and I are starting to think about growing more of our own produce anyway and I also know a farmer who knows a producer of barley it just occurred to me.

I live 10 minutes from the beach, so we don't have the best earth to grow things in but we are already composting and have other plans.

My first 3 batches of beer experiments did non too well. Using oats and white sugar. They came out with a very tarty citrusy overbearing flavour. This I think was the white sugar. It encourages the production of VitC. It was drinkable, but not to my taste.

I've started another batch and this time I added ginger as a gruit to counter this and made it weaker also. I just bottled it without tasting, but it smelled pleasant enough. I toasted some already dark sugar. I'm going to give it three weeks and see how it goes.

I feel a bit medieval with all this experimenting, but I love cooking so it's a bit like that.

eschatz said:

I wonder how much barley a typical 1/4 acre home garden would produce?

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We have a moderate climate though not temperate, too hot for that, but I think Barley has about a 6 to eight week turnover which isn't that much. I think I can grow it.

I don't know of any brewers on here that have grown their own barley. This would be an awesome project!

It can't be that hard, although we can't grow grass, hmmm I wonder. Well I love this type of challenge and I can't see anything else for it.

I have made tentative contact with some homebrewers here through facebook, but my Spanish isn't good enough yet.

Just discovered that barely is rather hardy and suited to challenging conditions. Just need to obtain seed.

Will keep you posted.

What about sorghum? People have used that to make gluten free beer recipes in the past. I can't say I've ever tasted one though.

There's a home malting thread here where someone grew and malted their own, it may be useful info.

I'm surprised noone mentioned this to you. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/gap-grocery-produce-beer-experiment-69313/?highlight=grocery

Growing the barley should not be too hard. Malting it will be a bit more of a pain in the posterior. It is possible but sounds like a lot of work. I have a book that is a good resource for growing many of your own beer ingredients. It is called the Homebrewers Garden by Joe and Dennis Fisher.

The section on growing grains details a way to malt your own. If you are determined to do it and have no other way you can do it. If you can get that book I think it would be a good starting point for you. If not let me know via pm and I will try and get the info to you. I won't copy the whole book though...

You said you cannot get any barley. Can you get any other types of grain? Wheat, rye, triticale, quinoa? You can make an all wheat with malted wheat. Gets a bit tricky converting and sparging but it is possible. The other grains you would have to play around with more.

Beer made from strictly sugar is pretty unpalatable. I know, I have tried it following some historical recipes from colonial times in the U.S.. Gets you buzzed but tastes pretty bad no matter how much herbs and spices you add.

Good luck sir!

Thanks EvilToj, the barely growing thread is certainly useful.

Zymurgrafi, thanks for the book reference, I'll buy it, it looks very useful. I may be in a 3rd world country but we can still afford books.

Well we're not that poor, just underdeveloped.

The problem is, the supermarkets sell good produce, BUT it's very limited. So no whole wheat berries that you may find in a main stream super in the UK. Infact there is only two types of flour. Wholemeal and white. Not even self raising.

There is a specialist store in the city center that I have yet to visit. I have been told they may stock barley, if it's a dry grain perhaps I can experiment with it.

Revvy, thanks for the other thread link, I am going to peruse i now. looks good.

Thanks everyone, will let you know if I make anything consumable.

thejazzer said:

Zymurgrafi, thanks for the book reference, I'll buy it, it looks very useful. I may be in a 3rd world country but we can still afford books.

Well we're not that poor, just underdeveloped.

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Sorry, was not trying to suggest you could not afford the book. Merely suggesting it might be hard to get a hold of.

What about animal feed stores for grain? It is usually not the highest quality grain but you could try getting some and malting it. They may not have whole grains in the market but surely there are animal feed stores that would have it. Again, not trying to insult, just trying to help. I know I can get sacks of feed barley (and other grains) here. Of course I can also get 55 lb. sacks of Marris Otter for $55 so...

I followed some blogs awhile back that were people brewing in countries or areas where brewing was an odd thing, and ingredients weren't readily available....I'm trying to remember some of the blogs...here's one of them...Homebrew Korea - Part 3

IIRC he talks about using squashes or something.

I'll see if I can find the other blogs...

Zymurgrafi, don't worry, no offence taken, what I meant was the book looked useful enough to purchase.

You know I remember having a conversation about beer a few months ago now with a farmer friend and I am sure he told me he has a colleague producing Barley. Will get back to him on that one.

Sounds like you would have a MUCH easier time making country wines or mead.

Do you have local fruit? How about honey?

grapes grow well here and I intend to grow my own too. I love wine, and I've already started some plum wine from a basic wine recipe, I tasted it after fermentation prior to first racking and it was nice if a little tart.

Other than grapes which are growing in production here, we also have a lot of oranges, very cheap at the right time.