anyone malt? looking to brew from scratch.

I am looking for suggestions, my plan is to reduce the brewing cost to a minimum. Here is my idea, 25 pound bags of grain are cheap I know I could obtain wheat this way. I imagine barley could be found too not sure just where yet. I know bree shops carry unmalted but the price is about the same (so what's the point). I am curious about how to use short grain brown rice and corn as adjuncts. Ideas on malting, and how adjuncts (raw) could be used?

There are plenty of threads out there on home malting. For example, this one: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/happiness-home-malting-107409/

But, of course, the only way that this will save you any money is if you value your time at far less than minimum wage. (That's no dig on home malting, of course...it's extremely fun.)

So you like to do it. Have you ever tried using rice? In researching it it seems like a bacteria is used to first convert it/create an enzyme that then allows it to be used. Of course the best info I was able to find was pertaining to sake'. I get your point on time, there are a few ideas I want to try out with it though and I'll check out that thread. Thanks

boldre said:

So you like to do it. Have you ever tried using rice? In researching it it seems like a bacteria is used to first convert it/create an enzyme that then allows it to be used. Of course the best info I was able to find was pertaining to sake'. I get your point on time, there are a few ideas I want to try out with it though and I'll check out that thread. Thanks

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You're trying to malt rice? That's not typically done, nor really necessary. If you want a high adjunct beer, people will typically use flaked rice and a bit of 6-row or distiller's malt for enzymes. I can't imagine how you would use bacteria in the process, but then again I don't know anything about sake.

I remember listening to a bn podcast a while back that talked about mashing rice. Iirc it was blichmann talking. Basically he said that you could add precooked rice such as minute rice directly to the mash, while raw rice would require you to first do a "cereal" mash to effectively cook the rice.

Minute rice- add to grain while milling.
Normal rice- cook to boil for 15 min then cool down to strike temp an add to grains

It seems you can do just about anything you set your mind to. Take a look at this guy who is growing his own Barley. He's obviously very into it and I give him a lot of credit.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f92/100-homegrown-287146/

Myself personally, I don't think I will ever need to find cheaper than a 50lb sack of Rahr 2-row for $35. You can make decent 5 gallon batches for $13-18 this way. I could try to get into malting, but I know I would fall short of what the pros can do. I do grow my own hops, that's something you might check into if you're brewing for the long term.

Parboiled rice is all it takes huh! I suppose the enzymes in the barley are enough to ferment the adjuncts be it rice or corn. So that would be the difference with sake' (all rice)
w/o enzyme. 7$ per 10# bag of malt is a good price, it runs about. 10$ here for the malt. I tried starting some hops two years ago, it was a bad season though, I'll try it again in the future that would b 4$ per 5 gallon batch saved albiet limited in variety. The thread about malting was very interesting.

You may want to try wheat. IMHO, it is a bit easier to get started with.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/easy-wheat-malting-picture-guide-322877/