Malting grain

Anyone read the article in Brew this month about malting your own grains??? and tried it??

Yea I read it. And to be honest, It would be cool to do maybe just once just to say you've done it. But too much of a PITA to do it everytime.

Dmay said:

Anyone read the article in Brew this month about malting your own grains??? and tried it??

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've got a friend who brews and owns a bunch of land. He keeps talking about his dream to grow hops and barley and make some beer entirely from ingredients from his land (aside from the yeast). He was all gung-ho until I asked him what he was going to do with their 4 dogs while his basement was taken up. "huh"? Oh, yeah, by the way, you need alot of floor space. Never occurred to him I guess.

Really, the pro maltsters have it down to a science. So why would you go through the trouble, when the product is, almost certainly, going to be inferior to the professional ingredients? I'd like to grow hops, because they don't require the same effort, and they're pretty on the vine, and I'd like to wet-hop a beer. But that's as far as I'd go. Homebrewing is labor- and money-intensive enough as-is...I sure as hell don't need to become a homemaltster.

Well I just wanted to try it so I could say I did it, way to much work and It would take many batches in my food dryer

Dmay said:

Well I just wanted to try it so I could say I did it, way to much work and It would take many batches in my food dryer

Click to expand...

Try it out once and let us know how it goes! I don't have a food dryer, either, so I'm not sure what I'd do if I were to try it.

Evan! said:

Try it out once and let us know how it goes! I don't have a food dryer, either, so I'm not sure what I'd do if I were to try it.

Click to expand...

I spent a lot of time thinking about this today. What I was thinking is you could heat up some sand to say 120 degrees. Then mix the sand with the sprouted barley. The sand should dry out the barley like it does when preserving flowers. Then if you had the sand barley mix in a closed barrell you could roll it like a rock tumbler to knock the sprout from the grain. then sift the barley from the mix? I applaud you for trying to do what you can. After all they sell real good beer at the brewpubs, but that is not what it's all about!

BasicBrewing.com did an interview with the author of that article and discussed a lot of stuff about malting your own grains.

Here is there radio page:
http://www.basicbrewing.com/radio/

Here is the grain malting mp3 link:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr03-01-07.mp3

brewman ! said:

BasicBrewing.com did an interview with the author of that article and discussed a lot of stuff about malting your own grains.

Here is there radio page:
http://www.basicbrewing.com/radio/

Here is the grain malting mp3 link:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr03-01-07.mp3

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I listened to the pod cast. That was very interesting. I think the sand drying and kilning in a large ss pot(44 qt) over a gas turkey fryer would allow for drying and toasting at the same time. toasting the grains nearer the burner and drying those grains higher in the colume. Something to think about? Thanks!

I thought you just put it into a pillow case and tossed it into your clothes dryer. That's your base malt. Then, for specialty malt, you roast some of that in your oven. You wouldn't know exactly what malt you made, but you would make good beer. Something between Bud Lite and Guiness.

I did try malting a couple pounds of Pearl Barley from the health food store. It nearly worked, sure smelled sweet. Lots of grains didn't do anything though. And it got fuzzy- no hulls to protect the sweet parts.

Also, I have roasted some base malt in a frying pan. It seemed to work. I wouldn't think it would be so hard to malt 10# at a time- in the back of a camper? or on the floor of your brew shed? plastic sheet in a 2x4 frame, on legs, at a tilt for drainage? 50# would only be an inch deep on a 4x8 sheet of particle board. Covering it with a black plastic sheet could get it as hot as 140 in the summer.

The feed store sells barley, 100# is $8, and it is high enough quality to not poison a million dollar stud, or a million dollars worth of chickens, it's probably safe for your 50 cent bottle of beer...

I bought a 50# sack ($8) of whole barley the other day. I soaked a hand full in water for about 12 hours then drained the seeds and put them in a plastis cup inverted over a paper towell. Today I looked and all have germinated. many of the root thingys are longer than the grains themselves. When the weather warms up I'll do the whole sack.