GF Malted Millet--CO Malting Company

Hi all, I wanted to share some information I have regarding the possible production and sale of malted millet from Colorado Malting Company. I heard a few weeks ago that they may be producing malted millet for sale to the home brewing community so I checked into it further. I recently sent an email inquiry regarding their millet and received notification that they would put my name an email on the list of potential interested parties. Today I received the following message from them:

HOME BREWERS,

We are considering carrying millet malts on a full time basis and making them available to home brewers - So give us your feedback!!! - We want to give our wonderful home brewer customers entrance to this one of a kind ingredient.

We would like for you to let us know of your interest by pre-ordering some malted millet, either German, White or Red Millet.

Please follow these instructions: If we get enough pre-orders we will carry these products and have them available to you by November 2011. SO LET US HEAR IT IF YOU ARE INTERESTED.

In the subject line of the email:

Type (Your state) HB (for Home brewer) and Millet Order

In the Body of the email:

Tell us how much malted millet and what kind (see above) you would like to pre-order. We will only package in 50 lb bags.

So if you are interested in pre-ordering malted millet to try in your beers, get you pre-order in now. This early bird ordering will allow us to get you the malted millet asap. Thanks!
Please also include your name and phone in the email.

After we receive all the feedback we will contact you about your order. If we decide to proceed in malting millet for sale, we will at that point confirm your order. If we are not able to proceed in malting this millet for release, we will also let you know of that circumstance.

Home Brewer Price if we carry the malts will be $3.00 per lb for German, White and Red Malted Millet.

Thanks Guys!

Cheers,

Jason K. Cody

President
Owner/Co-founder

Colorado Malting Company
P.O. Box 653
Alamosa, CO 81101

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I'm guessing some of you already know about it, but I thought I'd post this in case some of you may be interested. I'm really excited about the potential commercial availability of GF malt and imagine that a lot of you out there would be excited to have it available as well. If that's the case, now's the time to rally our collective support and show them that there's a market for this product. They have an online email form that you can send your inquiries to at coloradomaltingcompany.com, or you can send an email to [email protected].

Cheers,
Austin

p.s. I hope posting this doesn't violate any forum rules. I'm not affiliated with the company, just really hopeful this product becomes available commercially.

I'm interested if they can ship this to Australia

I thought that they were only planning on distributing in colorado for a while? And does is it just me, or does it infer that you have to purchase in 50 pound batches ($150). A bit steep for me, unless there was a group buy in my area.

Wow...I am used to paying $0.80/lb for barley...that's quite the difference. Interesting stuff though, perhaps someone in or near Colorado could organize a bag or two split up...

Anyone know what the difference between German, White & Red millet would be for brewing?

No way I'm spending $150 + shipping... I'd much buy the gain in bulk and malt it myself.

Now if someone wants to buy 50lbs and sell me 5 0r 10lbs, I'd be willing to experiment with it.

No_Party said:

Anyone know what the difference between German, White & Red millet would be for brewing?

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I can tell you the difference between German, Red, and White Wheat...

Taste.

As for what these taste like, your guess is as good as mine.

DKershner said:

I can tell you the difference between German, Red, and White Wheat...

Taste.

As for what these taste like, your guess is as good as mine.

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Nice

what would the shipping for a 50# bag be? if you do 10# a batch you can get 5 batches. $30 of grain per batch. thats if shipping is free. if i could afford it i think it would be sweet. the real question is what is their profit margin for this?

DirtbagHB said:

what would the shipping for a 50# bag be? if you do 10# a batch you can get 5 batches. $30 of grain per batch. thats if shipping is free. if i could afford it i think it would be sweet. the real question is what is their profit margin for this?

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https://wwwapps.ups.com/ctc/request?loc=en_US&WT.svl=PNRO_L1

81101 is their zip code, type in yours and 50lbs.

Cost $40 to get to me.

hmm. too rich of my blood. thats $200 for 50#.

Yeah... I may bite the bullet on one, but it's a tough sell without any knowledge of how to use it properly and how it will taste.

Yeah, it's definitely not cheap, but it's cheaper than commercial GF beers, which are pretty mediocre in general. I'm gonna buy some, but there are definitely a lot of variables that will factor into determining whether I'll continue to use the malt. I just ordered a 25lb bucket of unhulled millet that I'm gonna malt myself to compare to the commercially malted stuff. There's a part of me that figures the commercial malt will probably be malted more optimally and I'll be able to use less to produce the same gravity beer. I'm pretty sure whole millet costs about two dollars a pound in bulk, and I can order it from a local co-op, so there's no shipping cost for that. The question for me is whether the savings is worth the extra time and expense lost on malting my own. In either case, I think I could still produce better beer at an equal or lower cost than what's available commercially. Even New Grist and Bard's Tale are about 10 dollars for a six pack, which works out to $1.66 per 12oz. If I can get four five gallon batches out of a 50lb sack of malt, that's $0.94 per 12oz for grain. The cost of hops and rice hulls bumps it up a little, but it's still less that what I'd spend on a mediocre commercial GF brew, and a lot less than the more pricey ones. The GF beer is not for me, SWMBO has celiac disease and I want to make a GF beer that I would choose to drink over non-GF beer.

No_Party said:

Yeah... I may bite the bullet on one, but it's a tough sell without any knowledge of how to use it properly and how it will taste.

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You might check out the PDF on gluten-free brewing here: http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//index.php?showtopic=11096&hl=gluten+free

You'll have to register with aussiehomebrewer to download the PDFs, but both of this guy's guides are really in depth and helpful. I'm definitely going to experiment a lot, and there are sure to be some challenges. I think the main challenge is getting the grist to gelatinization temperatures while preserving the enzymes in the malt since gelatinization temps are higher than mashing temps for GF grains. This guy grinds the grain pretty fine (more or less to flour) and then uses rice hulls to lauter. He also seems pretty adamant about doing a full protein rest to make all of the starch available to the enzymes. His process is a sort of modified decoction mash, but I plan on messing around a lot to see what works best for me.

whats going on in the world of this maltster?

CMC are really great guys. Small operation in a fairly remote area of the state that grows a lot of barley (mostly for Coors). They've always been really supportive of homebrewers and have been willing to participate in many bulk buys over the years. In fact, there's one going on right now. I can't speak for their millet experiment, but they're pale malt is the bees knees, man. On the downside, it seems like their website is always jacked up. Best way to find out what's what is to email them directly.

I know this is kind of an old topic, but, I talked to the guys at my lhbs, and they expect to get some of this malted millet in around March 1. I have a bag ordered and can't wait to play with it for my celiac friends.

skiingimpy - what HB Shop do you frequent? I'm in the Denver area too. I also wonder if they plan to put it in a bin, because those places are always full of Barley, wheat, and rye dust! Thanks!

Mariposa, pm sent. As far as how they plan to deal with the dust situation, in the grand scheme of things with the concentrations that I worry about for the people that I brew for, I don't think it's a problem. That being said, they do seem to be conscience of the issues so I'm curious to see how they deal with it.