Home Made crystal malt from 2row

I followed the instructions here : http://barleypopmaker.info/2009/12/08/home-roasting-your-malts/



I had a recipe that called for 0.5LB of Crystal 10L.

Since I had just purchased my first sack of breiss 2row (pale), I figured I might as well try my hand at turning it into crystal and add my own touch at malting my grains rather than purchasing a $2.98/lb 1lb sack of wymerman at my LHBS (Discount Liquer - super store on airline across from toys -r-us and a awesome viet. cuisine place called the bamboo garden (kid you not, I have never walked out of this place dissatisfied and without a to-go box)

Anyway, I wanted to say that the instructions are a little misleading, while I did leave my grains submerged in a pot of water for 12 hours, then heated at 154F for one hour, then to a boil, then cool and dry in oven at 260F for 4 hours then @ 170F for what ended up being 6 hours, then 20 minutes at 260F to get to around 10L in colour.


The malt smells sweet and on par for store bought 10L crystal perhaps a tad darker but well below what 20L would be perhaps a 14L is what I made. It did finish drying, and tasted wonderful.

Worth the work to know no-one else has access to the grain I made for my crystal malt. I made 2lbs. so that is enough for 20 gallons of pale ale.

I had the same idea but went with the Sudo-Caramel Malts (sic) option. I ended up getting some nice color. Probably a little more toward the 20L than the 10L, but it makes me think that a 55# sack is way more economical than I originally thought.

I get my crystal 40, 60 and 80 for $1.59/pound. My 2-row is around half that. I don't think saving a dollar or two per batch is worth all that, but that's just me. Electricity or gas-wise, you probably spent way more than that making it.

If you enjoy doing it, though, keep it up. After all, we could all just go buy beer from the store.

All my crystal's are $1.75/lb here. 2-row is $1.25/lb.

turkeyjerky214 said:

If you enjoy doing it, though, keep it up. After all, we could all just go buy beer from the store.

Click to expand...

Exactly.

I applaud your decision to go native and roast your own grains. Certainly adds possibilitiues to 55 LB sacks of grains. I would be concerned about repeatability. It'd be a real shame to brew a great beer I couldn't repeat. As crystal is not that expensive here and it'd take me a year to use a 55# sack, I will probably keep buying as I brew.