Emmer

I posted this on another thread, but was curious and decided to make a new one. I have some unmated emmer and was wondering if anyone had any advice on using it. I was planning on using a cereal mash but was wondering if I could use it without that. Any ideas or suggestions? Anyone used it before?

A cereal mash would be a good idea, just grind it to grits first.

What sort of style are you planning to brew with it?

I used 1 pound of it before in a nut brown ale, it added a slightly different flavor, but I could be wrong, as it is pretty comple and I used a new yeast on it. I was thinking of trying something that ws around 5 pounds generic pale malt and mash it with the emmer to really try and understand what flavors it could bring to the table. I ran across some literature on the web about an trial some UK brewers had done, and it brought a subtle rasberry flavor. I'm not sure about that, but would be interested t check it out.

I love the idea of using old heritage grains like emmer, einkorn and spelt in beer. Emmer beer was well respected in Babylon. For extra fun and flavor you could try malting it.

I would love to malt it, but it has already been dehulled, i'm not sure I can malt it. Anyone have any ideas on how I could best determine the natural flavors?

Spelt is nasty.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

Spelt is nasty.

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Care to elaborate? I just had a spelt wine from Six Point that was pretty good. Saison D’Epeautre is pretty good as well. Not sure I’ve heard of any other spelt beers.

Yeah I'd eventually like to get a whole sack of spelt and have a big experiment of malting, drying, kilning, etc to make a 100% spelt beer.

I'd like to hear what you thought was so nasty about it. As a baker, I love its flavor. Very similar to wheat but a little extra nuttiness.

To see if you can malt it, I would take a few grains soak them in water for a bit and put them in a jar with moist paper towel. If they begin to sprout then you can try a few pounds, maybe enough for a 1 or 2 gal test batch.

Here's a thread on home malting but there are many more. I tried it with some wheat berries a few years ago. They were hulless, but the process was easy enough, though I don't think I let them get far enough.

i'll work on it, has anyone besides me used this grain before?