Brewing Using 100% Homemade Specialty Grains

So I'm sure this is an old idea and several people have tried it but I wasn't able to turn up anything searching. My recent foray into the world of toasting malt has piqued my interest in creating a variety of specialty grains to be used in a beer.

For example, I'd like to make my own crystal (perhaps of various darkness levels) and several toasted varieties using different temps and times to achieve different characters, as well as using both soaked and dry grains. These could then be used by themselves in order to create a beer.

It would be exceedingly interesting to see what kind of malts I could replicate and then attempt recipes with both homemade and store bought grains to compare.

Does anyone have any experience with this? If there is enough interest, we could even do a swap. Say we set a style like American Amber or English Bitter, something that would showcase the malt, and then all brew up our own versions and swap them. Could be fun.

I like the idea.

I really want to take it to the ultimate level though. This spring I'm planting 30 hop plants (10 different varieties) on my parent's land in North Georgia. In 2010, I plan on planting 1/2 acre of two-row barley and figure I can get at least two harvests in one year. I've been researching malting my own grain and think I've got that figured out. I know it's going to be a lot of work and probably not financially justifiable, but man it's going to be rewarding to take a sip of that first 100% homegrown homebrew.

keelanfish said:

I like the idea.

I really want to take it to the ultimate level though. This spring I'm planting 30 hop plants (10 different varieties) on my parent's land in North Georgia. In 2010, I plan on planting 1/2 acre of two-row barley and figure I can get at least two harvests in one year. I've been researching malting my own grain and think I've got that figured out. I know it's going to be a lot of work and probably not financially justifiable, but man it's going to be rewarding to take a sip of that first 100% homegrown homebrew.

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I share your dream, but i am lazy.

I often see (and write) those posts about capturing co2 and using it to force carb. But in the end if you are buying store bought grains and hops, who cares if your co2 is store bought as well.

I'm planning to do it as I play around with my Marris Otter SMaSH...

This is a good podcast on it from my heroes, the Aussies with 60 years of brewing experience...

The Cellarman gets too cocky, and tricks up the Brewmaster with a special beer. We also discuss home roasting of malts, sample a kolsch, and rant some more on beer styles. Yet more Aussie beer history and culture, with an interesting quiz to test your brewing history knowledge - are you up to it? More on the new ways of making sour beers, and the Bush Beer project is slid back in favour of stein beer refinements. Would you believe some listeners are actually learning from the program - listen to see how, and yet another Aussie beer song to finish up.

Clicky to listen http://radio.craftbrewer.org/shows/March2-07.mp3

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Revvy, I listened to the whole hour of programming and was disappointed when they only talked about toasting malts for a couple minutes at the very end! I've done some other research though and feel confident I can make crystal malts as well as the toasted malts. Probably even chocolate and black patent.

Surely there is more interest in this. Consistency may be an issue, but think of being able to buy pale malt in bulk for cheap and use it to make a variety of malts and styles of beer.

KingBrianI said:

Revvy, I listened to the whole hour of programming and was disappointed when they only talked about toasting malts for a couple minutes at the very end! I've done some other research though and feel confident I can make crystal malts as well as the toasted malts. Probably even chocolate and black patent.

Surely there is more interest in this. Consistency may be an issue, but think of being able to buy pale malt in bulk for cheap and use it to make a variety of malts and styles of beer.

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Sorry they have lousy archives...there's one where they talk about using sugar water when the toast, and some temps and such...Unfortunately they are NOT a one topic show like Basic brewing, and they could easily go on tangents that they don not include in their archive descriptions.

And I listened to the entire archives over the holidays so things are a little foggy...

I just googled craftbrewer and toasting and that was what linked to it.

But in the one I heard they referenced THIS article...

Home Grain Roasting

Sorry if I wasted an hour of your time....

Hopefully the article makes up for it....

Revvy said:

Sorry if I wasted an hour of your time....

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Not at all!! I enjoyed the program. They did indeed tend to go off on tangents but that was half the fun. I thoroughly enjoy that quirky Aussie attitude. I was only disappointed that there wasn't more information on toasting.

The article you referenced was one I've studied. It's interesting that depending on the source, a particular specialty malt is described as being toasted in a different way. It would be interesting to compare a particular malt, brown malt for instance, done in the way the article you linked to describes it, how John Palmer describes it, and how various other people around the web say to.

This is an interesting idea keep us posted

I'm going to play around with it with some Marris otter smashes...one thing I want to try is to "dry roast" them in a dry and hot cast iron pan of mine. I often toast spices and even grains of rice that way...you have to be careful and keep stirring, but it gives an iteresting nuttiness to the spices and especially basamati rice.

I want to try that as well as the oven roasting...both dry and wet with sugar water...

Let's keep each other posted...we could use this thread...