thrasher141
Member
I am from the US, but recently moved overseas and am now brewing in a country where there is only one brewery (besides my nano brewery) and a handful of lagers that all taste the same. I made the transition from hobbyist to professional this year, after much trial and error.
I can't really get any real brewing equipment or ingredients in the country I live in, so it's been quite a journey. I found a local source of raw barley (unmalted) which I assume is meant for animal feed but not sure. I experimented with malting it myself with mixed results. I probably would have stayed the course of malting myself if I didn't discover the enzyme cocktail called Ondea Pro, made by Novozymes.
I ordered a sample to a US address, brought it over in a suitcase after a trip back stateside (as I do all my ingredients save for the raw barley) and began the process of learning to brew with barley. It was like kind of like learning to brew all over again. There was lots of troubleshooting and learning from mistakes along the way, but eventually I brewed something that people liked.
There are still some significant challenges. Water quality where I am is terrible - tastes like a swimming pool (I've discovered campden tablets). Step mashing is tricky given my equipment. I have no equipment to chill the wort so I learned how to do no chill brewing. I have not been able to locate stainless steel so I am fermenting in a big plastic barrel. I have to plan and pack very carefully every time I travel back to the states, so that I can load up with as much specialty malted grains, yeast, and hops to take back in my suitcases. There are power outages, plumbing problems, and there was a fire in my brewery. Things don't work like they do in the USA.
Anyway, the point is: brewing with barley and enzymes is possible. You can make good beer. People are drinking my beer and they don't know anything is different about it (meaning that it's brewed with raw barley).
Two questions for all of you:
1) Is anybody else doing this? So far I have found no one else.
2) Would you as a craft beer enthusiast (or whatever you call yourself) drink barley/enzyme beer if it were available near you? Barley brewing cuts out the need for malt, meaning a brewery could potentially source barley much more easily and locally, seeing a savings in cost and environmental impact.
Would love your feedback and thoughts.
I can't really get any real brewing equipment or ingredients in the country I live in, so it's been quite a journey. I found a local source of raw barley (unmalted) which I assume is meant for animal feed but not sure. I experimented with malting it myself with mixed results. I probably would have stayed the course of malting myself if I didn't discover the enzyme cocktail called Ondea Pro, made by Novozymes.
I ordered a sample to a US address, brought it over in a suitcase after a trip back stateside (as I do all my ingredients save for the raw barley) and began the process of learning to brew with barley. It was like kind of like learning to brew all over again. There was lots of troubleshooting and learning from mistakes along the way, but eventually I brewed something that people liked.
There are still some significant challenges. Water quality where I am is terrible - tastes like a swimming pool (I've discovered campden tablets). Step mashing is tricky given my equipment. I have no equipment to chill the wort so I learned how to do no chill brewing. I have not been able to locate stainless steel so I am fermenting in a big plastic barrel. I have to plan and pack very carefully every time I travel back to the states, so that I can load up with as much specialty malted grains, yeast, and hops to take back in my suitcases. There are power outages, plumbing problems, and there was a fire in my brewery. Things don't work like they do in the USA.
Anyway, the point is: brewing with barley and enzymes is possible. You can make good beer. People are drinking my beer and they don't know anything is different about it (meaning that it's brewed with raw barley).
Two questions for all of you:
1) Is anybody else doing this? So far I have found no one else.
2) Would you as a craft beer enthusiast (or whatever you call yourself) drink barley/enzyme beer if it were available near you? Barley brewing cuts out the need for malt, meaning a brewery could potentially source barley much more easily and locally, seeing a savings in cost and environmental impact.
Would love your feedback and thoughts.