experimental All Grain

[Maxham51]

This is my idea for an all grain GF and would appreciate any advice you might give as I am pretty new to home brewing
This is for a 1 1/2 gallon batch as some of the ingredients are pretty expensive I prefer to do this as a micro brew. I am using BIAB method so rice hulls are not really needed.

4.5 lbs millet malt
.25 crystal millet
.25 quinoa malt
.25 toasted buckwheat gelintinized
.25 toasted oat flakes gelintinized
1 lb Medium Chestnut chips pre done 24 hours at 122 added to Wort at flameout
2.5 oz maltodextros last 10 min of boil
1/4 tsp whirlfloc last 10 min of boil
.2 oz Centinnal @ 60 min
.2 oz casscade @ 15 min
.5 oz casscade @ flame out
Yeast Safale S-05 or your choice, adjust fermenting temp if using something else
Estimated IBU 32
1.5 gallons boil off and grain absorbtion
Prepare Chestnut chips with 1 gallon water at 122 for 24 hours then boil down to 1/2 gallons then cool decotion in fridge
gelentinize Buckwheat and Oat flakes @ 140 with 1.75 gallons of water for 1 hour before adding to mesh
Wort heat to 170 degrees and add to grains in tun 60 miniutes then test with Iodine (I think the millet malt has enough diostatic power to convert the grains but this is my first time using it so not really sure)
If Iodine tests positive then test temperature and remove 1 quart, heat enough so when added back to wort you get 155 degrees and rest another hour
Test again and repeat if neccessary.
Sparge with 3 quarts @ 170 for 10 minutes
Do 60 miniutes boil adding hops, whirlflock and Maltodex to schedual
at end of boil add cold chestnut decotion and cool then add to fermentor
airate and add yeast
fermints at 60 for 3 days then increse to 65 for 4 days
Cold crash for 2 days with gelatin
Then put in secondary and ferment at 60 for 2 weeks
if cloudy cold condition 1 week with bentonite
Bottle condition for a month or more.
My best guess is OG between 1.05 - 1.06 and FG at about 1.01

From past experience I have found that it takes about 3 weeks in the fermenter to eliminated off odors and helps with off flavors. As I expect these grains to produce a cloudy brew, I have found I generally get better results using a secondary and an additional week of cold conditioning with bentonite.

Millet malt obtained from Grouse Malting and Roasting Company Price was very good under $3 per pound with shipping. From what I have been able to determine, it takes about 1.7 lbs of Millet Malt to equal about a pound of 2 row.
Crystal Malt, will crystalize the malt myself
Quinoa Malt - Used Sprouted Quinoa from Whole Foods, very expensive stuff, they had a grain crusher that I used but Quinoa is hard to properly crush due to its small size, I expect the efficiency to be a bit low on this. I doubt I will use much Quinoa in the future
Medium Chestnut chips from Chestnut Trails - fairly expensive but looking at the price of chestnuts I could not do better if I made my own, nuts are a pricey ingredient, no way around that.

From what I understand, Millet, Quinoa and Buckwheat do not add much body to the beer, The Buckwheat should add some head retention. The Chestnut Chips should add some barley, malty flavor. And the Toasted Oat flakes should add some body and mouth feel along with a bit of nutty flavor. Without the Maltodex I think it will likely have poor head and be watery. I figure it will come out a lot like a wheat beer but with some strange flavors so I think the IBU needs to be at least 30 to offset this a bit. I am not sure what the best hops to use are and a higher IBU might be better making it closer to an IPA.

Note: I tried contacting the Colorado Malting company about purchasing some of their malts but after a couple of attempts where they never responded I have given up on them. Grouse Malting and Brewing Company has been very responsive with decent pricing.

 

[glutarded-chris]

Looks like you prepare your steeped chestnut wart in advance and add as cooled wart to the end. Never seen that technique, but don’t know why it wouldn’t work.

The buckwheat and oats seem to be steeped in advance. Most references I have read say to cereal mash in advance of main mash (boil for 10 minutes).

It looks like the main mash is doughed in at 170F. Seems high to me. Are you calculating that the mash will be at 150F to 155F after adding the grain? What is your target mash temp for the first rest?

If you are shooting for 1.060 OG, then it looks to me you are anticipating about 14 ppg out of your grain. If you get better than that, then you should be prepared to ferment more like 2 gallons.

I believe that millet does have diastatic power but my experience is that the buckwheat leaves a lot of starch no matter what. Be prepared for the starch test to not be a very good indicator when it is time to stop mashing and start collecting.

Looks like you malted your own Quinoa. Well done! I would love to experiment with Quinoa but am not willing to go to the extra effort of malting grain. Hope more maltsters begin offering Quinoa.

Hope you like the chestnut. I brewed a chestnut batch and did not like it at all. Thought I did something wrong until I ordered a few Harvester beers and realized that my batch was very very close to Harvester. I realized I just don’t like chestnut beer! Others rave about it so it comes down to personal taste.

 

[dcbw]

I'm pretty sure the gelatinization temp of buckwheat is way above 140...

 

[Maxham51]

Looks like you prepare your steeped chestnut wart in advance and add as cooled wart to the end. Never seen that technique, but don’t know why it wouldn’t work.

I have 5 lbs of chestnut chips with the instructions to give them a rest at 122 for 24 hours. As this is a bit tricky I decided to do the 5 lbs at one sitting then concentrate it and freeze what I am not using for this batch. This way I can add it to the wort at flameout to help speed the cool down time. Thou this has the disadvantage of reducing my sparge water. It might be better to use it in the sparge to keep it from being absorbed by the grain and giving a higher efficiency.

The buckwheat and oats seem to be steeped in advance. Most references I have read say to cereal mash in advance of main mash (boil for 10 minutes).

I'm pretty sure the gelatinization temp of buckwheat is way above 140...

Good to know, I will try gelatinizing them separately with 10 min. From what I understand 140 is a good temp for oat but is minimum for buckwheat, Buckwheat will gelatinize much better at about 170.

It looks like the main mash is doughed in at 170F. Seems high to me. Are you calculating that the mash will be at 150F to 155F after adding the grain? What is your target mash temp for the first rest? .

Yes targeting for a temp near 155, this is with a starting temp of 75F for the Mash tun and grain, using a Rubbermaid 5 gallon cooler. I may change this to do a 30 min rest at 145 then raise it to 155 for 60 min.

If you are shooting for 1.060 OG, then it looks to me you are anticipating about 14 ppg out of your grain. If you get better than that, then you should be prepared to ferment more like 2 gallons.

I may need to recalculate, Grouse just sent me info about their millet malt, It Has a DP of 60 and 25 ppg, Still I think I am close to 1.06 remember I am adding a 1/2 gallon of the Chestnut brew that has very little sugar (about 4 ppg). This should dilute it down to about 1.06
Originally I used stats from one of their recipes to arrive at the amount I needed. This came out to about 1.7 lbs = 1lb of 2 row. Now whis this info from Grouse it comes out to about 1.6 lbs = 1 lb of 2 row.

Looks like you malted your own Quinoa...

Actually I bought sprouted quinoa from Whole Foods. They also have a grain crusher. I ran it thru the crusher a couple of times with the roller set as close as I could get away with where they didn't touch. Still because of the very small diameter of the grain, it looks like only about 1/2 of it got crushed. It would probably be better to use a food processor or coffee grinder.

On another note I do plan on malting some of my own buckwheat.

 

[glutarded-chris]

When I did my chestnut batch, I followed the recipe on Chestnut Trails which called for 24 hour steep. They have since changed it and now they say you can do it in something like 4 hours. My guess is the shorter time will do just fine and that makes it a lot easier not having to steep over night.

Don't forget the amylase and pectinase.

Reading their instructions now, I am not sure if they are getting anything out of the amylase as I have read that it only works at lower temperatures ~140F. Not sure about the pectinase. You might consider following their instructions but letting it cool naturally to 140F and then adding the amylase and let steep for at least an hour more.

 

[Maxham51]

Amalyse Enzyme I believe works best at above 145 as it is an alpha enzyme. It is the Beta enzyme that works best at 140 I believe.
But to report on my brew. I did about 12 hour protein rest with the Chestnut chips and it ended with about 18 points so it does have a fair amount of fermentables. I then adjusted the amount of Millet used to end up with an OG of 1.060 (2 lbs of Pale Millet Malt). Otherwise I used the rest of the ingredients as shown in the original receipe

The SG ended a bit high and starchy thou the flavor was excellent when tested at transfer to the secondary.

After numerous tests I found the millet malt I received was substandard having very low DP. I even tried germinating some and much of it germinated proving it had not been properly malted.

This makes one of the best brews GF or otherwise I have tasted but I need to find a decent source of Millet Malt before trying it again.