Make your own specialty grains.

[Gusizhuo]

I want to roast some base malt barley into specialty grains myself. Any tips as to how to do this from some who have tried (and hopefully succeeded)?

 

[Evan!]

I've only toasted some 2-row. Given that roasted barley costs about the same as 2-row, I can't see any benefits to DIY, aside from sheer curiosity.

 

[RedSun]

The benefits are doubtlessly intrinsic if not outwardly noticeable. I'll admit, I'm curious, but not enough to add hours to my brewing experience.

-RS

 

[Professor Frink]

I know one of the brewing books has a chart on it, but I can't find it online. I've roasted 2-row before when my LHBS was out of victory. For victory, it was 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. It'll be a little higher temp (up to 400 degrees) and longer for darker roasted grains.

 

[clayof2day]

You can make various degrees of toasted malts at home. Crystal, no way, its "mashed" in its own husk before kilning, that might be tough. Roasted barley...unless you have some unmalted barley to roast, not going to happen. Black patent, sure thing. Victory/Biscuit/Aromatic-type malt, sure thing. There is a chart somewhere, http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Sanders/roasting.shtml

They do list crystal, but its not really the crystal malt we know.

 

[Gusizhuo]

I only have base malted barley available to me, thats why I need to work on my roasting skills.

 

[Gusizhuo]

Great link, thanks clayof2day. But I have a question.

There are two charts on that page. One is for starting with pale malt barley (which I have), and the other says to start with some darker kind of malt. What is that talking about exactly?

 

[Catfish]

I know what it's like Gusizhou. I have tried some roasting of my own malts (using the info in Radical Brewing). One point is to let your grains rest for a couple weeks after baking/ roasting. Also you can check out this site:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/wrucksterpage/Grains.htm
it gives some nice descriptions of the grain so you can guess at replacements and substitutions.

 

[Amin]

interesting subject,

gonna try it since where i live only basic malts available

 

[jgers]

All sorts of specialty malts are available to buy online... I will be toasting some 2 row for a toasted IPA this weekend. Planning to do it day-of due to scheduling constraints and a general suspicion of homebrewer conventional wisdom (which in this case says leave in a brown bag for 2 weeks)... I will let you guys know how it turned out about 7 weeks from now.