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I've constructed the air circulator and the wooden face plate. Now I just need the slightly-longer shank to arrive and to sanitize the system. Here's the project enclosure with fan, electrical plug, and hole for the air hose. I had to use a soldering iron to put this all together! It was...

Here is a rough schematic: The only correction I need to add is that the top elbow is in line with the outside of the drywall, not inside. This is important so that the air is circulating in a closed loop, and not being lost behind the drywall. I'm still putting together the circulation...

Howdy guys, I've been taking some time off for the holidays, and my beer has been chilling in a keg in a mini fridge for about a month. Luckily, I've had some days off work due to snow and I've finally made progress on setting up the tap system. I wanted a tap coming out of the wall rather...

Thanks homemaltster. The lightness of color is definitely from not getting the dark roast correct. I think the off-flavors are probably from the temp being too low for the first day and too high for the day after before getting to the correct range. We tried to bottle a few last week and drank...

There is beer! Fermenting appeared to be complete by the three week mark. I'd seen bubbling at about a bubbled every two minutes on the second week mark, but things calmed down since then. Now, at three and a half weeks, I got in a tasted it. After sanitizing my new keg, a few bottles, etc...

I'm at the two-week point of fermentation today. My fermentor is still at 68 F, and it's still bubbling at about 1 bubble every two minutes. I'm not sure how long this will last! My keg arrived in the mail, so I've started preparing for the keg and tap system to be installed. I've bought a...

That is glorious, sfish. It looks like your patch is about two or three times the size of mine, so I think my estimate of twenty to thirty pounds is good. I can't wait to watch my barley grow next summer. I'll be harvesting in early August, I believe.

sfish, that is amazing! I don't have the guts yet to try and use my own yeast, bravo and good luck to you on that score. How did your second barley harvest go? Did you use any soil measurements to track nitrogen levels? Did your plants tinge yellow just before the winter started (mine have, not...

Homemalt, I'll have to wait and taste my brew before I venture to take any credit for it working! I am considering how to push more grain through each time I malt- I think the drying phase is my bottle neck right now. If I can get more food dehydrators I can scale up my six-pound batches into...

Yesterday, at the one week mark, the fermentor was bubbling at one bubble every 90 seconds. The high point was on Tuesday when it was trucking along at one bubble every second. The color is also much darker than it was when all the yeast was suspended. I ordered a keg last week, and I'll be...

sfish, after two 8-hour soaking period during the first day, I found that two and a half additional days was sufficient for a small portion of acrospires to start bursting through. Now, the sprouts (rootlets) will end up about three time the length of the kernels, but it's the acrospire (inner...

Dang Babaganuj, thanks for all the advice and encouragement! Both go a long way to helping me out for next time. I've decided that I want another crack at this whether it goes well or not. To that end, I'm going to start malting the next batch of grain over the long weekend. Regardless of what...

It's alive!! At the 21 hour mark the fermentor is bubbling away. There is a lot of yeast-looking material in the bottom, and a complete frothy layer across the top that wasn't there this morning. The ale yeast should be on top, so I'm not sure what's happening.

Some photos from yesterday: My pots getting up to temperature: Straining my dark malts. I think these came out more like a brown or caffe; I'll have to roast longer or hotter next time. My nozzled bucket draining into the fermentor at the end of the process:

Brew day has come and gone. While I had been planning this for weeks and had the whole day blocked out, that didn't stop fate from intervening. The morning of we got a call from my in-laws that they were in desperate need of help moving out of their house. We went over to help them, and only...

Today, the day before brew day, I'm taking some last preparatory steps. I tried to buy a stock pot large enough for the 7 or 8 gallons I'll need, but I was unsuccessful. I'll have to make do with the five gallon pots I have. I've also readied the dark malts for cold steeping. Following this...

I've put in another half pound into the oven and roasted it at 350 F for 20 mins and 450 F for 20 mins. It looks and tastes about like the first batch. Last week I also went to a buddy's house and roasted the rest of the barley at 180 F for about two hours. We had a thermometer in the baking...

This morning I had a crack at roasting a dark malt in my oven. I ended up baking 1/2 pound of barley for an hour at 350, 30 mins at 415, and 20 mins at 450. It ended up with golden husks, black kernel surfaces, and brown kernel interiors. It didn't smoke much, but ended with a solid astringent...

Thanks Zibe, I'll definitely give those videos a watch before I start to roast. I think making darker malts from pale malt would be totally do-able.

The dark roast will indeed have zero enzymatic power, but it only makes up 10% of the bill. There should be more than enough power in all the pale malt to convert the sugars of the dark malt, oats, and flaked barley. I do have to make sure not to roast the pale malt too much, but I want to give...