DIY Malting Gone Wrong

[Geneva]

Hi everybody. First post for me.

I decided to try malting my own barley, so I picked up 50 pounds of two row from a co-op in Idaho. After malting about 9 pounds I tried a mini mash which turned out terrible. The wort, if you could call it that, was gray in color and had a grassy flavor. There was a hint of sweetness but nothing like I get with commercial malts.

Does anyone have any ideas where I went wrong?

Here's the process I followed.
- Cleaned grains to remove all dust, bugs, etc...
- Soaked grains for 8 hours in large pot
- Drained and let sit for 2 hours
- Repeated this 3 times.
- Spread out grains on top of paper towels and stored in drawers.
- Stirred the grains, replaced paper towels, and sprayed to keep moist 3 times daily for 3 days. Rootlets were growing rapidly.
- After 3 days germination I cut open 20 grains and the average shoot length was 94% of the grain.
- Put grains in bucket with holes and blew ambient air through them for an hour.
- Transferred grains to pillow case and put in clothes dryer on low temp setting (100F) for several hours. Weight was now back to original dry weight.
- Knocked off all roots.

Then I crushed them and did a one hour mash at 152F resulting in the nasty wort described above.

 

[Catt22]

I think you may have let the germination go too far. Did you chew some up before you milled it? You know the taste of store bought malt, so it should taste reasonably the same i would think.

 

[Geneva]

I did taste it at several points throughout the process. It had a grassy flavor throughout.

I hadn't thought about the possibility that I let the germination go too far. Only about 1% of the grains had the arcospire poking through the husk.

 

[EBloom97]

Only about 1% of the grains had the arcospire poking through the husk.

You're good on that front then. In fact, it looks like you did a lot right where it could have gone wrong.

I don't know if this is your specific problem, but they say that you should do a more complex mashing process with home malted grain. I don't know if a simply protein rest would do it for you, or if you should do a decoction or cereal mash. A simple sach rest is probably not enough though.

 

[Sawdustguy]

Here's the process I followed.
- Cleaned grains to remove all dust, bugs, etc...
- Soaked grains for 8 hours in large pot
- Drained and let sit for 2 hours
- Repeated this 3 times.
- Spread out grains on top of paper towels and stored in drawers.
- Stirred the grains, replaced paper towels, and sprayed to keep moist 3 times daily for 3 days. Rootlets were growing rapidly.
- After 3 days germination I cut open 20 grains and the average shoot length was 94% of the grain.
- Put grains in bucket with holes and blew ambient air through them for an hour.
- Transferred grains to pillow case and put in clothes dryer on low temp setting (100F) for several hours. Weight was now back to original dry weight.
- Knocked off all roots.

Two comments:

I think you are soaking them a little long. I would go for a two hour soak.

I don't think I would put the grains in the cloths dryer.

 

[LordUlrich]

Are you sure you have a malting variety? If it had a grassy taste I suspect you have the barley equivlant to field corn.

 

[sasky7777]

Are you sure you have a malting variety? If it had a grassy taste I suspect you have the barley equivlant to field corn.

I would consider this a factor as well. It should be easy to find out from the Co-Op.

 

[Geneva]

The co-op said it was two row. The same they sell for malting so I think I'm OK there.

One other thing. When the grains were fully germinated and wet I took a pound or so and mashed it (in the unbroken husk) at 152 F for an hour. I then baked it at 245 F for a couple hours. It came out sweet as heck and a color of about 40L. Beautiful. So I think the enzymes and sugar conversions are good.

 

[runningweird]

I just made my first batch with home malted grain, and I only did a single infusion mash, I got about 45% out of it. I think I should have done a stepped mash probably using decoction. so far the beer looks good, but its pretty cloudy( probably due to the lack of a protein rest) and has been in primary for about 1 week.

 

[mattd2]

The co-op said it was two row. The same they sell for malting so I think I'm OK there.

One other thing. When the grains were fully germinated and wet I took a pound or so and mashed it (in the unbroken husk) at 152 F for an hour. I then baked it at 245 F for a couple hours. It came out sweet as heck and a color of about 40L. Beautiful. So I think the enzymes and sugar conversions are good.

Have you steeped any of the "crystal" malt you made and checked it's flavour. I have no experience malting but I would say if the grassy flavour is not there in your crystal then I would be looking at the steps from drying onwards, was the clothes dryer your idea or did you read about that trick somewhere? Also you knocked the rootlets off but are you sure you got rid of them all, I would guess that those could give a grassy flavour.
I hope you find out whats causing the flavour as your process seems to be the simplest I have seen for home malting :rockin:

 

[Geneva]

I did indeed steep the crystal malt. I put a handful in the food processor and made an awesome glass of sweet tea.

 

[git_dr1]

Just out of curiosity did you give the malt any rest after drying them before using them?

 

[Geneva]

No. I didn't give the grains any rest. I started the drying process right away. Should I have given them a rest?

I've got another batch steeping now. I'll post my adjusted process and results by the end of the week.

 

[pd230soi]

Some folks say you need to let it "rest" in a paper bag or some such thing.

A number of folks have worked with this and you can find their results somewhere here..

 

[git_dr1]

When I was looking into it and reading up on the process I'm sure I read that after drying you want to let the malted barley rest for 2 - 4 weeks before trying to use it.

 

[mattd2]

No. I didn't give the grains any rest. I started the drying process right away. Should I have given them a rest?

I've got another batch steeping now. I'll post my adjusted process and results by the end of the week.

When I was looking into it and reading up on the process I'm sure I read that after drying you want to let the malted barley rest for 2 - 4 weeks before trying to use it.

I read that somewhere about home roasting grains, leave in a paper bag for 2-4 weeks to let them mellow.
I would think you would want to dry the wet grain pretty quick otherwise your just asking for it to become a breeding ground for variuos microbes

 

[brewyourown4life]

after your done kilning the grain, let it sit 2 weeks to mellow out.

 

[-TPM-]

Check out "The Homebrewer's Garden" ISBN:9781580170109 (if you haven't already) it has a section on growing, malting and roasting grain.

I've never malted, but a couple of possibilities I noticed as I read through the section again quickly;
The temp of the area you where malting in. (should be ~50F)
The first water change should have been at 2 hours, then every 12 for a total of 72.
It mentions people using the dryer for small amounts, but says it doesn't work...


Oh and the 2 weeks mellowing is really only for roasted grains, and even then mostly just the darker.

 

[The_Dog_42]

It mentions people using the dryer for small amounts, but says it doesn't work...

I wonder if it says the dryer won't work because of the possibility of producing nitrosamines (a carcinogen) in the malt. In the 70's commercial maltsters changed their process to indirectly heat the malt during the kilning process. This allowed the malt to be dried effectively, without exposing it to the nitrogen in the atmosphere.

I only have a brief knowledge about this process from a book I found on Audible.com called "A Brewmaster's Art" by Dr. Charles Bamforth. So I don't know how malt is kilned commercially, but it may be something to look out for...Good luck.

 

[Geneva]

I'm a little smarter now. But have a new set of problems.

It turns out that the grassy taste in my original mash was due to not drying the malt completely. I'm guessing that the acrospire was still green inside the husk resulting in the...well....grass taste. Makes sense, duh. The gray color was from using a food processor and pulverizing the husks. It settled out quickly but seemed to leave behind a corn like taste. I fixed that with the purchase of a barley crusher.

It's also important to use heat while drying. I found an obscure reference to something called "wind" malt, where it's dried at ambient temp and will impart a grass like taste. I overcame these obsticles by purchasing a 4 tray food dehydrator at bed bath and beyond for $60. The temp is controllable from 90F to 160F. Perfect. I found that 4 pounds of green malt will completely dry in the thing in 12 hours at 120F

Anyway, I used the method described in the original post with the addition of the new dehydrator to produce 14 lbs pale malt. I also took 1 lb green malt, mashed it in the husk for 60 min then baked it for 2 1/2 hours at 250 F.

I did the full 15 lb mash over the weekend. 154F for 60 min then two 15 min batch sparges at 170F. Result was about 6 gallons of beautiful golden colored wort. After boiling for 60 min I was left with about 5 gallons with a gravity of 1.07. It's in a dark closet and fermenting nicely at 71F using wyeast 1388.

My problem now is that it's REALLY cloudy. I'd say milky. This happened 1/2 way through the boil. I watch in horror as my beautiful wort took on a milky appearance over about 3 minutes. My best guess for the milky apppearance was that I didn't do a very good job of removing all rootlets. I'll plan to leave in primary for at least 2 weeks, then try some clarifiers in secondary. I also dumped in 3 capfulls of irish moss at the 45 minute mark and chilled in 20 min using a chiller.

 

[-TPM-]

My book says about using an oast (air drying), they say to do a CO2 bath first though to kill the grain.

Maybe you're getting more hot break? I wouldn't worry unless it's still there in a week or 2.

 

[bschot]

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