DrJerryrigger
Well-Known Member
You could also use a canning jar. It will take much longer for the inside to get up to temp, but that doesn't matter much, just takes longer.
Happiness is: Home malting
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hector
Well-Known Member
Beside taking a long time for heating , another disadvantage would be that the seeds can not be heated evenly in the canning jars .
Hector
hector
Well-Known Member
Look what I found here :
http://twinorbsbrewery.blogspot.com/2007/10/making-my-own-crystal-malt.html
He used zip lock bag !
Hector
http://twinorbsbrewery.blogspot.com/2007/10/making-my-own-crystal-malt.html
He used zip lock bag !
Hector
i just use my malt kiln and seal the green malt up so it stays humid and it works great. (commercial crystal is made with green malt) i have tried the zip lock bags and you normally end up with sticky malt thats a pain to dry, with the green malt it stays in the grain nicely
hector
Well-Known Member
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COLObrewer
Well-Known Member
Hector, you would need some sort of rotating kiln such as Absinthe's, here is a thread he has for his: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/how-i-make-all-my-own-malt-188337/
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i just block the door up so you dont get good drying air flow
hector
Well-Known Member
So , I made another batch of crystal malt and I used this time zip lock bags for stewing the seeds .
It gave me 1.5 Oz. of crystal malt and the same gravity points as the previous batch . The only difference that I noticed is that
it tasted less bitter than the previous batch and there were a slight malt flavor . However , it's still not enough for my 1-liter-Beer ( test batch ) .
Can this be a proof that the problem is related to the quality of the Barley itself ?!
Hector
It gave me 1.5 Oz. of crystal malt and the same gravity points as the previous batch . The only difference that I noticed is that
it tasted less bitter than the previous batch and there were a slight malt flavor . However , it's still not enough for my 1-liter-Beer ( test batch ) .
Can this be a proof that the problem is related to the quality of the Barley itself ?!
Hector
morticaixavier
Well-Known Member
Hector,
I think the only way to eliminate the stewing as the source of your problem would be to kiln a sample of your green malt to pale and see what kind of extract you get from that.
I think the only way to eliminate the stewing as the source of your problem would be to kiln a sample of your green malt to pale and see what kind of extract you get from that.
hector
Well-Known Member
O.K. BUT it would be difficult for me to keep the kiln temperature constant at 176-185 °F for 3-5 Hours .
Besides , then I should rehydrate the pale malt and stew it again !
Or do you mean mashing by that ?!
Hector
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COLObrewer
Well-Known Member
Hector, are you certain you are getting full modification of the barley in your initial malting process? If so, how do you know this? I think this is possibly the root of your problem, even crappy barley should yield more gravity points than you are getting.
Also, its kindof hard to measure such small amounts of product consistently, you may try a larger sample.
Also, a big part of the "malty" flavor of crystal comes from the kilning process which caramelizes the sugars within the grain. Your stewed malt should be sweet but it will not be very malty until it is kilned.
Also, its kindof hard to measure such small amounts of product consistently, you may try a larger sample.
Also, a big part of the "malty" flavor of crystal comes from the kilning process which caramelizes the sugars within the grain. Your stewed malt should be sweet but it will not be very malty until it is kilned.
hector
Well-Known Member
To see if the seeds are fully modified , I check out small samples of them from different regions on the pan .
When I see most of the Acrospires are 75-100% the length of the kernel , I take them for stewing .
I do not cut the seeds . I can see them growing underneath the husk .
I can make 1.5-2 Ounces each time according to the pan's dimensions .
Besides , I thought that the amount of specialty malt should not be more than 20% of the grain bill .
However , I don't know if that should also be so by steeping grains .
Is it wisely to use for example 3.5 Oz. of crystal malt as steeping grains in a 1-liter-batch ( O.G. = 1.050 ) ?!
After stewing I tasted some of them and noticed the sweetness , then I steeped them ( 1.5 Oz. ) in 1 liter of water at 160F for 30 minutes and then boiled it to reduce the Volume to 500 ml . After cooling , I checked the Gravity and tasted some . It was not so sweet as the seeds and there were just a slight malty flavor . Although , it was not so bitter as the previous batch .
Hector
morticaixavier
Well-Known Member
Yeah I meant to mash the home made pale malt alone to get an idea of the extract potential of the grain itself. It is an attempt to eliminate the stewing process itself as the culprit of your extract loss. I think you can kiln the green malt in an oven with just the light on, or perhaps two lights (run a cord of another lamp in through the door) You really only need to get to about 90-100f to kiln to pale malt level. If you do 4 oz to a one quart batch you get one pound per gallon and end up with a standard points per pound per gallon(PPG) measure used by maltsters to measure the extract potential of the grain.
Pale malt should be somewhere in the vicinty of 1.038 I believe. and it looks like crystal 60 should have about 34 ppg. course it's not that simple because you have to know the average efficiency of your method. So to determine that you would start by mashing 4 oz of commercial pale a couple of times and getting your average efficiency (save that wort and can it or freeze it for starters).
So If store pale malt gets an average of 1.028 at the 4oz per quart test size you have 73% efficiency in your system.
Then test your home malted 'pale' malt and any difference between your average OG and that of the commercial stuff is attributable to either the grain you are using or your malting technique.
Then mash 4 oz of your home stewed crystal all by itself (I know it won't convert but the OG should be more or less accurate still as the mash process has already happened in the stewing step) and the difference between that average and the average of your home kilned 'pale' malt is attributable directly to the stewing process (when the different PPG is taken into account)
Whew that was long winded.
hector
Well-Known Member
Thanks a lot that you show me a way to analyze the grain and my technique .
In fact , I've also thought about making pale malt but I found it more difficult and complicated than crystal malt .
Besides , dealing with mash water is not so easy for me , as it needs adjusting the profile , the pH and so on .
That's why I intended to make and use steeping grains .
As far as I know , making pale malt is not just kilning at about 100F . The green malt should be dried in two stages , first at
about 100-125F until the moisture of the grain gets down to 10% and then at 140-160F until the moisture is at or below 6% .
Then it is kilned at 176-185F for 3-5 Hours to produce standard pale malt .
According to an article titled "Malting Your Own" from "BYO" magazine , it can also be kilned at higher temperatures ( 220-400F ) .
It recommends kilning at 220F for 4 Hours to produce Munich malt . It's also mentioned in the article that more highly kilned malts will
have little or no enzymatic power .
So , for example , is 400F too high for kilning ?!
I would rather kiln at 250F , as it's much easier for me to keep it at this temperature constantly in the Oven .
What do you think about that ?!
By the way , I talked recently to another grain seller and he said that he has gotten some grains with a relatively good quality , but the problem is that he works and lives in another city . He promised to bring some sample for me as soon as he comes to our city for any reason ( may be next Week ) .
I'll try to make some crystal malt using that sample to see if there would be any difference .
Hector
morticaixavier
Well-Known Member
I am working on rekilning commercial pale to get 'mild' malt right now, hence my somewhat scientific method oriented thinking right now. I kilned pale malt at 230f for 45 minutes to get roughly 5-6 SRM color. Still awaiting results on enzyme activity. My extract was fine, even a little higher than with the control pale malt but I suspect that is do to inconsistant milling.
You are right about the kilning temp for pale malt. still I imagine you could just dry, mill and mash some of your green malt to get a feel for extract potential related to the malting process v. the stewing process.
The low temp drying process it so ensure that while the enzymes are active in the green malt the are not denatured. then once moisture levels are low enough you can safely go up to 200-250f without losing to much enzymatic activity.
You are right about the kilning temp for pale malt. still I imagine you could just dry, mill and mash some of your green malt to get a feel for extract potential related to the malting process v. the stewing process.
The low temp drying process it so ensure that while the enzymes are active in the green malt the are not denatured. then once moisture levels are low enough you can safely go up to 200-250f without losing to much enzymatic activity.
hector
Well-Known Member
Imagine I'm going to make pale malt using 2 Oz. of 2-row Barley .
After obtaining the green malt and starting the drying process , how can I determine the moisture% ?
I know that it's done by weighing the seeds , and the article gives some reference , but it says for each pound !
How can I do that in a smaller scale ( Ounces ) ?!
Hector
morticaixavier
Well-Known Member
I would start by weighing in metric. You would have to the pre malting weight in grams (maybe even miligrams) that is assumed to be around 10-14% (Check me on that) So 2 oz if ~56 grams so 5.6 grams water steep to 35-45% (let's stick with low end for ease) adding 14 grams water total sample weight is 70 grams, malt, dry to about 4% (call it 5% cause it's easier on my head) so we are down to 2.8 grams water for a total sample weight of 53.2 grams. At this scale it is pretty hard to figure these small numbers cause the margin of error is enough to throw things off a lot. but 100 grams starting weight is just about .25 pounds or 4 oz so that might be a little easier to handle then it's just
100 g at 10% = 10 g water
125 g at 35% = 35 g water
94 g at 4% = 4 g water
still you have to work in a margin of error for sampling loss, chaff loss, oops I dropped some down the drain loss etc.
100 g at 10% = 10 g water
125 g at 35% = 35 g water
94 g at 4% = 4 g water
still you have to work in a margin of error for sampling loss, chaff loss, oops I dropped some down the drain loss etc.
If you're planning to use plastic bags, I'd highly recommend the "freezer" bags...they generally have a better seal and the plastic is both thicker and a different formula that has more resistance to temps (high and low), less oxygen permeability (to reduce freezer burn"), and more chemical resistance (to store harsh things like acidic tomato sauce). You can actually feel the difference in materials - just rub it between your fingers and you'll notice a remarkably different friction coefficient. Ziploc brand seem to have better seals than the Glad brand, in my experience. If you're concerned about leakage, you can always double-bag....it may take a tiny bit longer to get to temp inside, but not by much.
Any plastic bag full of grain that is not vaccuum-sealed is going to float...you simply cannot squeeze all of the air out that is between the grains. Drop something into the pot to act as a buffer between the bag and the pot bottom (a small plate, a few rocks, whatever) so that any burner heat isn't going to melt the bag, toss the bag in and drop something heavy on top to hold it down.
proteinman
New Member
Hey everyone I'm a home malter too so I thought I'd let you know how I go about it. I use feed barley because that is all I have access too and after malting my grain yields about 80% the sugars the commercial stuff does for the same weight. I do a soak for 24 hours at 15 degrees and I use an air pump to aerate the water the whole time, I use 2 big air stones. After this I drain the water off and let sit in the bucket for another 24 hours at 15 degrees. I then put my grain which is now chitting into trays about 10-15cm deep and keep this at you guessed it 15 degrees for 3 or 4 days until its ready (acrospire on average 75-100% length of grain). I will give the malt a turn every day sometimes twice and make sure it doesn't dry out, I just give it a little spray if needed.
I then dry my malt in the sun, its the hard way to do it because of the birds and weather conditions but it works well, takes about 2 days in the sun to dry hard. Anyway I make my beer from it and make my own crystal too - its good beer and I'm happy. I hope this helps. By the way I do all my malting in a fridge with a temp controller, a few kilograms at a time.
Enjoy your malting - it makes for cheap beer and is satisfying!
I then dry my malt in the sun, its the hard way to do it because of the birds and weather conditions but it works well, takes about 2 days in the sun to dry hard. Anyway I make my beer from it and make my own crystal too - its good beer and I'm happy. I hope this helps. By the way I do all my malting in a fridge with a temp controller, a few kilograms at a time.
Enjoy your malting - it makes for cheap beer and is satisfying!
OP
OP
COLObrewer
Well-Known Member
For those of you interested in home malting (And every minute detail of malting) I found a link to the quintessential malting book on google books, there is also quite a bit of brewing history and methods referenced in the book, a ton of reading: http://books.google.com/books?id=s9...&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Its only $120 for the ebook.
Now all you need are a few free months of reading time
Its only $120 for the ebook.
Now all you need are a few free months of reading time
For those of you interested in home malting (And every minute detail of malting) I found a link to the quintessential malting book on google books, there is also quite a bit of brewing history and methods referenced in the book, a ton of reading: http://books.google.com/books?id=s9...&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Its only $120 for the ebook.
Now all you need are a few free months of reading time
Hope it doesn't hurt to bump this epic thread, as I wanted to reference some things. Seems there is an amazing range of protocols people are using, especially to kiln their malt (it doesn't seem like the germination part is THAT hard to get wrong). I haven't managed to wade through the above book yet (though I sneakily managed to download it for offline consumption) but I am sure it will cast a little more light on the subject. Just to chip in what I have learned from reading around and from my own practice:
At the beginning of kilning, I believe the temperature is not the main point, rather you are trying to get rid of as much surface moisture as possible in order to halt germination and start the drying (to murder the little barley sprouts in their infancy, if you like). To that end, pointing a floor fan at it (with perhaps a desk lamp or something shining on it for extra effect), and turning it over every now and then, seems to me to be more effective. You don't have to worry about damaging rootlets any more, right? So you can do it fairly often and vigorously. However, I have a fan-assisted oven, so I put it to blow, and just have the pilot light on, but, importantly, I prop the door open a little. It doesn't get very warm inside that way, but it definitely dries a whole lot quicker than when I had it closed - with the door closed, it was nice and warm (about 35C/95F) but very moist and taking forever to dry (like, days, which drove the missus crazy obviously!)
BTW, the rest of my protocol was (for my latest batch), after I reached hand dryness to then gradually raise the temp to about 50C (about 120F), still with the door open, and get the moisture down to a few percentage (though I didn't weigh or anything, just nibbled a few to determine that they were soft, but pretty dry). I then closed the door and gradually stepped up to about 100C (212F) in small increments over about 2 hours and then stopped, as I was concerned about overdoing it and getting something that wasn't pale malt anymore. At the end I had something that was VERY crunchy (though not crystallised, I am glad to say, that wasn't the plan) and very light, comparable I think to the original grain weight.
Does this sound like a reasonable approach - is there any potential problem with that protocol?
I brewed up a batch of my FIRST home malt attempt the other day, done in a similar way, and got, yes, beer, but an appalling efficiency of something like 32%, so I am keen to figure out where I might have gone wrong as there MUST be room for improvement there, surely...
OP
OP
COLObrewer
Well-Known Member
I never have worried about damaging the rootlets, they are resilient and tough, the most you can do to improve the consistency during the growing phase is move them around, continuous would not be too much providing you also have consistent temperature, moisture and oxygen. You are trying to grow a plant and these are essiential ingredients during this phase of growth.
This is correct you must have air flow to carry away the moisture, otherwise you are just "stewing" more. This is a critical part, you must stop the growth of the barley quickly at the correct time, otherwise modification proceeds, even though the acrospire may seem to halt, the kernel is still using its reserves to "try and grow". The temperature is fine, I would suggest movement/stirring of the grains in this phase helps tremendously.
You seem to have the basics as far as temperature, moisture etc. If the barley will grow you can make malt. CONSISTENT temperature and moisture during the growing phase from couching through initial drying should get you consistent product. Movement of the grain/malt during this time IMO is critical to consistency as well. Do you see a theme here? As I found, the best thing you can do during ALL phases of malting (Soaking, couching, drying, kilning, stewing, curing, high temp kilning, smoking, etc) to improve consistency is movement, it aids in keeping all the grains at the same temperature, moisture and amount of aeration throughout.
You've said nothing about the crush of your malt, how is the crush? What are you using to crush/grind it?
Thanks for the comments, sounds like I am at least on the right track. I think one of my problems, consistency-wise, is that the oven heats from above and below, and so the bottom and top racks can potentially get a higher temperature treatment than the middle shelf (I crammed 3 shelves in). I have tried shuffling around, but it's still a concern, though I am not too bothered for these test batches as I imagine it might even make the flavour more interesting having a mixture of malts. Not good for long-term consistency though, of course.
Yes, milling is something I haven't got to grips with, I was only doing little test batches of like a litre, just to see what sort of efficiency ballpark I can get. So I tried to break them up in the food processor to a similar structure to what you see in premilled malt. I know it's not possible though, so I erred on the excessive side, as my understanding is that the main problem with overmilling is astringecy from the husk and a possible stuck sparge. But I figured generally that ought to give me a better efficiency, no? I was not bothered about astringency, as this is just to measure efficiency, and a stuck sparge wasn't an issue - and anyway, with such a small batch I think you can poke things around a bit if anything gets stuck (which it didn't)?
There could definitely still be problems with my brewing process though - it is hard to regulate the temperature in such a small batch. But I felt I had pretty much wrung everything out of the grain that there was to wring - I do not have a standard AG setup yet though, this whole malting thing is hopefully my way to get into AG as speciality brewing malts aren't available in my part of the world.
Yes, milling is something I haven't got to grips with, I was only doing little test batches of like a litre, just to see what sort of efficiency ballpark I can get. So I tried to break them up in the food processor to a similar structure to what you see in premilled malt. I know it's not possible though, so I erred on the excessive side, as my understanding is that the main problem with overmilling is astringecy from the husk and a possible stuck sparge. But I figured generally that ought to give me a better efficiency, no? I was not bothered about astringency, as this is just to measure efficiency, and a stuck sparge wasn't an issue - and anyway, with such a small batch I think you can poke things around a bit if anything gets stuck (which it didn't)?
There could definitely still be problems with my brewing process though - it is hard to regulate the temperature in such a small batch. But I felt I had pretty much wrung everything out of the grain that there was to wring - I do not have a standard AG setup yet though, this whole malting thing is hopefully my way to get into AG as speciality brewing malts aren't available in my part of the world.
OP
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COLObrewer
Well-Known Member
I've never tried such a small mash but what temperature was your mash and for how long did it rest? did you sparge?
I've never tried such a small mash but what temperature was your mash and for how long did it rest? did you sparge?
I mashed at about 170F (77C), might that have been a bit high? That wouldn't affect the OG, though, would it? I sparged at about 200F (93C) until I had a total of a litre, by which time the collected wort was looking very thin - but I did it anyway because a litre was my test volume. Again, those temps were a little hard to regulate for such a small quantity, so I guess something could've gone wrong there...
Instead of the OG of 1.038 I should've got for regular pale malt at a 70% efficiency, I got 1.017
. Which again, I guess is a success of sorts, as I do appear to have SOME sort of beer now (leaving it to finish fermenting, but a sniff test seems positive). But obviously I would like to hugely improve efficiency as it's just not going to be economical to malt up 20 pounds of barley just for a 5 gallon batch!All comments/suggestions appreciated.
OP
OP
COLObrewer
Well-Known Member
Most definately, the enzymes that convert the starches in malt to fermentable sugar are created from appx. 95F to 162F, if you brought your mash up to 170F you did not create any of those enzymes, my guess is that you were at the very high limit and created a small amount of alpha amylase.
This may help your next all grain brewing: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/index.html
Most definately, the enzymes that convert the starches in malt to fermentable sugar are created from appx. 95F to 162F, if you brought your mash up to 170F you did not create any of those enzymes, my guess is that you were at the very high limit and created a small amount of alpha amylase.
This may help your next all grain brewing: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/index.html
There you go, that could be the case - as I say, it was very hard to stabilise the temperature with such a small quantity, though I was more concerned about getting too LOW a temperature, so maybe I overdid it.
Yes, I am working my way through How to Brew at the moment, great read at a great price! Though it's only after some of these experiments that I have been able to understand the basic principles better. Now I am basically rereading and it all makes much more sense
I am sure I can get my process working better. I mentioned in another thread that what I am using is feed barley so it MIGHT not be quite up to par, but I still think the yield should be a heck of a lot better.HI Everybody
I'm a journalist working on a story about the micro-malting movement, and have already talked to, or are planning on talking to, small commercial outfits like Valley Malt and Riverbend, but was interested in talking to homebrewers who've attempted DIY malting. If anybody has, and would be open to talking before my deadline on Wednesday, pls email me at [email protected]. Thanks!
Lessley Anderson
I'm a journalist working on a story about the micro-malting movement, and have already talked to, or are planning on talking to, small commercial outfits like Valley Malt and Riverbend, but was interested in talking to homebrewers who've attempted DIY malting. If anybody has, and would be open to talking before my deadline on Wednesday, pls email me at [email protected]. Thanks!
Lessley Anderson
Micro-malting movement? I seriously doubt it. But good luck with the story. I'd love read more about this.
Here's a Basic Brewing podcast interviewing a Colorado small (very small) malster. Lots of talk about malting at home.
http://ec.libsyn.com/p/3/6/b/36b3c3...1ce3dae902ea1d01ce8137d2cd59263b&c_id=5533996
http://ec.libsyn.com/p/3/6/b/36b3c3...1ce3dae902ea1d01ce8137d2cd59263b&c_id=5533996
