Improved home-made crystal

[fearwig]

This is one of those "are my starting premises correct?" threads, I guess, so bear with. The standard technique for homemade crystal/caramel malt, as I understand it, consists of soaking your grain and (basically) mashing it at low oven temperatures by making a pile of wet grain before you spread it out to dry and crank up the heat to turn some of those simple sugars into flavorful unfermentables.

Wouldn't that be accomplished more efficiently and with more evenly distributed results by doing a real mash on that soaked grain--with little or no extra liquid but the same temps, in a mini cooler or whatever--and then spreading and toasting the mashed grain? You'd get a higher rate of conversion and more "crystal" for your time and effort. It seems to me that goes double if you're steeping your crystal malts, since anything that didn't convert before toasting is going to get passed as unconverted starch.

The effort would be minimal, maybe even less trouble than worrying about keeping the oven in the right temperature range to do it the traditional way (with the outsides getting all dried out and failing to convert). The higher conversion rate might mean you want to cut the crystal malt on your bill in half, but that's a positive in my book.

I figure I'll test this quantitatively by doing it both ways, lautering to the same OG and then fermenting out to compare FG. Maybe add amylase to control for unconverted starches and isolate the true unfermentables. Has this been done, to anyone's knowledge? Is this a standard technique and I'm just poking holes in a shortcut recipe for noobs?

 

[sfgoat]

Don't think it would work the way you are thinking. The point of soaking beforehand is to allow the H2O to completely penetrate and soak the whole uncrushed grain. We then remove it from the excess water because we don't want the external water to essentially steep and extract any flavor and sugar during the mash step because then a lot of the good stuff will be lost with that excess water. At least that's my 2 cents on it.

 

[fearwig]

Well yes, like I said you'd be doing it without excess water. You would be best off doing the "mash" in this in a sealed bag, with your grains hydrated only to saturation from soaking.

 

[sfgoat]

Well yes, like I said you'd be doing it without excess water. You would be best off doing the "mash" in this in a sealed bag, with your grains hydrated only to saturation from soaking.

Oh sorry must have misread. So then sure, why not.

 

[jjones17]

Wouldn't that be accomplished more efficiently and with more evenly distributed results by doing a real mash on that soaked grain--with little or no extra liquid but the same temps, in a mini cooler or whatever--and then spreading and toasting the mashed grain? You'd get a higher rate of conversion and more "crystal" for your time and effort. It seems to me that goes double if you're steeping your crystal malts, since anything that didn't convert before toasting is going to get passed as unconverted starch.

Actually, you are correct. I have done this many many times, and I have used the crystal malts many times in recipes - sometimes as much as 15% in a really malty beers - with all OG results as planned. Therefore, ignore the folks who hold on to tradition and just DO EEEET. It definitely works.

I mash the whole grains for about 75 minutes in a pot only just a little larger than the grain inside, and the water is only just slightly covering the grain. Once converted, dry and then toast to your desired lovibond.

 

[fearwig]

I'm toasting 3# now, and this is some sticky stuff. I need some more silpat mats, this is like making caramel. (yuk yuk)

I actually tried to do the mash in a ziploc in a pot over a steamer, but the seams didn't hold at mash temps. Dumb, really. I think it took on water before I got it out and now my sugars are toasting into a syrup under the grain instead of on/in the grain. Live and learn. It'll work.

 

[fearwig]

For posterity: I recommend air-drying your grain before you toast if you want to fine-tune your color on the low end, I think I came more in the 20-30 L range than the target 5-10 L. You may be able to get a crystal toast that light in an oven, but you can't do it toasting the grains from wet. The middle of your pans will be drying out while the edges caramelize, and a syrup forms that A) darkens too quickly on the pan even at 200-250F and B) keeps you from shaking your grains.

I used a metal dough scraper, so I at least stirred regularly and avoided scorching, but it's not a fun way to toast grain. If these were dry, I think I could do it a pound or two at a time in an oven-safe skillet and it would be a breeze to shake it around. As it is I had to use a full half-size baker's sheet per pound of grain to keep it spread enough to dry, and that's not even easy to get in the oven.

All that aside, I think this is a lovely Caramel 20 with lots of sweet caramel flavor, and after a try or three I think I'll have the method down so it isn't a headache.

I mash the whole grains for about 75 minutes in a pot only just a little larger than the grain inside, and the water is only just slightly covering the grain. Once converted, dry and then toast to your desired lovibond.

Yeeeeup.

 

[jjones17]

For posterity: I recommend air-drying your grain before you toast ......The middle of your pans will be drying out while the edges caramelize, and a syrup forms that....
Yeeeeup.

Actually, there may be an easier way - stir the grains ever so often. Air drying just sounds too much like extra work or time.

 

[fearwig]

I dunno, I felt like I was stirring every ten minutes! My oven leans hot, maybe my temps were off too.