More Home Malting

[ClarnoBrewer]

Wow. This is pretty cool. Now just grow your own barley to malt, then grow your own hops, and culture your own yeast strain. You could have a truly 'house' beer.

Malting is something that intimidates me, so as of now, I'll leave it to the professionals. I like the write up though!

I'm glad you like the write up. I'm not good at slowing down enough to record what I'm doing, so it's been a bit of a challenge.

We do already have hops growing that I've used a couple of times. I'm not sure what they are though. I intend to plant some known varieties this spring.

I was hoping that my approach would make it a bit less intimidating, but it does take some time and space. And you're never exact on your roasting, but I don't mind that. It's fun to do, and if I want a very specific beer, I'll buy the grain.

 

[ClarnoBrewer]

The malt spent the last 2 days in the kiln, and now I have 35lbs of pale malt, and 5lbs that I roasted to a darkish crystal. I'll probably do a few small batches of biscuit or munich type malts as well. I'm picking up another 50lbs of raw barley tomorrow. I hope to get about 100-150lbs of grain malted over the next month or so. That should keep me in grain for the next 6 months, and would put my grain costs at less than $5 a batch.

 

[bendavanza]

Nice job! So let's see pics of the finished malt.
What is involved in making biscuit and munich malt?

 

[ClarnoBrewer]

Sorry, long day of Christmas crap yesterday. I'll take some pics of the malt today. As for making different types, it's just a matter of how long and at what temps to roast it. The oddballs being your crystals. They are roasted when they're still a little wet, which is why I already roasted those. Apparently the higher temps on the wet grain cause some of the sugars to crystalize. Pics coming soon!

 

[ClarnoBrewer]

A pretty important update for anyone considering this. I malted 3 batches over the winter. The first two were great. A little lower on efficiency, but that was expected. The third batch, I believe, is the culprit in ruining 20 gallons of beer.

When I was kilning the last batch, we had a nasty cold snap. Instead of getting the grain in the 100-115 range, it sat at about 80 degrees for some time. I think this cause some sort of rot or mold or something nasty. I brewed pretty regularly for a few weeks, stockpiling, as it were. The bad flavor wasn't obvious in the wort, or even in the transfer tastings. But every one of those beers has a nasty, almost band-aid taste now.

I'm pretty sure it's due to the kilning. I'd like to malt some more now that it's warmer and see what happens, but I won't be brewing four batches without a thorough tasting.