Malting

[crow]

Is it possible and or worthwhile to make your own malt . The basic HBS barley malt here is $5 a kilo so I can see this adding up pretty quickly . I'd like to get back into cooked mashes soon nearly finished my still house thought I could get an electric copper for this (only got the old wood fire jobs) . Anyway from what I've read it seem ya need to sprout the grain and then reasonably quickly dry it out (thinking cloths dryer) so I'm wondering if anyone as attempted malting grain themselves and is it worthwhile or not

[Divey]

It's not an easy process to malt your own barley. The process takes several days and you need to be monitoring the sprouting process like a hawk to achieve satisfactory results.

I think you would find malting barley to the quantities you require for a mash to be a total pain in the arse. :sad:

I wish our profiles included the rough area of your residence so I could possibly advise you as to where to buy cheap Australian malted barley. I would definately be buying malted barley in 25kg bags. Any other way is far too expensive.

[cdbrown]

I would also recommend looking at buying the grains by the sack. About $70 for 25kg of Aussie pale malt = $2.80/kg. Perhaps split a grain sack with someone if you don't think you would go through that much grain.

I have heard of people doing their own malting. I will be doing some in the future as I'm getting some spelt wheat soon which I want to use in a brew. Need wet the grains so they germinate, then heat them to a certain temp for a certain duration in order to stop the germination process and malt the grain. Temp and time will affect the colour, flavour and fermentability of the grain.

Here's an overview - http://beersmith.com/blog/2009/12/05/ma ... n-at-home/ - looks like a fair bit of work

[Kimbo]

I malted some grain once,
i put the barley in a big sieve tray, watered and rotated it 3 times a day (warm water) for 3-4 days.
put into an old pillow case and into the clothes dryer for a couple of hrs. then into the oven on trays for a couple of hrs.
then shake around in the sieve again to remove any remaining sprouts and rootlets.
Made the damn house smell like a bakery :D
and its still sitting in a wash ready to run, so i dunno how it tastes yet ;-)

[wynnum1]

Try jute carry bags at supermarket $1.99 easily hold 2 kg grain easy to soak and rinse.

[crow]

I malted some grain its still sitting in a wash ready to run, so i dunno how it tastes yet ;-)

Kimbo can you you post here how it turns out once you run it and if you thought it was a worth while endeavor

[Kimbo]

No Problemo :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[TJM]

iv malted barley and corn before with good results. Corn is a nice cheap one to do, i got a 25 kg bag for about $20.

I soaked the whole kernals in 2 20L buckets for 2-3 days changing the water. Then spread out on a tarp under my deck and just kept it moist
over about a week until the green root thingo was about 20mm long. I then stopped dampening and let it dry over about a week by air
(faster in summer). I then milled it, mashed it, fermented it , double pot stilled it and oaked it.. Malted corn whiskey is a strange
tasting whiskey and i think it needs to be taken fairly at fairly high abv. 85-90% and heavily charred oak.

Cant wait to make some more.

[crow]

Malted oats are hard to come by as only one crowd seems to do them commercially and they are in the UK . Following advise this is where I'm upto , I soaked the oats in water for 2 days changing it every 4 to 6 hrs . oats are mostly in hulls so vigilance against bacterial infections is more important than some other grain as the husk and hulls can provide a place for them to develop . After draining I separated them in to 2 containers , one wide short plastering bucket and in one 600mm wide ss basin like the type ya would bleed a stuck pig or make wurst in . since then I have kept them warm say 20' and and turned them every few hrs . I was told once the spout is the same length as the grain they are ready to use or dry

[crow]

Oats have fully malted do ppl think it will be ok. To use them with the rolled oats ungristed as I have no mill here EDIT problem solved . As I'm using them green I can run them through my old hand mincer :D

[crow]

An interesting foot note to this , one lot is fully malted some over malting even , the other is not yet ready maybe a day or 2 off . Thing is they were all soaked together and then separated , they were siting next to each other and turned and hydrated the same . The ones in the stainless dish are ready the lot in the plastic bucket are not :?

[Brigand]

Might also be worth jumping in on one of the AHB grain bulk buys

Grain can be had fairly cheaply in those

Cheers

[crow]

yeah maybe or that mob that I think bt came across (blue lake) might be a goer to got t check some prices . those oats weren't too bad $13 for a 20kg sack

[crow]

Ok some happy snaps
http://i1168.photobucket.com/albums/r48 ... g/oats.jpg

http://i1168.photobucket.com/albums/r48 ... edoats.jpg

[crow]

and 2 more pic's

[grumpthehermit]

So when are you mashing them ??? :-D

Cheers
GTH

[Kimbo]

Good stuff Crow :clap:
they look like the are ready ( when the sprout is as long as the seed)
i put mine in an old pillow case and into the clothes dryer to cease the malting cycle.
then roast any way you want ;-)

[crow]

As per dnder's advise I intend to use them green (as is) to get a true unadulterated single malt oat only flavor , I know pedantic wanker aren't I :laughing-rolling: @ grump A day or so , just tweaking a method to work with this . basically two combined methods and some intuition based on a whole lot of research and advise . No footsteps to follow here so watch me skip off a cliff .
Only one joint does pretty much what I want to do reckon if I asked them for advise the answer would involve sex , travel and genitalia.... (fuck off cunt) .
On another note the Irish and a few Scott's used oats for lot/most of there malting until in 1973 , when their government put a high duty on all malt . Malted oats being many times heaver than barley suddenly became completely unviable and so the flavor of Irish whiskey changed for ever . The last single malt distillery of this type closed its doors in 1975 EDIT slightly wrong : Tax was by volume and oats swelled a lot more during steeping :roll: same out come

[stilly_bugger]

Is it possible and or worthwhile to make your own ... barley malt...

There's a chap on YouTube, Victorian I think, who malts his own barley and dries it in a modified clothes dryer. (He's a bit of an all-round DIYer from the look of his other vids.) Gotta love a YouTube vid. Reading just doesn't get the ideas across as effectively.

Also, that's fascinating about the shift from barley to oats.

[crow]

Ok I'm malting 10 kg's of oats at the moment. I'm now of the opinion that I will have to dry the malt before gristing as I don't have access to a roller mill and gristing type units can't deal with green malt :crying-blue: . Note to self get a roller mill one day