Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

So I was given a heap of barley from a mate, it is Commander variety and it went the top malting grade at the silos last harvest :D

So I thought I would try to malt some of it. After refreshing myself on the info here and having a quick google about I decided how I was going to tackle it. I had a large baby bath that I needed to get rid of but it is a good size and it has a drain plug in the bottom so it is now for my malting.



I started off with 5kg of dried grain and filled the bath with water to get the water content back into it, this grain would have been around 10% moisture to start with. I let is soak for 2 hours then I drained the water off and left for 8 hours then repeated this 3 times. Other things I have read is let it soak for 8 hours then drain and be done with it, not sure which is better but if you let the grain stay submerged in water for too long it will drown and die.



Some of the grains will float up and you want to have it covered enough so that it can. When I drained it and waited for the 8 hours I would mix it up a bit with my hand whenever I was near it so every couple of hours.

Apparently the ideal temp for this is 18 degrees but I would have been a bit cooler than that.

After I did the 3 soaks as I saw recommended it still hadn't started to sprout so I did one more cycle of 2 hours soak and 8 hours drained and then it had started, I am going to put this down to the cold weather.

You will know once it has started to germinate as you will see little white sprouts forming at the end of the seed, these are called "chits".



Once these chits have started coming out there is no longer any need to soak the grain but you want to keep it moist so a little bit of water when you feel it starting to dry out and give it all a turn with your hand.

As the rootlets start to grow you really need to keep turning it with your hand or the rootlets will all clump together. I turned it probably every 2 hours on average. I could feel a little water pool in the bottom of the bath so I tried to turn it all through that to soak it up.



The rootlets are a good indication of how far along the grains are but the real part you want to look at is the other side of the rootlet that is growing in the grain called the "acrospire" this just looks like a fat solid rootlet growing into the grain. Once this is 80 - 100% as long as the grain it is done which fairly well coincides with the external rootlets being twice as long as the grain. To check the acrospire cut the grain open with a knife or your finger nail. (Sorry forgot a pic of this will get one next time ;-) )

Once you acropsire is at the right length you want to halt the germination process and dry the grain for storage (apparently you can use it green but you would want to be ready to go that instant)

When drying you don't want to get over 50 degrees as this will fuck the enzymes you want for mashing. I started off putting it all in my oven at 40 degrees. Problem was that I had way too much to lay out thinly in the pans :crying-blue:

What I ended up doing was taking out enough grain so I was left with a thin layer in the oven which dried out nicer. The stuff I took out went through an old clothes dryer that I bought ages ago for this which worked quite well and the temp seemed to stay in the low to mid 40's.



I'm not going to be able to do anything with this grain for the next few weeks and I was paranoid that it was slightly damp still so I laid it out on my pool table on a sheet.



I haven't reweighed it yet to see if I am back to around the original 5kg but I spilt a bit in the process so it will probably be a bit less 8-}

This first batch is destined to be turned into beer and hopefully the rest will be for whisky, will update on yield from the mashing when it's done :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Great write up Sammy Boy.

Handy having mates on $4000 an acre land, producing top shelf grain! 8-}

7evan wrote:Great write up Sammy Boy.

Handy having mates on $4000 an acre land, producing top shelf grain! 8-}

It has it's perks ;-)

sam_and_liv wrote:

7evan wrote:Great write up Sammy Boy.

Handy having mates on $4000 an acre land, producing top shelf grain! 8-}

It has it's perks ;-)

Good to see another batch of Yorkes finest! ;-)

Brilliant write up mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:
I found that using warm water makes the grain germinate quicker too ;-)

Kimbo wrote:Brilliant write up mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:
I found that using warm water makes the grain germinate quicker too ;-)

Yeah kimbo I reckon I will wait until summer to do the rest that I have then I can dry it outside on an old trampoline. That way I should be able to do more in one hit and won't use any power ;-)

sam_and_liv wrote:

Kimbo wrote:Brilliant write up mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:
I found that using warm water makes the grain germinate quicker too ;-)

Yeah kimbo I reckon I will wait until summer to do the rest that I have then I can dry it outside on an old trampoline. That way I should be able to do more in one hit and won't use any power ;-)

Yeah, i think thats how Crow did it too and had good results :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Nice Sam,

clear and simple details ...love your work :handgestures-thumbupleft:

bt1

Drying in winter is for sure doable but it is more effort. I found that the dryer is good for removing chits ect but it will not get it dry enough for conventional milling or storage so needs to be finished off in an oven or put in front of a fire or fan heater. Sheets of iron or a trampoline in the warm sun is definitely easier and cheaper but if ya need it straight away it is still cheaper than buying malt if you have cheap grain available :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cheers crow. Yeah the grain does seem a little soft compared to bought malt yet it feels dry. Having it laid out thinly on the pool table hopefully let's it dry that last little bit.

I plan to use my smoker to dry the malt. Going to make a bunch of flyscreen trays to hold it all.

pulsetech wrote:I plan to use my smoker to dry the malt. Going to make a bunch of flyscreen trays to hold it all.

That's on my future project list to build something to dry some malt using peat ;-)

I believe a food dehydrator does a good job of drying out malt
Would be worth a crack I recon :think:

bayshine wrote:I believe a food dehydrator does a good job of drying out malt
Would be worth a crack I recon :think:

How much could you do in one lot you reckon? and how long would each lot take?

Ah well I got asked if I wanted a pie warmer a few weeks back, said no but I never thought of drying malt with it . There is a thread here somewhere by Scarecrow on how to make a peat smoker out of boxes :handgestures-thumbupleft:

crow wrote:There is a thread here somewhere by Scarecrow on how to make a peat smoker out of boxes :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Yeah I was going to revisit that one before building, reckon there was another one that was worried about attracting too much attention from all the smoke, unless that was the same thread.....

Not that much smoke actually escapes from my smoker. this is the one I have http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Hark-Gas-Outdoor-Smoker-Oven-Smoke-fish-jerky-etc-Model-HK0522-/261468086039?pt=AU_Outdoor_Living_BBQs_Cookware&hash=item3ce0b65f17

pulsetech wrote:Not that much smoke actually escapes from my smoker. this is the one I have http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Hark-Gas-Outdoor-Smoker-Oven-Smoke-fish-jerky-etc-Model-HK0522-/261468086039?pt=AU_Outdoor_Living_BBQs_Cookware&hash=item3ce0b65f17

Yeah one of them would be sweet, the one i'm talking about was home made so not so sealed and burning the peat smokes like hell apparently :o