Monday, June 22, 2009

Malting Barley At Home

Some homebrewers call themselves "hop-heads" because of their absolute love of hops' flavor, aroma, and bitterness. They search far and wide for the freshest hops and pour ounce after ounce into their beers, constantly pushing the IBU envelope, and dry-hopping every brew. I've even seen brewers who've used 6 or 8 different types of hops in one beer! It may sound kind of crazy, but if you love hops, why not? I can definitely identify with "hop-heads" - I love the aroma and flavor of hops, and I love the unique taste each hop variety can bring to homebrew - whether it's spicy, floral, or otherwise. But the bottom line is that personally, I am much more in love with the flavor of malted barley. Call me a "malt-head" or whatever other moniker you can invent - I simply love the smell, the sweetness, the flavor, and the hundreds of ways barley can be roasted, toasted, caramelized, and smoked. I've always wondered what it would take to malt my own barley and so for the last couple months I have been searching the internet for information on home malting. It seems that there are not a huge amount of people out there malting their own barley, but I was able to get some general information to get started.

The basic process of malting begins with moistening the barley seeds so they start to germinate (sprout). The germination process causes the starchy insides of the seed to be converted into sugar - the stuff beer's made out of! These sugars are designed to feed the baby plant until it can find its own nutrient source. After the seeds have sprouted to a certain point and contain as much sugar as possible, you dry them out to stop the process. Then you "kiln" them to complete the drying process and to give them some flavor, and you can even roast them for more color and flavor.

To make crystal malt, you have to mash the green (freshly sprouted) barley, and then cook it at a high temperature to crystalize the sugars. The fact that crystal malt has already been mashed is why extract and partial mash brewers are able to simply steep these grains for a short time in hot water instead of putting them through an entire mashing process - it's already been done!

So I decided that I wanted to keep the process as simple as possible and attempt to produce a basic pale malt, and a small amount of crystal malt to add body and flavor.

Next I searched for a good online source of barley seed. I have read that you can usually acquire barley seed at any local feed store for very cheap, but I didn't know of any feed stores in my town, and I was also concerned that a feed store would sell me a product more designed for animal use and not for malting. Finally I found http://www.amazon.com/Organic-Barley-25-Ornamental-Barleygrass/dp/B000E7MU2K. This company will ship you a 25 pound bag of premium unhulled barley seed that has been produced completely organically. The fact that it was organic just made me more excited, since I entered into this whole undertaking to eliminate factory processing and to produce the ultimate fresh malt in a hands-on way. So the absence of chemical pesticides on the grain just felt even more natural and earthy. The barley was pretty inexpensive, but due to the weight the shipping was almost as much as the actual grain, and it took about a week to arrive at my home in Florida. I devised the following plan: I would break the malting up into two larger batches (designed to make the usual 5 gallons), and one small batch (approximately 2 gallons). The first large batch would consist of a pale malt and a small amount of crystal malt to make a hoppy American Pale Ale, the second large batch would be more roasted with a larger amount of crystal malt to make a toasted lager, and the leftover small batch I would smoke in my buddy Erin's smoker! (yet another thing I've always wanted to try).



Next I got a cheap digital scale from Walmart. I've always wanted one for making precise hop measurements, and now I had the perfect excuse, as I would need to separate the grain into portions (it would be impossible to malt the whole 25 pounds at once). So I weighed out 10.5 pounds of grain and dumped it into my 4 gallon brewpot. The first thing you have to do is clean the grain by filling the pot with water and running your hands through the grain. All the dead seeds, pieces of plant material, and other useless crap floats to the top and can easily be skimmed off and removed. The water turned slightly brown so I poured it off, then filled the pot up with fresh water to begin the soaking process.








I have read many different opinions about soaking the grains, but most call for some time under water, then some time with the water removed, until the grain begins to sprout. I basically did what I could around my busy work schedule, but it turned out to be approximately 6-8 hours wet followed by 6-8 hours dry and so on. I stirred the grains whenever I could, and within about 24 to 48 hours they started to "chit", which is when the first tiny root begins to protrude from the seed.





At this point I gave the barley one final rinse and then dumped it into three trays. Actually, two trays and one large wooden salad bowl (I have to work with what I've got). I covered the grains with loose plastic wrap, so that dust and bacteria would hopefully not fall into the grain from gravity (you can also use tin-foil). Many people use large clay pots for this stage, since they are porous and can absorb any extra water, but, once again, I just used what I had available.



During this stage of germination it is very important to stir the grains at least a couple times a day, as they actually produce heat during the process. This warm, moist environment is a perfect place for mold to grow, and if that happens you pretty much have to throw everything out and start again. I read online that the inside of a germinating pile of barley can exceed 104 degrees! (About the temperature of a jacuzzi) All I can tell you is that when I stirred up my grains, I scooped barley into my hand and could definitely feel a noticeable warm sensation! So just stir them as often as you can, and if your grain starts to smell like it's rotting, it probably is.

The germination of barley should take anywhere from 3-5 days. If you work full-time, like me, starting the process early in the week (like Monday night) will allow you to perform all your drying and kilning on the weekend, when there's more free time. This is important, since I would not reccomend leaving the oven unattended while at work.

You want to dry the barley and stop it from growing when the leave shoot (acrospire) is 75% to 100% the length of the kernel. But when the acrospire begins to grow, at first it grows inside the kernel! So the only way to find out it's length is to break open a few seeds and gently pull out the shoot. Another good indication is if the roots have developed up to 2 or 3 times the length of the seed - at this point the acrospire is usually at least 75% in length. Also, I noticed that once in a while you will find a kernel that has burst open and the acrospire is actually shooting out the side. It is very rare, like some kind of mutant or something, but it does allow you to easily see the length of the acrospire without breaking open any seeds. You can eat a few seeds at this point - they should have a sweet flavor - this means the starches have begun their conversion and it's time to dry the barley and lock in all that flavor!

But first, I needed to make my crystal malt. Basically, this involves mashing a portion of the sprouted barley (green barley), and then cooking it at a high temperature to dry it and caramelize the sugars. First, I weighed out the amount of barley to be mashed. Remember that at this point the weight of your barley is 40- 50% water, so you need to use practically double the weight that you eventually want to end up with, because after drying you will lose all that water weight.



Next, I put the barley into 4 small ziplock bags, sucked out as much air as possible, and sealed. I then heated up a couple gallons of water to 160 degrees and filled up my small mash tun, placing the bags of barley inside. No matter how hard you try to suck out the air, they will still float, so you have to place some kind of weight on top. I used a small sauce pan with my heavy glass sugar-bowl top inside for weight. When I closed the top the cooler lid sort of pushed the pan down (my mash tuns are made out of round Rubbermaid coolers), so I think my grains were pretty much underwater. After the 160 degree water hits your cool mash tun, and then after adding the grain bags, you should end up with a temperature somewhere in the low 150's - perfect! Now simply wait 1-2 hours - the same as mashing grain to make wort, except the grains never actually touch the water, so the sugars stay locked inside.







After that I removed the bags and dumped out the grains into my small roasting tray. I set my oven at 400 degrees and placed the tray inside (about halfway up). It takes a couple of hours, and you will obviously need to stir the grains every so often so they receive even heat. After a while you may hear some crackling sounds - this is normal, don't freak out! The caramelization has begun! At this point, monitor the grain closely and cook it as long and dark as you desire. If you want to create a "Carapils" style dextrin malt, simply dry the grains but don't darken them (this will add body to beer but not as much color or flavor). I kept mine in the oven as long as possible, and at a certain point the edges of the grain looked like they were getting burnt, so I removed them.

After that, I set the temperature at the lowest possible - 170 on my oven, dumped the rest of my grain into the two large roasting pans, and put them inside. I propped open the door slightly with a large plastic spoon. This keeps the temperature down (170 is actually a bit warm) and allows the air to circulate, aiding in the drying process. Once again, you must stir the grains as much as possible so they dry evenly. This takes 24-48 hours. My oven automatically shut down after 12 hours, and I had to reset the temp to continue.



When the grain is almost completely dry (chew some - it should be crunchy on the outside and slightly softer inside) it is time to "kiln". I set my oven at 250 degrees and kilned for about 2 1/2 - 3 hours. Stir often and, by God, enjoy that amazing smell that will now saturate your entire house!



The next step is to take the grain out of the oven, let it cool, and then remove the dried roots, which will now have turned brown and curled up. I accomplished this by taking small portions of grain and putting them into a wire-mesh strainer, and then circulating them with my hand at moderate pressure. Most of the dried roots fall off and pass through the strainer and the grains remain.





According to some of the internet posts I have read, it is best to then let the grain sit for a week or two before using it to make beer. I don't know why you need to do this, but for me it just simply worked out best since I wasn't ready to brew when my grains had finished the malting process. I left the grains in one of the roasting trays and covered them with tin-foil. I poured my crystal malt on top and it was definitely cool to see the contrast in color between the crystal and the pale malts.





That's it!!! I will blog again on my first "home-malted" brew day!

P.S. - I tried to take more close up pics of the grain chits and roots, but they kept coming out blurry on my camera. However I did manage to find a website with really nice germination close-ups posted by a dude who malts his own barley in the Phillipines. Check it out at http://beerme.wordpress.com/2007/04/09/challenge-ii-complete-malted-barley-at-home/

7/29/09: Just wanted to post a quick note after this entry. In case you haven't had a chance to read about all my brewing experiments with homemade malt, I was unable to get my efficiency higher than 35% (!!!) using the "home-malted" barley (very, very poor). I even tried germinating my seeds longer until the acrospires had all achieved about 100% seed length, and also milling the grains very thoroughly, but still had very low efficiency. I believe the only factor left to change would be the temperature at which I dried the grains. My oven will not go below 170 degrees F, and all the literature I read online called for around 50 degrees C (or 122 F). As you can see above, I left the door of the oven open and tried to circulate the grains often, but I am thinking that maybe the heat was still too much and managed to damage the potential of the barley in some way. To remedy this, the only option that I personally would have available would be to dry the grain in the sun. I live in south Florida, so this would work great in the wintertime, but right now in the summer it rains every day and I wouldn't be able to leave anything outside for long. So I can try the sun-drying technique this winter and report back afterwards. Also, I could try a different barley source. I thought I had the coolest barley around, but who knows? I would be interested to see if a different source may be better suited for malting. Good luck to anyone out there trying this, please post a comment if you have anything to add. Thanks.

8/16/09 - I almost forgot, here is another method I tried using a rigged up fan to circulate the heat and try not to damage the grains. The fan blows air into the oven, and then it escapes through the side of a towel I put over the opening. Results were questionable:

25 comments:

  1. Awesome info. I've been trawling the net 6 months and have learnt only a fraction of what you've described here, but what you've written is really going to help me get up to speed now I have my 56kilo of animal feed barley.

    Carl

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  2. A note regarding your oven temperature. If you leave the oven open, the oven will work harder to maintain the temperature and you may actually find it's hotter than you really want it. That's what's happening to me right now. I have a thermometer in the oven so that I can keep a constant check. My starts at about 120. You could try drying them in the sun.

    Carl

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  3. Carl, thank you so much for your comments. What you said about the oven temperature makes perfect sense. I really need to get an oven thermometer and monitor the temp more closely. It sounds like a lot of time to spend, though! I think the sun-dried idea would definitely be the least labor intensive and safest for the grain. In a few months I'll try again.

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  4. Just so you know, I followed your crystal malt method and got great results. Drying the grain is an issue, mine spent almost the whole day in the oven and after about ten hours I decided I'd try to put it under our fireplace which is raised off the ground. The temps flucutated between 120 and 140 so I found that if it got too hot I could just move it to a cooler part. Seemed to work well.

    I'm in the southern hemisphere in Uruguay so it's winter here. So I can't utilize the sun though I know it will be perfect in the summer outside. What we do have though is an under roof permanent BBQ so I think next time I might try that. Will need to check on temps first though.

    I'm on my first ever batch of raw barley to beer. I've malted corn before because it was all I could get and the results were very mediocre. But right now I am smelling proper malt and it's reminding me of a malt drink we have in the UK called horlicks, not sure if it's available in the US.

    Seeing your efforst gave me confidence to know I wasn't alone in trying from raw grain.

    Carl

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  5. Carl, I'm so glad to hear you were successful with the crystal malt, I hope your base malt comes out good too. You know, when I dried my grain into pale malt it took over 24 hours. My oven automatically shut off after 12 hours, and I had to turn it back on again for 12 more before my grains were dry enough to be crunchy when I bit into them.

    Anyway, please let me know how your first brew turns out - I am really curious to see if it worked for you.

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  6. Well, today, I racked off my first brew, I made a tiny amount. I only ended up with a litre although I actually intended two litres from a litre of grain, but I guess I lost a lot of liquid in the mash then in the boil. It's early days for me as a home brewer. But I have to say that the colour so far is beautiful, a warm red and the flavour is a bitter caramel with a creamy body, just like some English bitters I use to drink regularly. I have no hops so I am making it as it is and I have to say, the sips I took of the brew suggest it may well turn out well without the hops.

    Going to give my litre 3 weeks before tasting again. In the meantime I feel confident enough to start another slightly larger batch.
    Carl

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  7. Nice! Sounds very promising! You know, if you can't get any hops in your area, I've read a lot about other substitutes you can use instead. There is a tree indiginous to tropical South America called "quassia" - the bark or wood flakes have medicinal as well as bittering properties - you might be able to purchase some in your area. Also, there are two other types of viny plants called "calumba" and "colocynth" that supposedly work well for bittering, but they grow mostly in East Africa and the Mediteranean Basin, respectively. Lastly, I've heard you can use the leafy green parts of dandelions or heather plants. If you can find any of the above items, just try adding a small amount to your boil and see how it works. Good luck, can't wait to here the next report.

    Jon

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  8. I racked off my fermented beer last night. I only have a small amount. In fact just a litre, my boil took away a lot and as it settled I was left with about a third of unusable 'trub' at the bottom of the fermentation vessel.

    But I am pleased with what I obtained, nice warm reddish colour like a good English bitter. I tasted it and despite the lack of hops it was really nice, a bitter sweet toasted caramel like English bitter flavour, almost creamy with body, but obviously no gas.

    I was initially skeptical that I could produce anything worth drinking, but obviously barley is the king of grains.

    I'm expecting the beer to improve. I'm going to give one bottle one week and the other half litre 3 weeks. I'm already started on my next batch. We have warmer weather coming so may try to dry the grain in the sun in my studio window. I have limited containers and space so I may also just malt small batches of grain until I have a reasonable amount of dried malt and do a bigger batch of beer.

    Just need to get some hops to see what it does to the flavour and I'd also like to make darker beers too. So will have to experiment with other malts and toasting the grain.

    Cheers, Carl

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  9. Hi Jon, just noticed that my previous message came through. I didn't think I'd posted it properly so sent another, sorry, please just delete these. Thanks for the replies, you're blog has been a great help. Will keep you up to date, especially on the official testing.
    Cheers, Carl

    ps, dandelion is on my list to try, we're out of season right now though

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  10. all posts go to my e-mail first to be monitored. i do this because i had a few weird responses before and i want to read the posts before i publish them. by the way, you can also feel free to e-mail me directly at duuude@bellsouth.net

    speaking of darker beers, last night i finally had the first taste of my "Homemalted Amber Ale". it is a little early, but wow, it tastes great. after kilning the grains a little longer for that batch i can detect lots of chocolate and toffee flavors!

    good luck and talk to you soon!

    jon

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  11. Hi Jon,

    I think I found you on facebook, I'll add you if you ok it.

    It's been a week and I thought it was time to try one. So I tentatively cracked open a bottle. It was green. There were some flavours and 'bouquet' probably riding from the yeast still being active. It lacked gas and had no head.

    But it tasted great, very malty, which I like, obviously no hops but what surprised me was that I couldn't tell. It was bitter, yet malty, slightly fruity, heady a little cloying. The over all flavour was great and it tasted Belgian. I used to drink a lot of lefe and chimay when I was in the UK, expensive but great beer and my beer reminded me so much of those.

    I have another batch already fermenting. I think I've overdone it on the crystal malt as this one is going to be quite dark. I like stouts and dark beers, but I feel it may be too toasty. Will have to see. It's my second only ever batch of barley produced beer, so I am happy and I'm starting to see how you can control the taste.

    I also used bread yeast as it's all I have. Of course I can't compare it with what it might have been like if I'd used a proper beer yeast, I think beer yeast ferments slower, so perhaps using less yeast or cooler temps might emulate it. It's the same species anyway, just produced for bread and not beer.

    Well there you have it. My next serious tasting session is likely to be over a month away now. Need to learn how to make different malts and improve my bottling technique.

    Cheers, Carl

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  12. thanks so much for the updates. yes, please send me a friend request on facebook. i think the bread yeast should work okay, i mean, considering what you are going through to try to make beer i must commend your efforts! you are a real trooper!

    talk to you later,

    jon

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  13. FYI: When malting barley, you are not converting the starches to sugars, you are just making the barley produce the enzymes that can convert the starches to sugars (2 types of amylase). The barley is converting the starch, but at a slower rate and then using it to grow. The mash is where these 2 enzymes go to work for us to produce the sweet wort from the starch left in the malt. When you dry your malt at high temperatures, these enzymes (and others) die forever. That is why your mash did not work. With crystal malts, the mash occurs within the green malt kernels - so high temp drying does kill off the enzymes, but they are unnecessary at that point.

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  14. Hey "Anonymous," thanks so much for posting. I can't believe it's been two years since I wrote this blog! I've learned so much in that time about enzymes, diastatic power, etc, and I appreciate your corrections to some of my misguided teachings in the above post. Since then I have read that you can actually put your malted grains into a pillow case and then throw them in the dryer on the "fluff air" or "low heat" settings to dry them without killing off the enzymes. I have yet to try this method, but it definitely sounds good in theory, although I'm wondering how much energy you would need to expend to run your dryer over and over! Anyway, thanks again and happy brewing!

    Jon

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  15. Jon, great topic.

    Why not skip the drying process completely for your base malt? You can run your sprouted barley through a meat grinder and mash it directly. Drying is only needed if you intend to store the malt.

    During mashing, you will need a protein rest at 122F for 30 min to break down the extra protein added by the roots and acrospire. After the rest, proceed to normal mash temp of 155F.

    Of course, you will need to produce your crystal ahead of time so it can rest a couple weeks, allowing unwanted aromas from the roasting process to dissipate. I like to make my crystal separately anyway in case I burn it.

    Jim

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  16. Suggestion on drying..what i did was i bought a heating bulb ( 125 watts) and run extension cord inside my oven and put the heating bulb inside.The temp was running from 90 to 100.If you want a little bit higher it would go up to 120 f if you turn on the oven light.

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  17. Wow that is a great idea that I never thought of. Thanks so much for posting!

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  18. ultimate information ...... liked it bro ! wana add u on facebook if u can write me ur fb id ..thanx Man !

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    1. thanks for the comment! get me on facebook at Jonathan Windt or homebrewboca.com

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  19. have u ever thought of building youre own kiln using light bulbs as a heat source and a computer fan to circulate the air

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    1. Sounds like a great idea! If you end up doing it please post a link so I can see how it looks! I wonder if you could use regular bulbs or if you would need some sort of heat lamp?

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  20. Anyone interested in malting should learn that not all barley was created equal. http://barleyworld.org/sites/default/files/nov07guest.pdf

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    1. Thanks for the info! I did always wonder if I had actually obtained the right type of barley when I did these experiments with malting. I'm curious to see how my results might change with a new barley source. Of course, that is only one of the many factors to take into consideration, but I'm sure it played a huge part in the level of success I achieved. Thanks again for the comment!

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  21. Most of the barley your going to find in seed sources is for animal feed. Current agronomic circumstances have encouraged many farmers to opt out of growing malting varieties because it is a much higher risk crop. This winter I am growing an experimental 1/4 acre of Maja (winter 6 row approved as a malting cultivar in 2011) and I hope to malt it upon harvest, if its a successful crop. My babies are in week 11 and they are still alive, and seem to be doing ok. I really value your blog on home malting, there is very little information out there on the subject.
    I know a guy who used to work in the breeding program at AB (anheuser busch) and he told me they had a machine called a micro malter, with with which they could malt small samples of various cultivars, and run malt analysis on them, determining there viability for a new malting variety.
    I want to home engineer something similar before harvest (late April early May) and your thoughts and input might be valuable. I've been thinking about our fruit dehydrators like they are a miniature kiln, but the thoughts still in infancy.
    -Prost

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  22. I'm thinking that if I ever did this again I would try some sort of heat lamp system like those outlined in previous comments here. I got your FB request btw.. let's stay in touch I'm def curious to see how your experiments turn out :)

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