# Dry And Wet Roasting Your Own Malt



## pdilley (6/5/10)

I decided to give malt roasting a go as I have a ton of unused pale malt and have done two batches, one dry roast, one wet roast.

Dry roasting is a lot more successful. 200/205C at 40 minutes gave a lovely taste between roasted and dark toasted. It's bagged, sealed and will rest for 2 weeks to allow dark roast harsh flavours to naturally diminish leaving just the lovely roasted and dark toasted flavours. My expectation from this malt is deep copper 125L colour.

I also found wet roasting instructions for Amber with instructions given as 15 minute soak in dechlorinated water then 150C for 30 minutes. This simply does not work for the home roaster. You get water logged steaming malt with soggy kernels. This might work if you have a converted electric clothes dryer cum malting kiln ala Absinthe's piece of kit where you get constant turning of the grain but not in your kitchen oven. I have it now at 100C with the door ajar slightly to let steam escape to help dry the grain.

I'll try a dry roasting method for Amber at 180C for 40 minutes dry roast and see how that goes next. Save any wet stuff for making crystal malt to see if it works better for that application.

Not sure if my table of time and temperatures has any accuracy but I'm working on:

20 mins 120C for 10L Pale Gold malt
25 mins 150C for 20L Gold malt
30 mins 180C for 35L Amber malt
40 mins 190C for 65L Deep Amber malt
30 mins 205C for 100L Copper malt
40 mins 205C for 125L Deep Copper malt
50 mins 205C for 175L Brown malt


I need to source some bulk maize (corn) to try getting corn chip toasted flavours and since I have a ton of wheat malt I'll try making wheat crystal.

If anyone has tried roasting before feel free to chime in.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## benno1973 (6/5/10)

I've done some dry roasting before but forgot to leave it for 2 weeks before using it, so it was quite harsh. Still, it imparted a nice underlying flavour to the beer. I've always wanted to make a spectrum of home roasted grains to have on hand, using Randy Mosher's methods in Radical Brewing. I love brown malt and the flavour it gives - be interesting to see if my home made version would be similar. 

Making crystal sounds a little harder, as my oven probably ranges +/- 10C, so holding a steady 70C would be next to impossible. I've toyed with putting the grain in an oven bag and dropping it into a water bath held at 70C (using my urn and temp controller) but haven't tried it yet.


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## Fourstar (6/5/10)

Brewer Pete said:


> I need to source some bulk maize (corn) to try getting corn chip toasted flavours and since I have a ton of wheat malt I'll try making wheat crystal.
> 
> If anyone has tried roasting before feel free to chime in.
> 
> ...



I made some crystal wheat recently on my expedition of home roasting (i also made some home made 'biscuit' malt, which was mositened and had decent results).

For the wheat i soaked it overnight in filtered tap water and rinsed it well the next morning (was smelling rather lactic). It was then mashed @ 65deg for a couple of hours. I drained and reserved the liquor (ended up with some wort @ 1.040) and dried it as much as i could by shaking in a sieve.

It was then dumped into a glass pyrex baking dish and into the oven at around 110 for around an hour, turning every 20 mins or so until dried, once it dried i cranked to around 160 and kept roasting it and turning until i had achieve my desired colour. Ended up with a light crystal malt, atleast by its flavour. maybe 70-90 EBC/30-40L crystal.

I plan on using it in an American wheat:

45% Wheat
45% Pils
10% CaraWheat

see the thread for more info (and monkey poo throwing) :icon_cheers: 
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...showtopic=44045


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## jonocarroll (6/5/10)

I've given this a go a couple of times, and while I'm pleased with the results, it was certainly only an exercise in fun - I'll still buy my toasted grains.

For my wet roast I soaked the whole grains in 60*C water for half an hour, stirring occasionally, then scooped them out and placed them on an oven tray with baking paper, about 3-4 grains deep at most (this may avoid the water-logged steaming that Pete seems to have issue with). I did another tray with the dry grains to the same depth.

I placed the trays in a pre-heated oven (wet on top shelf, can't recall the exact temperature right now) for half an hour then gave each tray a good stir. Back in for another half hour, then another stir. Dry grains were starting to darken, wet grains were still quite pale. Upped the temp by about 20*C and back in for another half hour, then stir. I think I took the dry grains out at this point, but put the wet ones back for another half hour.

The separate batches were stored in brown paper bags for two weeks until needed. I have photos somewhere, but the wet-roasted grains turned out lighter on the outside and darker on the inside than the dry-roasted grains. The wet-roasted certainly had a sweeter taste to it, and the dry-roasted ones had a nice nuttiness to them.

With this I made a (technically) SMaSH IPA using 100% trad. ale malt (I think, and not sure of which proportion was home-roasted) and Green Bullet hops. Yum! :icon_drool2:


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## pdilley (6/5/10)

Sounds like we had the same thing in mind, play around with roasting and see what old dark beers would be like. I'm planning on gathering a few fresh baked bread flavours from toast to roast and try some blending and see what comes out. Mashers boom isn't the best as he states he's never done it but it looks like the same information.

How did your crystal experimets turn out?

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## pdilley (6/5/10)

Quantum you probably have it. I use the baking tray as a guide and leveled it off. It's (guessing) probably 5 grains deep.

It's definately just playing around as you can't do anythig serious volume wise in a home oven. The wet roasted is sweeter as you said. The water in the kernel let's the enzymes convert the starches a bit before toasting it.

This is the crystal malt process, but keeping the temperature lower and longer (around 69C) to let the enzymes work so you have simpler sugars in the grain to crystslise by turning up the temperaures in a step roast regime.

Still fun to muck around with but can see headaches on larger scale without a dedicated roasting vessel.

Still have yet to match a yeast to this bread blending roasted malts experiment.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## Wolfy (6/5/10)

Fourstar said:


> see the thread for more info (and monkey poo throwing) :icon_cheers:
> http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...showtopic=44045


Interestingly there has been 2 or 3 other threads since and no monkey-doo-doo in them either, but I think I'll just read and let people do their own thing rather than offering any comments now.


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## Fourstar (6/5/10)

Brewer Pete said:


> How did your crystal experimets turn out?
> 
> Cheers,
> Brewer Pete



Quite sweet! :icon_cheers: tastes like crystal malt although ive probably robbed some gravity points form it when i mashed it.

Im tempted to try and do some blown or brown malt today when i have some free time (depending on how it turns out). i might even try torrefying some barley in the microwave and see what happens. :lol: I wonder if it will pop like popcorn?


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## komodo (6/5/10)

Is it worth trying to do it like the guys who home roast coffee in a popcorn maker?
I'm keen on this purely out of convenience more than anything as I dont tend to stock a lot of "spec" malts but im happy to carry a couple of hundred kilos at a time of base malts so home roasting appeals to me


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## sid (6/5/10)

I've made a brew using pilsner malt 3kg that I dry toasted into vienna (according to time and temp), so will let you know how it turns out, coming up 2 weeks now in the fermenter........................I hope it turns out.


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## TidalPete (6/5/10)

I've been doing my Amber & Brown Malts for a while now but haven't left for two weeks before using. 
You say the reason for leaving is to round out the flavours Brewer Pete? 
Have you got a link to where you got this information from?
Here is the way I do it ----- View attachment Roasting_Instructions.pdf


TP


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## Nick JD (6/5/10)

Those who've left their BIAbag hanging for an hour or two after boiling will notice there's a sticky residue on the bottom of the bag. Inside the bag is probably 5-10% of your efficiency sitting there as a pre-crystalised malt that's even been crushed for you. 

Open the bag and scoop out about two cups worth, right where it's at its stickiest. Roast until dry and then keep roasting until your desired colour/carameisation is reached.

Works a treat and is completely free. Also makes the house smell like caramel flavoured digestive biscuits.

For an extra twist, pour over some honey before roasting and then smoke the resulting grain over hickory.


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## sid (6/5/10)

Nick JD said:


> Those who've left their BIAbag hanging for an hour or two after boiling will notice there's a sticky residue on the bottom of the bag. Inside the bag is probably 5-10% of your efficiency sitting there as a pre-crystalised malt that's even been crushed for you.
> 
> Open the bag and scoop out about two cups worth, right where it's at its stickiest. Roast until dry and then keep roasting until your desired colour/carameisation is reached.
> 
> ...




well.......damn that sounds tasty, heheh, I'll have to try that one out.


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## pdilley (6/5/10)

Fourstar said:


> Quite sweet! :icon_cheers: tastes like crystal malt although ive probably robbed some gravity points form it when i mashed it.
> 
> Im tempted to try and do some blown or brown malt today when i have some free time (depending on how it turns out). i might even try torrefying some barley in the microwave and see what happens. :lol: I wonder if it will pop like popcorn?




My Dry Roast was popping out of the trays in the oven and even when cooling in the container there was some residual popping. And its tasty  if you are a bread nutter.

I was originally going for brown but it tasted nice at only 10 more minutes to go in the oven so I pulled it out. I'll go the full time on the next run.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## pdilley (6/5/10)

Komodo said:


> Is it worth trying to do it like the guys who home roast coffee in a popcorn maker?
> I'm keen on this purely out of convenience more than anything as I dont tend to stock a lot of "spec" malts but im happy to carry a couple of hundred kilos at a time of base malts so home roasting appeals to me



I've not used a popcorn popper myself but the reason the oven method is used is to dial in different temperatures depending on what you are aiming for in your final roasted malt. Popcorn popper wouldn't be as good for crystal malts as you need to step it at multiple temperatures. 

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## pdilley (6/5/10)

TidalPete said:


> You say the reason for leaving is to round out the flavours Brewer Pete?
> Have you got a link to where you got this information from?



No link TP, the information is from Page 224/225 of Masher's book Radical Brewing.

The premise is the darker dry roasted malts will have some harshness that mellows out (oxidises?) by resting it a week or two before using it in the mash.

I've had a look at your PDF file, cheers for that. That method is longer at lower temperatures which is better for more control over the roast for a home roaster who may be a bit distracted and miss the time and over roast at the higher temperatures in Masher's book.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## pdilley (6/5/10)

Hey Nick, I'd do that but you have to tear the spent grain from my Chooks and my Worms, both go crazy for it 

I do think its worth doing a decoction with it if you don't save it for crystalising.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## pdilley (6/5/10)

For those following along, for the wet roasted malt to dry it better I left two trays in the oven on fan at 100C for an hour with a butterknife keeping the door slightly cracked to let steam escape.

The bottom tray was moist and I'm thinkig chook feed but the top tray was crisp and crunchy so I've separated the bottom oven rack further from the top and put both trays (with more wet malt set aside in a bowl) offset inside the oven the top tray pushed far back and bottom far forward to let air blow around better and am doing round 2 of drying. There is no taste difference from the 100C hour long drying session so I'll dry the rest then consider a dry roast to bring this up to a light toast amber as the flavour is currently sitting around-about pale gold malt and I want more bready toasty flavour in he profile.

Keep on roasting!

Edit: For those tracking weight, your results will vary slighlty with moisture content but slighlty more than 3 kilos of malt went in to roast the Deep Copper malt and 2.9 kilos came out when done into sealed and weighed bags.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## jonocarroll (6/5/10)

Brewer Pete said:


> Edit: For those tracking weight, your results will vary slighlty with moisture content but slighlty more than 3 kilos of malt went in to roast the Deep Copper malt and 2.9 kilos came out when done into sealed and weighed bags.


That may be the cause of your steaming problems - I reckon I roasted about 0.5kg of malt (dry weight) in each tray. The thermal requirements of 3kg of wet grain would be significant, and you would have trouble avoiding hot spots. Perhaps try another small batch and see how you go... ?

I also got the popping of the wet malt that others report - quite frequently towards the end.


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## Thirsty Boy (7/5/10)

I used a bastardised version of absinthe's dryer...

I soaked my grain for a little while to up the moisture content, but then re-dried it in a pillow case in the dryer. Only talking about 1.5kg in the pillowcase/dryer though.

Object - to increase the moisture content of the whole grain, but not have heaps of moisture wholly at the surface. So, soak gets the moisture up to a higher level than needed - the low temperature "drying" step allows the moisture to integrate through the grain and reduces it to a point where the grain is simply "less dry" rather than actually wet, with no noticeable surface moisture at all - then roast.

Much less steamy


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## pdilley (7/5/10)

QuantumBrewer said:


> That may be the cause of your steaming problems - I reckon I roasted about 0.5kg of malt (dry weight) in each tray. The thermal requirements of 3kg of wet grain would be significant, and you would have trouble avoiding hot spots. Perhaps try another small batch and see how you go... ?



Deep Copper malt was the dry roast. The wet was less because it increased dramatically in volume when soaked compare to the dry. I'm sure I'll give wet a go again, I'm on a roasting kick so I might use up the rest of the opened sack and do all the roast points as I have so many more unopened sacks I can spare it. I have all the roasting notes on the sealed bags so I can repeat and refill to try a different blending rate on some more batches of beers. 

I'd love to give thirsty's pillow case a go except I have to buy a dryer first  but it's a good idea and reminds me of the "home dry cleaning kit" of clothes and chemicals in a bag and then in the dryer to work it.

Wife came home and smelled a house infused with roasted malt and said it smelled so good and wanted to know where all the fresh baked food was so I've an idea to roast malt the day before selling a house instead of bread to improve sales 

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## Screwtop (7/5/10)

Beechwood chips turned up a couple of weeks ago, so I used some to smoked 3Kg of Galaxy malt in my Ugly Drum Smoker. Same method, soaked in tank water for 20 min hung up to dry the surface moisture and then into the smoker at around 200deg until dried. Put the malt in large Glad Bake foil trays with holes punched through the bottom and turned each 20 min. As some others found there was a slight problem with the grain taking a while to dry and steam being produced. Left to air dry in a large strainer for 4 days until good and dry before storing. The malt smells and tastes beautiful. Cant wait for a chance to use it now.

Screwy


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## pdilley (7/5/10)

:icon_drool2: 

nothing need more be said, sounds yum!


Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## law-of-ohms (26/12/13)

Digging up another old thread.

Currently have ~1kg of home made crystal in the oven at 180, might just go and bump that up to 190....


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## law-of-ohms (26/12/13)

glad i forgot to up it to 190, here is a before and after pic...

Is there anyway to gustimate linter?


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## law-of-ohms (26/12/13)

crushed pic...


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## Not For Horses (26/12/13)

Lintner is used to measure diastatic power (crystal has none as it's roasted at 180c) so I'm assuming you mean lovibond yeah?
Here is a post from another thread you might find useful.



Not For Horses said:


> I do a colour test on my malts as follows:
> You will need a precise scale and a calculator that has the "x root of y" function.
> 
> Steep 20g of test malt finely ground in 500ml of 80c water for 15 minutes, swirling occasionally.
> ...


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## law-of-ohms (27/12/13)

err yea, guess I need a colour chart...


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## Not For Horses (27/12/13)

http://www.inacanoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SRM-Beer-Color-Chart.jpg

Here's one I've prepared earlier.


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## law-of-ohms (24/4/14)

While setting up my Sous Vide roast in the slow cooker (thank you STC-1000) I thought...

might as well try some diy crystal....

Its @ 65c for a long long time..........

nothing venture nothing gained.


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## law-of-ohms (25/4/14)

15hrs of slow cooking in the sous vide, the grains are nice and sweet.

Time to dry them in the oven with the door ajar for a few hrs.


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## law-of-ohms (25/4/14)

20min @ 200c

Very dark.


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