# Had A Crack At Malting Barley Straight From The Paddock



## Yeastie Beastie (26/6/10)

Something I thought I would share.


I basically made the transition from K&K to AG very quickly as I live in the country and kits were few and far between, and only Coopers. I had to wait till I made a trip to the city before I could get something half decent, or, order it online but then the postage was a bit hefty.

I decided to start buying grain online so I could brew the variety of beer that I wanted to brew, not the variety I had to brew. But still the postage was a bit steep, but hey, I was brewing what I wanted and loving learning AG.

It came to me that my boss had 400 tonne of malting barley, feed barley and wheat sitting in some silos at work...tick, tock, tick, tock. Why don't I have a crack at doing something with it?

I researched a bit into it and found that a lot of people were roasting their roasted grains to a different spec etc but few were taking it from a "straight from the paddock" point of view.

I scored a 25kg bag for nothing and went to work on some malting/learning/burning/swearing.



I won't take all the credit for the below process as most of it was just notes I gathered from research on the net . Not a copy paste though lol.



I needed close to 3 KG for this recipe but I did it in 1KG lots to make things more manageable and in my notes 1KG lots was highlighted, for a reason I guess.



1KG Raw Barley Grain.


Wash grain in water, husks will float to the top these are the bit you can turf.
Soak in water (I used cold tap water) for 6 hours.
Drain & rest for 8 hours.
Repeat the above 2 steps for 48 hours. 
Time this right 'cos admit it, you won't wake at 4am, you'll think that if you left it 'till 7am, she'll be right. Considering how much time you will be putting into it after reading this you won't want to see if "she'll be right".
After these 48 hours the grain will begin to chit/shoot.
Drain but don't be too fussy, a bit of water will be okay.

Germination.

Put your grain in a terracotta pot (terracotta is good 'cos it absorbs excess water).
Cover with something like aluminium foil to keep a bit of the moisture in but the dust etc out.
Keep pot/pots at room temperature stirring 3 times day to ensure overheating and to make sure mould does not set in.
Germination should take 4-5 days to complete.
Most of the grain should grow rootlets about twice as long as the actual grain itself.
The main shoot (acrospire) should grow to 75% - 100% the length of the grain. The acrospires is on the INSIDE of the grain so you will need to crack a few open to see this.

Drying the Grain.

This stops the germination process & locks in the enzymes that convert starch to sugar. Do not exceed 50 degrees Celsius or this will destroy the enzyme. 
As it was cold/winter I put it on a clean oven dish and put it in the oven. Use a good thermometer and don't trust the dial on your oven, the probe is on the oven wall, not in the grain.
This will normally take about 24 hours, yes, 24 hours. Under 50 degs will not hurt your power bill that much. Bite the grain, if it crunches, it's done. If you have used grain before you'll know.

Roasting. 

I roasted for 2 hours at 100 degrees Celsius to achieve a Pale Lager Malt.
Use a strainer or similar to knock off the dried roots etc.

Now make some beer. I made AndrewQLD's Lager from the DB. Not far off tasting.


I have not experimented with roasting times but there is plenty of info on that avail on the net to do different spec grains. 

EDIT: Font size as I wrote it on Word 2007 and pasted it here and it went all skew wiff.


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## batemanbrewer (26/6/10)

Sounds awesome mate, a real homegrown job. I'd love to get a hold on some barley to have a go at this myself sometime next year when I harvest my homegrown hops to make a real DIY beer. Which will probably turn out terrible... haha :icon_vomit: 

Keep us posted on your efforts and how your homegrown beers turn out :icon_cheers: 

Mitch


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## bignath (26/6/10)

You sir are a champion!!!

Hope / Sure it will turn out great man...


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## roverfj1200 (26/6/10)

Big Nath said:


> You sir are a champion!!!
> 
> Hope / Sure it will turn out great man...



A truer word has not been spoken....


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## pingdong (26/6/10)

Great Job,

Was it hard to get the roots of?


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## bjay (26/6/10)

Well done,, hope it all turns out to be a tasty drop

Get back with the results or better still samples :blink: 

cheers
bjay

Ps; could be a bulk buy on virgin grain


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## Yeastie Beastie (26/6/10)

batemanbrewer said:


> Sounds awesome mate, a real homegrown job. I'd love to get a hold on some barley to have a go at this myself sometime next year when I harvest my homegrown hops to make a real DIY beer. Which will probably turn out terrible... haha :icon_vomit:
> 
> Keep us posted on your efforts and how your homegrown beers turn out :icon_cheers:
> 
> Mitch



I am seriously thinking about growing my own hops. Once I decide on a house beer ill do my own grain and hops hopefully.



Mad Matt said:


> Great Job,
> 
> Was it hard to get the roots of?



After the roasting process the roots become very brittle. Keep in mind the are only about 1mm in dia. They fall off very easily using one of those sieves you get from the supermarket, with steel mesh not plastic. Give her a quick shake round and it's done.


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## Yeastie Beastie (26/6/10)

bjay said:


> Well done,, hope it all turns out to be a tasty drop
> 
> Get back with the results or better still samples :blink:
> 
> ...




Bulk Buy? It sells for about $200 per tonne, pretty cheap considering the price of spec grains. Fair bit of work goes into it I guess.

I lived on the Penninnsula (Sommy, Bittern and Mornington) for 12 years so I know where you are. I reckon if you ring around there will be a few places out Cranbourne way which you could get hold of some. MUST be malting barley though. Specifically grown for this sole reason, malting for beer, biscuits, confectionery etc. In saying that you may know someone in those inductries that may be able to help you.


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## Florian (26/6/10)

Good job yeasty, I haven't read up too much on malting yet, but your step by step sounds pretty easy and convincing. Will definitely give this a go some time in the future, even if it's just for the sake of it I will most probably return to buying malted grain.

Florian


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## Yeastie Beastie (26/6/10)

Florian said:


> Good job yeasty, I haven't read up too much on malting yet, but your step by step sounds pretty easy and convincing. Will definitely give this a go some time in the future, even if it's just for the sake of it I will most probably return to buying malted grain.
> 
> Florian



You are in QLD and a huge percentage of malting barley comes from there so shouldn't be too hard to get your hands on some.
Definately worth just giving it a go just for the sake of learning something new and knowing you have produced a beer litererally from scratch is pretty rewarding.
Farm a bit of your own yeast too...


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## Florian (26/6/10)

Am reusing yeast already. Have two hop rizhomes in the fridge, ready to be put into the ground, but haven't decided on a position yet.


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## svyturys (1/7/10)

What an arse that this topic has just appeared. A mate has just received 50kg. of gairdner barley. He doesn't brew so he contacted me. He has already started experimenting with the stuff to get it milling stage. My question to the group is, is this particular variety of grain better for one style of beer over another?
He's already roasted some and it has a definite chocolate smell.
Due to my fermentation restrictions I would like to do an ale with it, 20C is much easier for me to handle.
Any ideas that "Yeastie Beastie" hasn't covered?
Man, this is going to be an epic experiment.
Thanks and Cheers
Alan


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## jwsparkes (1/7/10)

Yeasty, MP hey. I grew up in good ole Sommy. Moved to Newcastle in 2000. But all my family are still in Somerville, Mornington and Hastings. A good place for growing hops for sure. They do in Red Hill.

I've just started growing hops myself, planted some cluster and columbus in April and have 9 plants already a few cm tall. Received some cascade and saaz rhizomes today. An enjoyable horticulture hobby for sure.


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## Yeastie Beastie (2/7/10)

jwsparkes said:


> Yeasty, MP hey. I grew up in good ole Sommy. Moved to Newcastle in 2000. But all my family are still in Somerville, Mornington and Hastings. A good place for growing hops for sure. They do in Red Hill.
> 
> I've just started growing hops myself, planted some cluster and columbus in April and have 9 plants already a few cm tall. Received some cascade and saaz rhizomes today. An enjoyable horticulture hobby for sure.




Red Hill Brewery Beer = YUM. They grow their own
Really want to grow my own hops at some stage.


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## northwest9 (17/12/13)

Yeastie, 

How did you go with this? I have just malted 5 kilos of hindmarsh and will be brewing on saturday.

Did you do a step mash to allow for under modified malt?


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## Camo6 (17/12/13)

He's been offline since april 2012. I wouldn't expect a reply too soon. 

FWIW you could start a new thread as I'd be interested to know how you go.


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## northwest9 (17/12/13)

Camo6 said:


> He's been offline since april 2012. I wouldn't expect a reply too soon.
> 
> FWIW you could start a new thread as I'd be interested to know how you go.


ah fair enough

i figured id do a search first, before starting a new thread

in leiu of another thread, has anyone had a go at malting?


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## Yob (17/12/13)

is it not for horses? hes been doing quite a bit I think..


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