# What malt am I making?



## tubbsy (19/12/20)

I've been malting my own wheat and barley for a little while for whisky making, but never paid any attention to the style. Does anyone know what style of malted barley I've been making with this "recipe"?

Steep and rest @ 10-14C
Germinate @ 20-24C
Dry @ 40-45C for at least 24 hours
Kiln @ 85C for 1 or 2 hours

I use an air fryer for the kilning so have also roasted some of the malt, which has turned out pretty good in a whisky mash. Pretty keen to see how they go in a beer.


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## MHB (19/12/20)

That is an interesting question. Malting is so specialised these days that I doubt anyone can give you a simple answer.
First problem would be your grain supply, Malting Barley for beer brewing is selected for very specific traits, if you are using feed barley odds on you are going to have way too high a protein content to make a top end brewing malt.
Other is the time frames aren't supplied, the time spent steeping and germinating as well as the temperatures moisture content of the grain.... will all affect what you make.
Personally if you are happy with your malt for wash making, I would stick with that, maybe even sell some to other (no doubt) licensed distillers and use the money to buy good brewing malt.

Ok sure you want to have a play, malt and brewing are natural process and we just sort of guide it in the direction we want it to go. So you would probably end up with "Beer" but not what I would choose if I wanted to make consistent high quality beer. The malt needed for wash making is less particular as we aren't drinking the wash and we are drinking the beer.

From the late kilning temperature/time, it should be a sort of pale malt but, well...
Bit of light reading Topics in Brewing: Malting, sure you have probably googled malting at home or similar and found heaps, this one might go a bit deeper and throws in some history.
Mark

This one is good to, covers some specialty malts, gives the water/time/temperature ranges for most common German specialty malts.
M


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## tubbsy (20/12/20)

Thanks MHB. Yeah, I've been using feed grain due to how cheap it is, but I'm trying to find some malting grain.

The steeping takes a few 8-12hr cycles to get to 45% moisture and germinating takes 3-4 days for the acrospire to reach 80-100% length. I haven't done any tests to check on germination rates, but I would estimate around 85%.

My last batch I only kilned for an hour and it tasted a little "green", but all the others killed for 2 hours tasted pretty good.

I guess the only way to know for certain how my procedure goes is to take it all the way and make a beer. I've got a couple small batches of barley and wheat steeping now, so will be good to go once my gear arrives in the new year.

Thanks for the malting info. Unfortunately the link you posted isn't working for me.


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## MHB (20/12/20)

You have to store malt for at least a fortnight after kilning and before mashing with it, just one of those things.
See what you can do with this.
Mark


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## tubbsy (21/12/20)

Thanks Mark.


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