# AHB Articles: Doing it from absolute scratch



## Anofre (16/9/11)

This is the discussion topic for article: Doing it from absolute scratch


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## Anofre (16/9/11)

Ok, so the plan here is have a crack at floor malting +-100kg of this particular crop which sits next to my hops.
Last season I did 15kg using the this method and it went well. I think I got my head around the process.
Want to try & up the scale for ecconomy of effort. Large concrete floor available. Though I will have to think about building kiln... A few months to worry about that yet. 
Might even use it as 'green malt' & just smoke some for colour...

Definately keen to hear from ne1 who has had a crack at floor malting. Fair bit of detailed stuff on Braukaiser in regard to pile depths & temps which i'll be following.
Also from anyone who has harvested their own yeast like on the Brewmasters Egypt episode


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## Nick JD (16/9/11)

This is awesome! 

Can you get "scratch" with yeast?


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## Pennywise (16/9/11)

We may just have our first "real brewer" in our midst. Awesome stuff, keep it coming.


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## seamad (16/9/11)

Wild yeast?


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## Anofre (16/9/11)

Nick JD said:


> This is awesome!
> 
> Can you get "scratch" with yeast?




I thought the consensus round here was that it was a waste of time, but then I saw that Brewmasters edisode where they went to Egypt & Sam was rubbing dates all over petrie dishes & it worked.

I have a few grape vines and I believe the beast we are chasing lives on their skin naturally?


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## seamad (16/9/11)

Thats the show iwas thinking of.
Remember going to the old penfolds winery that made st henri, open vats and "wild" yeast. Air,building everything was yeasty.


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## seamad (16/9/11)

Thats the show iwas thinking of.
Remember going to the old penfolds winery that made st henri, open vats and "wild" yeast. Air,building everything was yeasty.


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## Anofre (16/9/11)

I think realistically back in the day, people figured out how to pitch the good ferment from one barrel to another long before we knew it as yeast.
To start a new brewery you 'aquired' fermenting beer from a proven source to kick you off.
Pilfering propriatry yeast from friends in the community is no different in my mind...


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## Anofre (14/10/11)

Updated

Still researching wild yeast I found http://www.enologyinternational.com/yeast/wildyeast.html & also read a little about making a bread starter from grapeskin yeast. 
Thinking this might be a good method to try. Has any one ever heard of someone using a wild wine yeast culture in a beer?


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## felten (14/10/11)

I've played with putting some of my sourdough starter in a litre of finished beer left over after bottling, but I haven't done it from the beginning yet.

It came out pretty sour but 1 dimensional. I'm going to try it again one day but with left over wort instead, and let it sit for longer than a few months.


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## thelastspud (15/10/11)

This is awesome can't wait to see how it comes out. There was a guy on here who make a grain kiln out of a clothes dryer you could look into that


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## Anofre (15/10/11)

I like the idea of culturing a starter from bread dough. My interpretation of the glyphs that Sam & Florian look at in Egypt is that the ancients used the bread dough like we use slants to start the culture & maintain the strain. Not using the cooked bread as a flavor addition like they ended up doing.

Re: clothes dryer kiln
Yep, that article is what got me into this. I started drying last time on baking trays in a wood oven, then threw it all in a pillow case in the dryer to finish it off. 
Great method for a few KG. Uneconomical on power for large batches.
This year I'm thinking perforated false floor with a wood fire beside, though using the sun in qld has merits...

Another self imposed restriction was going to be using no electricity during production - using wood fire only to power the brewery for that beer.
Nothing that special there; that's how we started before I got "the magic wand" (awesome 15a over the side element)


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## Mags (21/2/12)

Just wondering if you had an update? Interesting read


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## Aydos (19/9/12)

Is there an update on this, its quite interesting!


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## proteinman (29/9/12)

Just thought I would add my 2 cents in here. I have brewed around 10 batches made from home malted barley that I got from the feed store. I live in hot Queensland so I malt in my old fridge with a temp controller. I generally malt around 5kg ( a batches worth) at a time in a storage container at a depth of about 10cm and a temperature of 15 degrees. I then sundry the malt, seems to dry out well after a day but I give it 2 anyway and the roots just fall off.

I've made a few batches where I haven't roasted it and it's fine, although it is much better if roasted at 100 - 120 degrees for a number of hours. I have found through experimentation the potential of my grain is around 1.028 vs 1.036 for commercial grain. I use this value in beersmith and hit my calculated gravity every time.

Home malting is a fair bit of mucking around but it's great to brew up a batch and know you did most of the hard work!


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## spog (29/9/12)

proteinman said:


> Just thought I would add my 2 cents in here. I have brewed around 10 batches made from home malted barley that I got from the feed store. I live in hot Queensland so I malt in my old fridge with a temp controller. I generally malt around 5kg ( a batches worth) at a time in a storage container at a depth of about 10cm and a temperature of 15 degrees. I then sundry the malt, seems to dry out well after a day but I give it 2 anyway and the roots just fall off.
> 
> I've made a few batches where I haven't roasted it and it's fine, although it is much better if roasted at 100 - 120 degrees for a number of hours. I have found through experimentation the potential of my grain is around 1.028 vs 1.036 for commercial grain. I use this value in beersmith and hit my calculated gravity every time.
> 
> Home malting is a fair bit of mucking around but it's great to brew up a batch and know you did most of the hard work!


i hav'nt home malted but have played around with home roasting,it changes so much to the colour/expected taste etc.an interesting exercise as no doubt your home malting is.
its all about experimenting and learning..........cheers............spog.............


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## barabool (11/6/14)

Mate, excellent. Hats off to you.
I can just see my wife have a heart attack when she sees my next brew shopping list:

500g Crystal Malt
1kg Dextrose
1 Combine Harvester
200 Bottle Tops...
LOL


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