I know this is resurrecting an ancient thread but saves starting a new one... I had a crack at making some crystal malt today. It was quite fun. I just used some of my pale malt (Maris Otter) for it rather than green barley/malt, and made up about 300g. I got the basic process off the barleypopmaker site. I have done this once before a couple of years back and used the grain in place of Caraaroma in my red ale recipe and it came out pretty similar which was cool.
Anyway, the process I used was to soak the grains in distilled water in a saucepan overnight, using enough water to cover the grains by about an inch or so (the pic was taken just after I tipped in the water, but they sank over the course of the soaking). They were put in last night and this morning I strained the water out of them, and let them dry off to a damp state. They smelled a bit like acidulated malt at this stage.
After the water was removed the grains were moved to a baking tray/dish in a small mound about 2 inches high, and placed in the oven to stew at somewhere around 65-70C. This required some guesswork and due to the oven not going that low, occasional bursts of heat to keep the temp up as I couldn't leave it on the whole time or they would get too hot. I'll try the probe thermometer in it next time, probably won't be able to leave it in there but I can at least check the temp with it.
This stewing period lasted 90 minutes (may go 2-2.5 hours next time), at which point the grains were spread out to about a 2cm thick layer in the baking tray, and dried in the oven set at 120C for two hours. This is how they appeared after this. At this point the acidic aroma had all but gone as well, and they started to smell more like toasted malt.
Once the drying had finished, I turned the oven up to about 200-210C and put the grains back in for 30 minutes, checked on them, another 20 minutes, another check and gave them a final 12-13 minutes, so all up about an hour. The kitchen and house smelt like toffee and raisins during this period, so I must have got the stewing temp pretty right. There are photos from each of the roast times but they don't really look any different to each other; this photo is after I took them out for the final time. The colour in reality is more like Caraaroma than it looks in the pic.
These grains were then left to cool down before being placed in a brown paper bag where they will remain to age for about a month or so before I use them in a brew. I think I'll just do a basic pale ale, and use these grains as the only other grains other than the base malt, just to get an idea of what flavour they will impart.
The process did take a fair bit of time which is why I've waited until my holidays to bother, but it was fun and interesting and I'm also looking forward to brewing a batch with them soon.
