Homemade malt experimental brew

[TheWiggman]

Being completely out of grain and beer, I turned to a fellow brewer at work who suggested I use his homemade malt. He bought some barley locally (not sure what type) and malted it at home. He asked me what the palest malt there is and then implied that his might be even paler. Apparently he didn't kiln it for too long - if at all - and let the sun do most of the work.
I'm not too clued up on the malting process but assuming he had malt, I was in. This is how it looked when I picked it up -

You can see the grains still had some shoots one them but I'm not a malting house so I went with it. I don't have a mill so I used our home blender and in 200g batches I pulsed for about 3-5 seconds until it started to go floury.

I was quite surprised at good of a job it did. I used a HERMS with a braided hose so I didn't want to go too nuts. You can see that there are barely any visible whole husks -

I ended up with exactly 2.75kg, and he also gave a spare 1kg pre-milled pack of Vienna from Country Brewer. Not fresh, but good enough. I had a look in the fridge and decided I'll use my remaining Coopers yeast, and a few different Aussie and US hops.
In honour of the malter's name, I'll call it Söl's Maltz.

Brew day
Put 15l in the mash tun and a teaspoon of CaCl. Strike water heated, I tipped the Söl's Maltz and noted it had a slightly musty, maybe mouldy smell but it wasn't overpowering. The Vienna smelt a lot better.
Did a 55°C rest for 20 mins then stepped up to 67°C sacc rest.
After 40 mins it was only at 1.040, which was a lot lower than I expected but in all honesty I didn't know what to expect. At least there was conversion happening. To appease the family I went shopping and then all up it had done about a 3.5h mash. It was 1.057 so much better and worth doing the extended mash.
No mashout, I fly sparged with 76°C water and kept going until I had 1.040 in the boiler. I ended up with about 22l (guessing only, I don't have a measuring device). Runnings got down to 1.020ish.
60 min boil with -

• 10g Cluster + 10g Cascade at 60 mins
• 20g Galaxy 14.5% at 5 mins

I checked the gravity and it wasn't high enough for my liking, so added 70g of da sugaz.
Estimating about 30-odd IBU. Ended up at 15l at 1.052 so should be a strongish beer to complement the bitterness. Wow those Galaxy hops have some attitude, really interesting character that will hopefully suit the beer. I know it's a hop that polarises people and this is my first time using it.
No-chilled straight into the fermenter.

I put the Coopers yeast on the starter plate last night to liven them up a little and they took off like a rocket.

Put the yeast in this morning and the temp had dropped to 14°C overnight, even in the unpowered fridge outside. I rigged up a heat belt and controller and it's warming up to 18°C.

So there you have it. Keen to see how this one goes, could be a disaster or could be the greatest beer I'll ever make that I can't replicate again. I shall call it Söl's Palest Ale. Or Stale Ale, depending on how much of an impact the Söl's Maltz have on the finished product.

 

[thedragon]

It'd be great to hear how this one turns out!

 

[Not For Horses]

What colour were the rootlets compared to the grain husk? Kilned rootlets will be a golden brown and quite brittle. They would fall off in your hands as you handled the malt. If I had to guess, just from looking at the pics, I would say it is unkilned. A big part of the flavour development comes from the kilning. At kilning temperatures, melanoidins are formed via Maillard reactions and it is these compounds that give the 'malty' flavour. Green malt has a grassy, vegetal flavour so you may get some grassiness in the finished beer. DMS may be an issue given the high level of precursor in green malt. Those are worst case scenarios though so I wouldn't worry too much. Nothing a bit of galaxy won't fix.

 

[TheWiggman]

Cheers Not For Horses. I'm pretty confident he didn't kiln it as he was making the kilning device and had some issues with it. He tried to use a rotisserie motor and found that when it started to pick the grain up, the torque was too much and stalled. He used some elements out of a toaster using a thermostat and found them to go way too hard, not being able to maintain a constant temperature. In hindsight I think he probably could have just put them in the oven for on low for a few hours. This was his first attempt anyway and he didn't know when he'd ever use them.
The rootless weren't overly brittle. The malt had a very 'soft' feel about it.

 

[Not For Horses]

The oven is a very good option. I've done hundreds of kilos in mine. Tell him to keep at it!

 

[TheWiggman]

Update - bottled on day 8. Finished at 1.010 giving us 5.5% of ballsy ale. The Coopers yeast went nuts and finished it off by Friday.
Initial tasting is - beer. Not mouldy or stale. The obvious hit is the galaxy though, FRUITY as a mo-fo. Fruit punch fruity. Obvious bitterness which seems to balance well. Hopefully it'll turn out to be a decent drop, at this stage it doesn't look like a write-off. But man, it's pale.

 

[barabool]

Try and remove the acrospire as it leaves a funky taste in your beer. Also you may need to use 1/3 more as it can be really low in enzymes than store-bought pale malt.

 

[TheWiggman]

'Acrospire' - there's a new word for me. Will let the maltster know. Is there an easy way to do this?
Will also be aware of funk. Jamiroquai Ale?

 

[Not For Horses]

Well actually the acrospire is the bit inside the grain that is the developing sprout. If there is a large amount of acrospire development then you're grain is over modified and you are loosing extract potential to a now-developing plant.
That is the also the first time I've heard of any funky flavours from acrospire. And I've done some weird shit to barley just to see what happens.
The rootlets are the bit you want to get rid of but more from a haze point of view.
Rootlets are pretty easy to get rid of after a proper kilning. They will be dry and brittle and crumble off in your hands and then easily sieved with a pasta drainer or similar with holes slightly smaller than your grains.

 

[barabool]

The rootlets are also called Chitlets and they grow out one end and the acrospire grows out the other. The length of the acrospire in a fully modified malt will typically be 75-100% of the seed length.
I used a mesh flour sifter to remove both the chits and acrospire after drying. They are quite dry and crumbly after you have roasted them in the oven/kiln.
I use a 10 layer fruit dryer for my basic pale malts and the oven for the second 'roasting'.

The 'funky' flavour is the derivatives the acrospire gave beer due to their astringency. I was always told to remove it - Google it if you want.

Cheers

 

[barabool]

Just read in the Pub that Not for Horses - HAS A MALTING FLOOR. Dont listen to me - I have a bucket, a box and some fly wire.
Cheers NFH - no insult intended.

 

[ManVsBeer]

Will also be aware of funk. Jamiroquai Ale?

Lmfao.

 

[TheWiggman]

The day has arrived.
Light fluffy head, with decent carbonation. On the nose it has a familiar... carbonic aroma? Slightly earthy but sweet.
PALE. Pilsner pale, as expected. On tasting initial bite is bitterness but it rounds off quickly and tastes slightly of alcohol. It's very light in flavour but there is a hint of the galaxy, US hops and bready yeast all meeting together and yet clashing all at once. It's not offensive and overpowering, but gives the impression of fruit due to it lacking any real body. You could chill this right down and some would mistake it for a lager.
Amazingly clear considering it wasn't cold crashed or filtered. I can read text through the glass no worries. Head retention is bloody good actually. Behaves like a real beer.
Overall: quaffable, a mishmash of styles and nothing about it that would turn off most beer drinkers except maybe the bitterness and ABV%. Nothing remarkable either. Put it this way - I've got 11 more bottle and I won't be tipping any of them out. Might rouse some of that Coopers yeast...
Drink up. Here's to home brew.