Roast Barley

[JWB]

I decided to look on the dark side and brew something resembling a Tooheys Old style of beer.
My local supplier did not have any roast barley and I thought I could do without it but inital tasting after primary ferment shows it lacks that roast barley taste.

Can I now make a tea from roast barley and add it to the brew when I rack it into a second fermenter and let it sit for a few weeks before kegging?

My original recipe:
800G DME
1.5kg Amber liquid malt
250G Black Patent Malt
200G crystal Malt
500G Dark Brown Sugar
200 Dextrose
28G Pride of Ringwood @ 60 minutes boil
15G Northern Brewer @ 45 Minutes Boil
Safbrew S33 Yeast at 18C

Grains were steeped for 40 minutes while water came to the boil.
Batch size was 18Lts

Im thinking of making a tea up using 100G roast barley and add it to the second frementer and sit back and see what happens :icon_drunk:


:icon_chickcheers:

JWB

 

[RdeVjun]

Can I now make a tea from roast barley and add it to the brew when I rack it into a second fermenter and let it sit for a few weeks before kegging?

Good question- I've found myself in that situation before with spec grains and wondered much the same thing, but have never tried it. I'd steep the barley as per the usual method but then strain and boil the liquor/tea for a few minutes to ensure it remains reasonably sanitary, cool and then pop it in the fermenter along with the rest of the batch.
I recall reading about someone doing this and they reported that it worked well enough, might've been one of the UK or US forums.

 

[Swinging Beef]

RdeVjun
I'm with him.

While I reckon it would be a nice addition, you can actually taste Roasted Barley in Thooeys Old?

 

[WarmBeer]

I managed to resuscitate a very bland Mild beer doing exactly this.

A week after starting primary fermentation, I was unhappy with the lack of grain maltiness in the beer, so steeped an additional ~100gm of choc grain and roasted barley in 2 lt of water, along with 100gm of LDME, strained, added about 10gm of Goldings I had handy, and boiled for 20 mins. Cooled it off to about 30 degrees, and chucked the whole lot in the fermenter.

You no longer (without some pretty interpretive mathematics) have an accurate idea on your OG - FG calculation, as you've added more fermentables, but it definitely rescued the taste of this brew. You will need to give it some extra time to ferment out the additional sugars from the grains and LDME.

I says... "Go for it!"

 

[Renegade]

Personally I would still be doing a one hour boil to ensure no contaminants are introduced into my brew.

 

[WarmBeer]

Personally I would still be doing a one hour boil to ensure no contaminants are introduced into my brew.

Without starting a flame war, there's nothing that is going to live through a ten minute boil that will be killed by a whole hour.

The reason we boil for an hour is for isomerisation of the hop alpha acids (extract and k'n'b brewers) as well as to coagulate and drop out proteins (All Grain)

 

[Renegade]

Good point - I think 10 minutes (at low altitude) is considered fine in survival circles if you want to kill off many bacterias. I have even read that you only need to bring it to a rolling boil, and that's enough.

Making a tea, then throwing it in the ferment is still not a good idea though.

 

[RdeVjun]

Without starting a flame war, there's nothing that is going to live through a ten minute boil that will be killed by a whole hour.

The reason we boil for an hour is for isomerisation of the hop alpha acids (extract and k'n'b brewers) as well as to coagulate and drop out proteins (All Grain)

+1 : Also reinforces the importance of using the term 'sanitary' in the home brewing context as opposed to 'sterile'. We can't hope to ever achieve a sterile wort by boiling in an unsealed pan at atmospheric pressure, only to sanitise it. I was thinking along the lines of 10 or 15 minutes of boil as there would be no need to isomerise or 'break' anything, just to sanitise (perhaps we could say pasteurise) it and deal with possible gross infection sources from the barley.

Good point - I think 10 minutes (at low altitude) is considered fine in survival circles if you want to kill off many bacterias. I have even read that you only need to bring it to a rolling boil, and that's enough.

Making a tea, then throwing it in the ferment is still not a good idea though.

+1 : Yep, there's bound to be nasties lurking from steeping the grain.

Its getting a bit OT, I even wonder sometimes about hop tea into the fermenter late, but I guess hops are clean enough to not need boiling (although I start with boiling water) and is an antibacterial anyway- I've never had an infection from it AFAIK, although wort towards the end of primary is a fairly inhospitable place for some bacteria anyway (low dissolved oxygen and pH), plus there's stiff competition from our friendly yeast.

Looks like we're all agreed, oh, and I'm definitely not having a chop at anyone either. Great work folks! :icon_cheers:

 

[JWB]

OK Guys:
Just for the sake of experiment I just did the following :beerbang:

Boiled 1ltr water for 10 minutes
Put approx 80grams of cracked roast barley in a large plunger type coffee pot
Added boiling water till full mark ( Approx 500ml)
Let it steep for 30 minutes
Hit plunger and added liquid to bottom of sanitized fermenter
Temp of barley tea was still a bit warm so I sat fermenter in cold water for 5 minutes
Racked brew onto top of barley tea
The gravity is now 1020 so I will let it ferment out a few more points.
A taste at the moment is huge roast barley but I expect it to mellow as it ages.

I will keg it in about a month, meanwhile I have a keg of IPA to drink ( Life a bitch sometimes )

:icon_drunk:
JWB

 

[WarmBeer]

Okay, lets not panic and start thinking "Is my beer ruined"...

Here's my earlier advice broken down. The order is important:
1. ...so steeped an additional ~100gm of choc grain and roasted barley in 2 lt of water, along with 100gm of LDME,
2. strained,
3. added about 10gm of Goldings I had handy,
4. and boiled for 20 mins.
5. Cooled it off to about 30 degrees,
6. and chucked the whole lot in the fermenter.

The reason we boil the "tea" after the steeping is that the grains can often harbour loads of bacteria (it's a natural product, and germs are everywhere), which will be killed off by a good 5-10 minute boil.

Now saying that, there is a pretty good likelihood your beer will be OK, mainly because the 30 minutes at a high, but not boiling temperature, will have homogenised (not sanitised) the majority of the germs, but not killed all of em. You have now added this liquid to a low pH environment containing relatively high levels of alcohol, where the dominant organism is the yeast.

So, give it a couple of weeks, as you planned, and let your nose and tastebuds do the talking. If your beer has become infected, you will know about it, cause it aint going to taste or smell like beer anymore.

Best of luck.

 

[manticle]

Yeah I would have boiled the liquid as you would when you steep any specialty. Adding it later sounds fine though as it's mainly flavour, colour and sometimes body that spec grains add rather than loads of sugars.

 

[drtomc]

Now saying that, there is a pretty good likelihood your beer will be OK, mainly because the 30 minutes at a high, but not boiling temperature, will have homogenised (not sanitised) the majority of the germs, but not killed all of em.

You've been drinking too much milk. I think you mean pasteurized. I'd stick to the beer. :icon_cheers:

T.

 

[WarmBeer]

You've been drinking too much milk. I think you mean pasteurized. I'd stick to the beer. :icon_cheers:

T.

Yep, you're right, I always get that wrong.

I gotta remember in future not to get the old french chemist, Louis Pasteur, confused with less clever cousin , Willie Homogen.