Roast your own!

GFHomebrew · May 24, 2017

Alrighty mid week brown roast malt attempt done. I roasted 1kg of Marris Otter malt for 1 hour with oven on 200c or 400f I stired the malt every 5-10 minutes. There was lots of crackling going on in that oven early on and the smell started out nice and biscuity then got more astringent and burn smelling towards the end the crackling died down as well. The kernel of the malt varies from pale brown to dark brown it smells roasty astringent with a little biscuity smell it tastes similar there seems to be a touch of sweetness to it when I chew on some but i could be decieving myself there

. I'll try and get some better photos late on. I've let this malt to degas in one of my brew bags couldn't find any paper bags so thought that'll do son.

I've been listening to Gordon Strong do a talk/ podcast on Beersmith YouTube about brewing porter. Remember this is one style I pretty much know nothing about. The whole thing started two weeks back listening to this podcast and mr strong describing brown diastic old style English malt how it was used 100% in porters back in the 1700s and of course hearing that this diastic brown malt isn't made anymore or is very rare I thought I'll have to have a crack at roasting some for a porter.

So the porter style I'm Trying to replicate is a brown porter. This is the specks Ive garnered from his talk I thought I'd flick this out there and see what youse think.

Grain recipe guidelines remember this isn't his word but what sunk into me nut when listening to the podcast

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Marris otter between 70-80%
Crystal between 10-13%
Chocolate 5-8%
Brown 10 - 15%
He doesn't recommend roasted barley with this style.
Mash single infusion between 140-150 (I'm thinking the high side of that infusion) he said if you want more Body add carapils or oats.
Hops Fuggles willamette or any noble German hop. Don't use citrusy or piney hops.
He's said don't go too bitter as the roasted malts will addsome bitterness and late hopping isn't really needed. I'm thinking or magnum for Bittering then Fuggles for flavour and aroma.
His Yeasts were Wyeast 1968 or 1318 or
Whitelabs 002. I'm going with dry English S04 yeast @ 18c. He ferments 62f 7days then bring up to 68f to Finnish.

For water he said to aim to get PH right he didn't go into much depth about this. I'm going to try the Dortmund de carbonated profile here on brewersfriend but sure is tricky with ph too low using that much gypsum may need some help with this

?
Well I've Finnished me sprawl

what do youse think I've left a link to my recipe so far let us know what ya think cheers

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https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/495978/ben-s-brown-porter

GFHomebrew · May 25, 2017

Ok here's some better photo comparisons of the roasted malt.

1st photo is in me biab bag thought id store em in this why bot.

2nd is a comparison from left to right is my brown malt then marris otter base then crystal 60.

3rd is some grains split open nice soft brown colour.

Looking forward to brewing this up im a fortnight after the roast malt has had some time to settle or de gas and get less astringent.

GFHomebrew · May 26, 2017

Alrighty i think youse will love this! I had one of those spur of the moment or brewers lightbulb moments and before i knew it i was locked in a 5 -6 hour process i couldnt back out of

. I forgot how much oven time it takes to make crystal malt!

So anyone thinking of making some of their own crystal malts ill run you through what i did last night. I got all my ideas and info of barleypopmaker - google roast your own barley and his site will pop up.

1st i soaked 1kg of my Marris Otter in water so its covering the malt for 4 hours.

Then i drained the water off and bagged them up into zip lock bags squeezing out the air as much as i could when i did them up.

Then i hit the flame under my brew kettle and began heating up my mash water i used about 20 lt. My thinking is a large volume of water takes less time to cool than a small one thus achieving a more consistent mash temp. Anyway i dropped in me three baggies of soaked barley @ 66c and set the timer to 3 × 20 min intervals where i checked mash and turned over floating mash bags. Temp stayed 66 throughout.

Next i preheated the oven to 180c probably 350f to begin my roasting. I placed the mashed barley in a deep sided large pan and wacked them in the oven on 20 min intervals again stiring each time.

Now this process the drying process ill call it took probably an hour or so i was swilling homebrewdown me gullet so time took on a differnt dimensionl

. it started off amber in colour as youll see in the photos thats second from last. It went brown after about an hour but still wet you could mush the grain between your fingers but it tasted mmm like toffee at 1 hr.

Towards the end for probably last hour i upped the temp to 200c or 400F turning on 20min or less (dont stray too far from oven at this stage)It started to get heaps sticky and started to crackle a bit right at the end.

So all up it was a 4 hour soak and 3.5 hours bake. I was making pizza's inbetween and guzzling homebrew so it didnt feel like work but remember that time frame when you begin like putting an all grain brew down once you start your in it for the long haul lol

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Ok my impressions with this crystal it tastes like raisins sometimes burnt raisins or burnt toffee its got no acrid astringency like my brown roast malt which is interesting. This crystal is going to be great in this porter its going to add some great complex flavourz its been well worth the effort i think. Ill still keep the C60 but.maybe half it with this crystal i think its around 100+ lovibond its quite brown to chocolate brown on the outside some are black its almost special b territory i cant wait to mash her in.

So what do youse think what would you do with this malt, porter? Im thinking 300g in this porter. Cheers all!
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/495978/ben-s-brown-porter-

GFHomebrew · Dec 16, 2018

Making some more home made crystal malt today it's raining out so not much else to do. Gunna have a crack at a remake of the Sch it's Swartzy brew I did a year or so ago it was delicious and I havnt replicated it yet. Will post some pickies in a fair few hours time when the roastings done.

thunderwagn · Dec 16, 2018

Roast the grain. Pickle the brain!

GFHomebrew · Dec 16, 2018

Sure thing boss about to mash me soaked grain in ziplocked bags I'll go 66c for a while should convert. Then into the Webber q to dry then get my roast on!

GFHomebrew · Dec 16, 2018

Here's the before shot- see how swollen plump the grains are full of water. Pre mashed

Now after I've been roasting and turning for a couple of hours trying to dry the malt out but it's quite brown so im calling it done.

I might half this and give the other half a bit more time I think I went a bit overboard on the amount this time through.
The grains were a bit sticky still so in small batches I just dried it out a little more in Q always a long day when doing some roasting but worth it if it turns out how I want it.