screamlead
Landlord.
Here we go - bare with me as i get this together as its a PITA trying to do a long doc.
So you want to malt your own grains? i have to do it as no local home brew shops anywhere near me and the only one that does sell them invariably dont have them in stock.
Theres normally two growing seasons out here in Turkey and i would presume worldwide too - a summer crop being sown at the moment and a winter crop which has just been harvested here, I think that would have been sown around may june time.
Any way here we go -
These are some of the grains i produce, usually it takes around 5-7 days from germination to roasting and always weather dependant - for me as i do it all on my roof terrace. You can do it indoors if you wish, ie the garage or somewhere coolish but not too hot. I have a nightmare in summer with temps hitting upto 50c so the soaking ends up stewing my grain.
So first up you need some grain - i normally do around 5kg at a time - that gives me enough for a decent brew and enough to use for speciality grain if i need any. I buy mine locally from the local olive and flour mill and its very cheap but always has loads of other bits of stuff in it as you will see later in the post.
First up you need a large plastic bowl or something similar in which to soak the grains so it needs to be fairly shallow so as you are not dumping 5kg into a bucket which wont germinate properly or evenly. Firstly give the grains a wash to remove any dust and muck i usually do this on my drying screens as you will see later.
The grain in the bowl being filled with water - cover the grains with around 2 inches of water to submerge them fully.
Initially you will get a few floating so give it 10 mins or so then give the whole lot a stir with a big spoon or something similar - then you need to start removing the rubbish thats floating - i use a small mesh collander and dump it all into a bucket.
You need to soak for two hours then give the grains a breather for 8 hours - I tend to give them a sitr every 30 mins or so when im around and strain out any further floaters. After two hours carefully drain off the water - it doent matter if you dont get it bone dry it needs a liitle moisture to germinate. So day one you can get two soakings in.
Above - grain in its breathing mode.
Above day two and you can see its starting to germinate the little white bits poking out of the grain.
Above - day 4 and its almost there.
Above its day five and time to start drying the grain
This is what you want -the rootlet around three times the size of the grain - or if you want to cut them open you want the sprouting shoot inside to about 70% of the length of the grain.
Above - what you dont want this is a shot of the grain that has gone too far and really is no good. As long as theres only a few no problem carry on to the drying stage.
Above - mine on the drying screens i made from mossy netting - they need a decent airflow round them to dry out - i do mine in the sun but you can also do this in the oven on a low setting of 50c - 80c for around 8 hours - mine usually takes around 2-3 days at around 30c in the sun. One thing to note here - when you start spreading the grain onto the screens - you may notice your hands come away sticky - this now shows you its doing its thing converting the starch to sugars inside the grain !!
Some i dried in the oven for speed you should be able to make out the roots now look very brown and very dry - you then rub them between your hands to remove the rootlets and you end up like the pic below.
Next up the roasting.
So you want to malt your own grains? i have to do it as no local home brew shops anywhere near me and the only one that does sell them invariably dont have them in stock.
Theres normally two growing seasons out here in Turkey and i would presume worldwide too - a summer crop being sown at the moment and a winter crop which has just been harvested here, I think that would have been sown around may june time.
Any way here we go -
These are some of the grains i produce, usually it takes around 5-7 days from germination to roasting and always weather dependant - for me as i do it all on my roof terrace. You can do it indoors if you wish, ie the garage or somewhere coolish but not too hot. I have a nightmare in summer with temps hitting upto 50c so the soaking ends up stewing my grain.
So first up you need some grain - i normally do around 5kg at a time - that gives me enough for a decent brew and enough to use for speciality grain if i need any. I buy mine locally from the local olive and flour mill and its very cheap but always has loads of other bits of stuff in it as you will see later in the post.
First up you need a large plastic bowl or something similar in which to soak the grains so it needs to be fairly shallow so as you are not dumping 5kg into a bucket which wont germinate properly or evenly. Firstly give the grains a wash to remove any dust and muck i usually do this on my drying screens as you will see later.
The grain in the bowl being filled with water - cover the grains with around 2 inches of water to submerge them fully.
Initially you will get a few floating so give it 10 mins or so then give the whole lot a stir with a big spoon or something similar - then you need to start removing the rubbish thats floating - i use a small mesh collander and dump it all into a bucket.
You need to soak for two hours then give the grains a breather for 8 hours - I tend to give them a sitr every 30 mins or so when im around and strain out any further floaters. After two hours carefully drain off the water - it doent matter if you dont get it bone dry it needs a liitle moisture to germinate. So day one you can get two soakings in.
Above - grain in its breathing mode.
Above day two and you can see its starting to germinate the little white bits poking out of the grain.
Above - day 4 and its almost there.
Above its day five and time to start drying the grain
This is what you want -the rootlet around three times the size of the grain - or if you want to cut them open you want the sprouting shoot inside to about 70% of the length of the grain.
Above - what you dont want this is a shot of the grain that has gone too far and really is no good. As long as theres only a few no problem carry on to the drying stage.
Above - mine on the drying screens i made from mossy netting - they need a decent airflow round them to dry out - i do mine in the sun but you can also do this in the oven on a low setting of 50c - 80c for around 8 hours - mine usually takes around 2-3 days at around 30c in the sun. One thing to note here - when you start spreading the grain onto the screens - you may notice your hands come away sticky - this now shows you its doing its thing converting the starch to sugars inside the grain !!
Some i dried in the oven for speed you should be able to make out the roots now look very brown and very dry - you then rub them between your hands to remove the rootlets and you end up like the pic below.
Next up the roasting.
