Millet

[oldbloke]

So, following the success of my feasibility study last year, I finally got around to:

Millet Experiment #1
Trying to make 1 gallon.

12oz of millet malted
4hr soak, spread over muslin, rinsed every 8 hours, transferred to improvised sprouting jars [Kilners with muslin over the neck) as that didn't seem to be working too well
After 4 or 5 days the rootlets were getting quite long and some acrospires were as long as the grain (I hear you stop with barley when the acrospire is half the length of the grain)
Dried slowly in a very low oven.
I roasted half of it at 70C for about 40 minutes
Ground it in a coffee mill.
Added it to a pan with a litre of water
Attempted a stepped infusion mash in the oven (couldn't get good temperarure control on the hob last time)
Tried for a protease rest at 50, beta amylase at 62, aplha amylase at 68, mashout at 78.
Turned out it was just as hard to control temp in the oven as it was on the hob. Oh well.
Chucked a bit of shop-bought amylase in between the protease and amylase rests.
Next time I might just go for the simple single temp mash, though if this works I'll maybe go for a 4 or 5 gallon batch and can use my proper boiler.
Strained it through a muslin-lined sieve into a pan on the hob and got it to a nice boil, chucked in about 18g of hops
Boiled about 45 minutes
Sieved into another pan, made up to 4.5l with cold water
Gravity seemed to be only 1.012 or so, so it looks like I got hardly any sugars out of the grain, despite all that effort. Disappointing.
Need better control over the sprouting/malting/mashing, and more research on temps and timings
So added some sugar to get the gravity up, and transferred it to a demi with some nutrient, weeny bit of hop extract, and half a pack of Munton's Gold.
It's fermenting nicely.
I'll update when I bottle/taste

[oldbloke]

Well...
After what felt like ages, I decided it wasn't going to clear. Local temperatures have been all over the place, and I probably got a lot of stuff into the FV that I shouldn't have. So I bottled it, left it somewhere not-too-cold for a fortnight, then the garage for a fortnight.
Still not clear - looks a bit like one of those deliberately cloudy ciders.
Brought a couple up and stuck them in the fridge for a day to see if any more solids would fall out - not so you'd notice.
Tried one, not terribly impressed. Definitely beer, but a bit overhopped. In a pub you wouldn't not drink it, but you'd check out the other taps next round.
The second I allowed to warm up from fridge-chill level and it was much better. More flavour, balancing the hops better. Still a bit thin though.
So, yes, beer that's recognisably beer can be made with millet. But I have a way to go before it'd be my first choice.
Next time I'm going to get my millet from a different source - I think part of the problem was inconsistent malting, it was getting a bit old. And I need to crack it to the right size so I don't get lots of millet flour through into the FV.
But before I try again, I'm going to have a go at the new Gone With The Wheat kit, then I want to try malting some corn and making ale out of that.
I'll post some pics of the millet soon.

[Capper20]

Admire your effort there!

[Laripu]

Keep us posted. These kinds of experiments increase the general knowledge base. It's a valuable effort.

[oldbloke]

Had another bottle of it Friday night. It's quite pleasant, but maybe not what I was hoping to make. Light, but not too lacking in body, bit fruity. It may be improving with (minimal) aging.
ErIndoors likes it, which is what counts.
I was going to post pics on Saturday while Eurovision was on, but I'd been up until 2 getting the machine back from a virus attack so all Saturday was spent taking a total backup, just in case.
Annoying little bit of malware, makes it look like your hard drive just died, but acutally it's just made loads of vital stuff Hidden and ReadOnly.

[oldbloke]

With a few pics: http://oldbloke.livejournal.com/734653.html

[WishboneBrewery]

Isn't it moldy Millet that is mildly hallucinogenic? It might be better than you think if you drink enough

[oldbloke]

No, you're thinking of rye, which can carry the ergot fungus. I suspect brewing would destroy any ergotamine anyway.
I gave up hallucinogens 35 years ago, too intense and time consuming.

[alikocho]

Most grains can pick up ergot, but rye is more common and harder to spot (ergot is red and rye has a reddish hue). It causes erratic behaviour and is possibly the cause of the Salem witch trials.

[oldbloke]

The millet ale was bottled a little over 5 months ago. Just drinking the last bottle.
It's now a very pleasant ale, very light and slightly lemony, almost but not quite into the area of the slightly sour beers.
It could maybe do with a bit more body and could stand a bit more hop.
All in all though, definitely a success.
So I guess I'll be making some more, once the current experiment with maize is done. But this time I'll get some red millet from ebay instead of the nondescript stuff in the Asian grocers - hopefully better germination, so a better malt, mash, and brew.

[oldbloke]

Having just drained the glass, find myself wishing there was more of it about the place...