Homemade brown malt

[djavet]

Hi!

After several reading, i'm trying my first homemade brown malt. I've made 2 variantes: one dry and one with wet malt.
Both are coming from the Palmer's book "How to brew":
-> http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter20-4.html

Dry brown malt: 1 hour at 350°F (177° C)
Wet brown malt: 1 hour into water and 2 hours at 350°F (177° C)

Here the picture for the dry one.
500g pale ale malt:


In my oven:


After 1 hour, i check the color inside:


An overview:


My question is: is the color ok? I never saw brown malt, so i dont know what this malt must look for.

Actually, my wet malt are in oven, pictures will follow, the wet malt are more caramalize and darker that the dry one.

Am I wrong with the dry?

Dom

[djavet]

And here are the wet pictures:


And the final brown malt:


Are the color right for this one?
Tast is more caramel than the dry one.

Dom

[mysterio]

Is it just the way the picture looks or are some grains darker than others? It looks like you may have gotten a slightly uneven roast, did you stir the grains about at all during roasting? The close up picture looks roughly like amber malt I reckon - although it is very difficult to tell from a picture.

In theory wetting the malt should make the starches available to the enzymes, so when you are putting the malt in the oven, while it is heating up the starches will convert into sugar, crystalise and make crystal/caramel malt, assuming there is enough time at saccharification temperature for conversion to take place. With that kind of temperature, you should achieve somewhere between a medium and dark crystal I reckon (120 - 200 EBC).

I would go ahead and brew the same recipe with both and report back with what you find. Some of the advice (Mosher) says to leave the freshly roasted malt to 'age' for a week before brewing with it to avoid imparting harsh roasted flavours to your beer. I've never had that problem, but then again i've never roasted as dark as brown malt.

[djavet]

Thx for your feedback.

Yep, I've stired each 10 minutes. Strangly, the wet malt are more uniform in color. BTW, it's very difficult for me, because I've never seen brown malt and I dont know how darker it is (and taste too).

I will see if I brew the same recipe (London porter from Durden's book) or if I mix all together to have an average between.

When you toast your malt, do you use dry or wet malt?

And I will age 2 weeks before use.

Dom