Home Brew Forum

Yesterday saw my first attempt at roasting grains. I have this fixed idea that using recently-roasted malt, rather than stuff that's sat on the shelf for a few months, must make a difference to a beer, especially a mild or a porter.

Only one way to find out...

100g uncrushed Maris Otter:


Whack it in the oven, as Jamie Oliver would say:


Half an hour at 100°C to dry the grains, then two hours at 200°C. This darkens them, but not enough:


Comparing the inside of the grains with that of some old, shop-bought chocolate malt. Mine are the top row -- still a bit pale:


A further half an hour at 225°C does the trick. It's not very evenly roasted, but who cares. It tastes lovely, much better than the shop-bought stuff, (which, admittedly, was roasted and milled a year ago -- not exactly a fair comparison.)

Here it is cooling on a plate. It's peculiar how the heat seems to pinpoint and blacken certain grains while leaving others relatively pale, despite the fact that I stirred it every few minutes:


The new grain-mill, a Crankenstein, with home-made, unnecessarily large hopper. I designed this according to Euclidian principles but must have made a mistake in my calculations:


The recipe is:
3.2kg Maris Otter
100g home-roasted 'chocolate' malt
100g crystal
40g patent
Goldings at 60 minutes, and Fuggles at 10 minutes, to 21 IBU.
Windsor yeast

Weighing the salts, with the debris from yesterday's barbecue in the background:


Mash: 68.5°C for 90 minutes.



Run-off:


Hot-break:


A lovely blood-red colour coming from the roasted grains. Looks like there are piranhas in there:


Calming it with some of the reserve wort:


The new brewing shelves:


The run-off. The OG is 1032:


Into the fermenter at 21°C. In the morning it'll go into the fridge at 19°C.


24 hours later the gravity is down to 1024, and a lovely chocolately smell is coming out of the fermenter. Can't wait to try it. Since it's a mild, that day is not far off.

By the way, if anyone wants to try home-roasting grains, here are a couple of good links:
http://www.brewrealbeer.com/roastedmalt
http://oz.craftbrewer.org/index.html and follow links to "Home Grain Roasting by Graham Sanders & Steve Lacey"

Cheers!

It's nice ... but I lack the metal work skills and the gas barbecue.

I have been toying with the idea of a drum rotating inside the oven -- a perforated tin can would do. It'd be handy for roasting coffee beans too. It's motorizing it that's the problem.

Gravity fell like a stone to 1015 then stuck fast. This means I've achieved 53% attenuation and a whopping ABV of 2.2%! Must be the combination of a hot mash (68.5°C) and Windsor yeast.

Some photos of the grand barrelling:

Purging the barrel with CO2, twice to 2.5psi:


60g sugar. Couldn't be bothered to boil it.


The run-off:


Low tide in the fermenter:


The murky first pint. For 2.2% ABV it taste surprisingly meaty. Should be nice when it's had time to clear and mellow a bit:


Cheers!

2.2% Let us know how it is when its matured a bit

You'd have to drink a lot of this before you started slurring your words, and I'd have preferred to have got 3% as planned instead of 2.2%, which is a bit a weedy when all's said and done, but it's a nice pint anyway -- mellow and roasty. Perfect for summer afternoons, if we ever get any. Here's a pic:



I cocked up when adding the gelatin -- got the old jelly mattress at the bottom of the saucepan -- but it's cleared nicely under its own steam.