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Brewing With Malted Grains: A Beginner’s Guide
Im currently fermenting my first malted grain mash.Recipe:Malted Barley Mash Recipe:Grains: 5 kg malted barley (2 kg toasted)Water: Enough to fill to 27 litersMashing: Heat to 63-68°C, maintain for 60-90 minsFermentation: Cool to 38°C, pitch yeast, ferment for 7-10 Notes:Yeast: 1/4 cup Angel Bakers yeastGrain: Gladfield’s Distillers Malt, specifically crafted for distilling, with a focus on high enzyme content and fermentable extract, making it perfect for producing a full-bodied and malty whiskey.Toasting: 2kg toasted at 175c for 30 minutes for a medium toast.Stir: Day 3 stirred the mash.Ordered some small white oak barrels for aging.I have high hopes for this mash and fermintation which is my 8th run since i started this journey about 6 weeks ago.Will keep everyone posted on how this progresses.Burning is learning
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10 Replies
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Good to see you trying AG.Couple of pointers.148 is about as high a temp you should go. After that you’ll start to denature your malts. Did you do a starch test?Are you relying on just the malt or using some gluco for backup?You may get away with less yeast if you make a nice starter.If you’re stirring on day 3 I’d be careful to not add any oxygen back into the wash. Good luck and keep us posted I drink so much now,on the back of my license it’s a list of organs I need.
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The portion of malt you toasted would be denatured so it would not convert itself, but the other malt would be enough to convert it. You do not mention grind, did you mill the grain? It is OK to stir in the first 12 hours or so as the yeast need oxygen to propagate. But after that they need to go into anaerobic metabolism to make alcohol, so best to seal things up after that. That is not a hard and fast rule though as with wine you punch down the cap for several days. So unless you really whipped it you probably didn’t hurt anything. Bradster is right about a starter but given the low price is bakers yeast I don’t see the need. But you did seriously over pitch. there are pitching calculators on many beer brewing sights to help you determine how much to pitch. But a couple of teaspoons for 12 lb fo grain would be more than enough.
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Wow the advice and guidance on this forum is fantastic. I can see i might have made some mistakes. The grain was distillers malt so yup it was milled nicely. Kinda regretting the toasting ans stirring now Burning is learning
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Don’t fret the toasting. People use a lot of malts that have been toasted or roasted to give different flavors or (in beer) colors. So you will have added interesting flavors. And the remaining malt will have more than enough enzyme to convert everything. My comment about toasting could have been more detailed. Toasting is great for flavor, thus why they product various caramel malts. But the temperatures do kill the enzymes. So you need to make sure you enough available enzymes from other malt or enzyme additions to ensure all the available starches are converted to sugars for the happy yeast. As a rule of thumb, a good base malt such as distillers or a pale ale malt will convert itself plus 4 times it’s weight. So 1 kg of a base malt should convert 5 kg of grain even if the other 4 was not malted. To be on the safe side I never go over three times extra but I like a margin of safety in some things. You can search for diastatic power of malt and find a deep rabbit hole if you are really curious.
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The Gladfields malt that i purchased is a specialty malt for distilling. Day 5 of the fermintation and the airlock bubbling has slowed down considerably. Ill take a gravity reading on Friday (its Wednesday here) and if all goes well will do my run. Keep the advice coming its great and i appreciate it.Burning is learning
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Depending on your system, once the fermentation is complete, I recommend racking the liquid off the grain. You can also squeeze the grain to get move liquid out. Then let it sit for a week or so for the grain fines and yeast to settle out. This will reduce any chance of scorching the boiler charge. There are also claims that the extra time allows for esters and other flavor compounds to develop which can improve the complexity of your product.
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Hey Daz. Sounds great, mate! It’s definitely worth giving it a squeeze. Go on, get outside and make a mess, then feed your neigbour’s chickens with the spent barley – or do a sugar-head right on top of it. There are various squeezing methods on this site. I use a mesh bag and 20 mins of very handsy exercise. What kind of still are you using?I can’t sing, but I sing.
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You wont be impressed Justin, i brought a Vevor 30l with the thumper, i didnt want to go spending large on a new hobby that i might not enjoy. Six weeks on and 8 runs in im happy with 80% ABV spirit runs post stripping runs but hours and hours of work for 2 litres of hearts sucks bigtime. Im probably going to invest in a reflux still early next year with a much bigger volume so i can get more for the work and time i put in. I need to get into overflow so that im ageing these spirits rather than drinking them HAHA. Any advice on a new still?Burning is learning
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I dunno man, I used to charge through UJSSM’s on my 25L cheapo still and get a fair bit without too much hassle. Mind you, I ran it at my open back door with a window view so I could potter around a fair bit on DIY and home office stuff without taking my eyes or ears off it. 30L is a decent size – many get by with less. I got lucky and bought an old copper 70L fix-up job for next to nothing. But you should be able to make enough in your 30L. If you put 25L of clear low wines in there at 30% abv you should get about 7L alcohol out. If you kept half after cuts and diluted to 60% abv that’s a lovely 5.8L of keepers to age and even more to drink. I recommend going nuts manufacturing and hide some from your thirsty self. Others might say build 50L kegger with a simple riser and Liebig condenser. But building’s not for everyone. Maybe a bigger fermenter is the go, thinking out loud. And/Or race through 6 gens of UJSSM and age most but keep a tight hearts cut for drink-now. Good times!I can’t sing, but I sing.
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Did the stripping run last weekend got 3.5l, smells incredible. Set up 2 new sour mash ferments using 1/3rd backset and 1.5kg of the left over grains + 6 kg of sugar in each, topped up to 27l. Going to strip these and add everything into a final spirit run soon.Burning is learning
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