Creating crystal malt at home

Mashing
1

I am wondering if anyone has made dark crystal at home. I found an article on making it at home and does not seem hard at all. My goal is to make it close to the german Rostmalz that is in Jamil’s traditional bock, which is a dark crystal at about 200L. Here is the link if anyone would like to do it.

http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2012/01/h ... nique.html

What does everyone think about it?

Erik

2

I’ve done this before with a slightly different technique, though the one listed in that article will work. (There are many articles floating around the Internet on this and any of them should work.)

I start with my own home malted grains, at the stage of 75% - 100% length of kernel - acrospire growth, with about 30%-40% moisture remaining. At that point I put them in bags and soak them in 155F water for 90-120minutes to allow for conversion. At which point they can be dried in the oven for varying lengths of time at varying temperatures. I’ve yet to determine if higher heat while drying, instead of the two-step dry and then turn the heat up caramelize/roast, produces a cleaner crystal without as much toast/roast flavor.

3

[quote=“jd14t”]
I start with my own home malted grains, at the stage of 75% - 100% length of kernel - acrospire growth, with about 30%-40% moisture remaining. At that point I put them in bags and soak them in 155F water for 90-120minutes to allow for conversion. At which point they can be dried in the oven for varying lengths of time at varying temperatures. I’ve yet to determine if higher heat while drying, instead of the two-step dry and then turn the heat up caramelize/roast, produces a cleaner crystal without as much toast/roast flavor.[/quote]

I gave this a shot once, but since I didn’t have any home-malted grains, I just used some old Briess malt I had laying around. The color looked consistent with commercial crystal malt, but mine just had this weird harsh grainy character. Needless to say, I switched to Rahr.

:cheers:

4

[quote=“El Capitan”][quote=“jd14t”]
I start with my own home malted grains, at the stage of 75% - 100% length of kernel - acrospire growth, with about 30%-40% moisture remaining. At that point I put them in bags and soak them in 155F water for 90-120minutes to allow for conversion. At which point they can be dried in the oven for varying lengths of time at varying temperatures. I’ve yet to determine if higher heat while drying, instead of the two-step dry and then turn the heat up caramelize/roast, produces a cleaner crystal without as much toast/roast flavor.[/quote]

I gave this a shot once, but since I didn’t have any home-malted grains, I just used some old Briess malt I had laying around. The color looked consistent with commercial crystal malt, but mine just had this weird harsh grainy character. Needless to say, I switched to Rahr.

:cheers: [/quote]

I see what you did there… :mrgreen:

5

Keep in mind that real crystal malt is made from pre-kilned green malt. You can make something using already kilned malt, but it won’t be exactly like crystal.