Home toasting malt

Three years ago I started growing hops in an effort to take a more active role in controlling my ingredients.  While we lack the real estate (and time and resources) to do any growing and malting of grain, we do have the ability to tweak some malt by home toasting it.

As previous posts indicate, malted rye is a grain in which I have a great interest.  I have a couple all-rye beers on the schedule in the next month or so, and toasting a small amount of rye malt sounded like a good proposition to add additional character to what will be essentially a Scottish 60/-.  As there won’t be much to the grist of this beer–just over six pounds total–I toasted just one pound to use as an accent.  Half a pound was dry toasted for a biscuit flavour; the other half pound I prepared as a light crystal malt.

A number of sources delve into toasting your own malt, including Randy Mosher’s ever-excellent Radical Brewing and John Palmer’s trusty How To Brew.  I followed Palmer’s method this time out, which is pretty

straightforward. There are other, more involved methods out there for making crystal malt that most likely create a sweeter, more accurately caramel flavour; depending how this batch turns out, I may try one of them next time.  To be fair, Palmer doesn't stipulate this as the way to make crystal malt, but as a way to produce more caramel flavour than dry toasting.  Smelling and tasting the grain just out of the oven and over the last couple days, though, I’m pretty happy with what I have right now.

The rye filled the house with an incredible bready, nutty aroma as it was toasted; I’d recommend doing this just for the domestic aromatics alone.  The dry toasted rye had a pleasing, light roasty/toasty flavour, though shy of a Biscuit or Victory malt.  The crystal rye was sweet, nutty, and had a touch of fruitiness to it.  I’ll be very interested to see how these grains impact this very uncomplicated grain bill.

For dry toasted malt: Make a shallow grain bed in a foil-lined pan and put in 350F oven for 30 minutes, turning grain after 15 minutes.

For crystal malt (~20L): Soak grain in filtered water for 1 hour.  Strain, then make a shallow grain bed in a foil-lined pan and put in 350F oven for 1 hour, turning grain every 15 minutes.

Most sources recommend storing the toasted grain and agitating it daily for two weeks before using it to allow the harsher aromatics to dissipate.