Roasted Chocolate Wheat Experiment #1

This process looked like it was going to be the easiest one, yet. Stovetop roasting of Rahr Red Wheat, half an hour at a medium/low heat, with constant stirring, followed by degassing in a paper bag for a week. Simple right? For this recipe, I wanted 2 ounces of Rahr Red Wheat roasted into something resembling chocolate malt. I wisely measured out extra, because I suspected I would lose weight once the milling started. Little did I know, I would also lose weight while roasting the grains! Yeah, these suckers kept popping out of the pan! I tried to gather up lost grains, but it seemed, as I stirred, they got bouncier and bouncier and as they "popped" they left the pain entirely. It wasn't a mass exodus, or anything. But, it was significant enough of a loss that I thought that I should use a much taller-sided pan in the future. Soon, it will be time to bottle the Golden Cloud Ale, which smells done, and seems ready to leave my primary. Then, I will be brewing up a Dunkelweizen on the yeast cake, with my newly roasted grains. We'll see how things taste. I'm not sure how far I got from Amber Wheat Malt to Chocolate Wheat Malt. I stopped when I smelled burning and chocolate and I was tired of making a big, huge mess. Also, I stopped because it was half an hour, and that was all the recipe said to do. This time, my first time, I wanted to be conservative and not risk the creation of black patent malt... Regardless, I expect to drink the evidence.

I like the oven better for evenness and cleanness. Next time, I'll use the oven. My wife has a super-awesome cast-iron pot I could use, too, but I'm sort of afraid I'll be the one who damages the enamel finish first. I would be that guy, in our household! Oven. Definitely the oven.

Caramel Malt Experiment #1

I have nothing against commercial caramel malts. I use them, and will use them again. Right now, though, what interests me is doing it myself. I read about a guy who made his own caramel malts at home. I've noticed in on-line discussions there's a lot of debate about whether these are actually caramel malts. You see, commercial caramel malts are made by sprouting green barley grains, then roasting them. It's just not the same to do it at home with dry grains. But, some homebrewers will tell you that you aren't changing the chemistry, just the process. The enzymes that make the whole process work are still present in the grain. Or something. I don't know. It doesn't really matter to me if I'm getting a true caramel malt, or just something different that works the same.

The thing that matters to me, as a homebrewer, is the beer. If the beer tastes really good, and the process was unique, that only makes the beer more appealing to me, because it makes it something that I cannot purchase at the store. It makes it something that I can teach to my nephews and nieces someday, when they're old enough for this hobby. It makes it artisan and craftsman and made with human hands.

Why not try to make our own caramel malts at home?

So, I'm going to try a couple different processes to produce caramel malts. This blog post will be my first experiment.

I soaked grain overnight, as if they were beans, and then rinsing them, again, like beans. 

Then, I spread them on a foil-wrapped baking sheet, and poured a little more water over them, to keep them damp during the roast.

I placed them in a cold oven, and then I set the temperature of the oven for 170 degrees (my lowest setting). 

Then, I stirred occasionally and added more water as things dried out, to keep the grains damp, for one hour and fifteen minutes.

At the end of that time, I set the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Now, it was pretty late at night, and I had some other things to do that would take a lot of my attention. Once the oven hit 350, I gave it a minute, and flipped it off, while leaving the grains in the heated oven. A few hours later, I checked and noticed there was still dampness in the grains, so I stirred and flipped the oven back on to 350. Once it struck, I gave it five minutes, then turned it off again and went to bed. In the morning, the grains were dry and a good color, so I put them in a paper bag to age.

These will age at least five days. 

Are they caramel malts? Are they some sort of super-toasted sweet malt? I don't know. I do know that they smelled grainy and sweet, and that they developed a golden red color that cooked in a bit darker during the drying phase. 

Until someone comes by to tell me precisely what I created, I'll call it Experimental Malt #1.

Man, but it was late, and I think the lesson learned here is to budget your time a little smarter. I needed to do it tonight to let it age for a few days before my next batch (hurled upon the yeast cake of Golden Cloud Ale) and I still have to roast some chocolate wheat for my next planned batch! Argh! I was so sleepy!

I'll do things differently, next time. I will roast earlier in the day. I will use a different process for the caramel malts. I will experiment, iterate, try new things!

This is a great way to keep my hand in the business while my Golden Cloud Ale is still fermenting.

Also, is it any wonder I'd want to do it myself when there's prices like this out there:

Home Toast Your Own Malt to Combat the Madness

Madness, I tell you! Sheer madness! Specialty grains, I've noticed, cast about a buck fifty to two bucks per pound. They are uniform. They are reliable. They are easily scale-able because of their uniformity. This is the route to madness. Where's the magic? Where's the touch of trickery and process mystery that can only happen from hands - human hands - touching small batches of grains and experimenting upon them for delicious beer? With my bulk bags of base malts, one of my plans for these huge sacks of grains involves messing around with them. Someday, I'd like to make my own caramel malts. Why not? John Palmer is convinced it can be done; ergo, I am convinced, too. I know I'd prefer to roast my own roasted barley and chocolate malt, because it can be done from home in exactly the amount needed per batch, utilizing these bulk-bought grains I have sitting in storage, which cost 35 bucks for 50 pounds.

And, more importantly, it is madness to create the same thing, the same way, every single time. It's a trivial pursuit of perfection, when most of the joy of life and cuisine comes from the surprise of the inevitable variation of each moment, ingredient, and process. McDonald's and their ilk pride themselves on uniformity, reproducible outcomes, and machine-like, chemical-laden "food" that is only praise-able, if anything, for it's ability to taste the same in rural China as it does in metro America and every where else in between. This is nothing to be proud of! That's something to be ashamed of, in food and in life! If you are living the same in China as you would in America, process by process, day and night, you are not leading the sort of life I would ever want to live, where my physical location matters not, and I have no connection to what is here, right in front of me, in this moment, variable and mutable and joyful and playful. To celebrate this idea of non-conformity even in the simplest of ingredients, and to celebrate my new all-grain system of brewing, I made one of the ingredients new, by creating my own specialty grain, in my own particular way.

Uniformity is madness.

Toasting malts, for me, was a celebration of the touch of magic that comes from doing things by hand, without the perfect tools, and still producing excellent results that will never, ever be exactly the same time and again.

For my first all-grain recipe, Golden Cloud Ale, I knew I wanted to take a basic Hefeweizen-style of beer to a level I could not achieve with mere extracts. I wanted to do something that had a human touch and a new process, for me, that would take my game to a new level of awesome.

Four ounces of Rahr Red Wheat, and four ounces of Rahr 2-Row were placed in a bowl of filtered water and covered for an hour, not long enough to thoroughly soak them through, but enough to create a lot of moisture in the husk and outer shell. More water meant more sweetness, and lighter-bodied wheat beers shouldn't be too weighed down by sweetness, in my opinion. Still, a little might be nice.

The soaked grains were drained and rinsed. Then, they were spread about an inch thick on a foil-covered baking sheet. The oven was running at 375 degrees to cook some potatoes. When we put the grains in, we turned down the heat to 350. I set the timer for one hour and fifteen minutes...

Ooh, and the house began to smell like good cereal. Like the kind of cereal you'd beg your mom for when you were a kid. I pulled it out occasionally to stir, and attempt to turn over the grains and move them around. I wasn't concerned about uniformity, but I was concerned about burning the bottom and under-toasting the top. The warm, bread-like, sweet smell was something marvelous. Then, I suspect the grains dried out because the smell turned acrid at about the forty-five minute mark. 

At this moment, I added more water straight to the pan, pouring it all over the grains, until the grains were all wet again. I stirred them up as the steam rose from the pan, and added a little more water. I put it back in to toast.

In the end, I pulled it out one last time, moments before my timer would go off.

The water added a sweetness to the acrid roast, but not an overwhelming one. The maillard reaction is the primary aroma, and at one hour and fifteen, it was right on the edge of burning. However, I placed them in a paper bag and let them rest for 24 hours. I still wanted some of the funky acrid-ness, but not too much, so I didn't wait a week, like it said in the book. I waited a day before grinding them up. I let them rest in a paper bag on the counter, quietly becoming my own specialty grains. How often can you find, in your homebrew shop, roasted barley and wheat together for the same level of toastiness and sweetness from both grains? Hooray for non-uniformity! Hooray for experimentation! Hooray for a DiY approach and breaking the rules!

Hooray for instructions from John Palmer's excellent book!

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We shall see if I produce good beer as a result. Next entry: Golden Cloud Ale Brewday.