Making Crystal Malt at Home

OK, What the heck is Crystal Malt?

Crystal malt is 'green' or undried malt that has been stewed in water at just the right temperature and time to get the amalyse enzymes to activate and convert some of the malt's starches into sugar. This stewing or mashing is exactly what happens in the mash tun when we are making a wort on brew day. By holding the temperature steady between 65 and 70ºC the enzymes come alive and start to work on the starch. After about 40 minutes, the malt is removed from the water (wort?) and dried to crystalize the sugars. After drying, the malt may be roasted to impart a variety of colors and flavors.

I was fortunate enough to stumble across Beeston Malting Company's description of Crystal Malt and gleaned the following procedure:

• Air dry @50ºC for 5 minutes


• Stew between 65 and 75ºC for 40 minutes


• Air dry @80ºC for 40 minutes


• Cure in oven @135ºC for 2 hours


• Optionally, roast as desired

Homestyle Crystal Malt
This is my homemade procedure with notes.

A quick air drying is pretty simple; just get it in the sun for 5 minutes. For the mini-mash I put the green malt in a pyrex mixing bowl and placed it in a pot of water. The water acts as a temperature regulator and has thermal inertia; so the temperature doesn't fluctuate so much.

I then brought the mini-mash temperature up to 70ºC and maintained it by adding boiling water from the kettle as the mash cooled. After 40 minutes I decanted the liquid and put the malt back in the sun to dry. The liquid tasted pretty starchy at this point, but has a slightly sweet taste when it cooled a bit.

I hope to have a roaster made for tomorrow.

Cheers and happy malting.

Dan

P.S. Today is HOT! 35ºC and strong breezes. It feels like a blast furnace in your face when you walk outside. Ahhh perfect for drying malt. :-)

More on Modification

G'day mates!

Today is Hot and Slow
Yestday was a slow day and a hot one. I rinsed and stirred barley on and off for the whole day. I did manage to get some work done on the computer, but barley was the thing on my mind. I listened to Oz Craft Brewer Radio's 2 podcasts on malting at home and picked up a few tips. I like listening while I work. Programming is fun, but beer is funner.

The grain is starting to spout in heavier numbers now. I keep them under a fan in two big tubs. The depth of the barley is about 4 inches (100mm) and it's kept moist with a squirt bottle with water and a little bleach. So far nothing overly exciting to report, just more sprouting. It's in the 30's here in the daytime, so I am wondering what the higher temperatures do to the germination process. I popped the thermometer into the grain yesterday and measured a lovely 31ºC. I know that the grain itself is generating heat too.

When I get this germination phase over with, I am going to stew some and try to make a crystal malt. As far as I can tell, a crystal malt is taken from the germination bed 'green' and stewed at 50ºC for an hour to cause the amylase to kick into action. The amylase converts the starch in the endosperm into maltose. This is why crystal malt is so sweet and sugary. Once stewed, the crystal malt is dried. Because we're not overly worried about preserving the enzymes or its diastatic power, we can crank up the heat and make a variety of coloured crystal malts.

For leisure last night I studied all the different kinds of malt. There are dozens of varieties and even more variation from malthouse to malthouse. I don't have a giant rotating drum roaster, but I can improvise.

Our friend is coming back from Cebu today and we're going to pick her up at the airport soon.

Stay tuned!