Making My Own Crystal Malt

Well, this is my first blog entry for a while. I haven't done to much brewing lately but am about to start again to see if I can get in a good stock of beer before Christmas. I want to brew some English Bitters but had run out of crystal malt so decided to try to make my own based on Peter Grant's (member of the Worthogs) method. Full details of the method can be found at the end of this blog.

Although my method was supposed to be the same, what with one error (translated into English that means complete cock up !) and another my method turned out quite differently. Lets hope the results are the same ! Here'sa brief pictorial of the master maltster's method :-

I mixed the malt with water as per Peters instructions, but in typical male fashion I hadn't read the instructions to well so added far to much water at first, only realising my mistake once all the water had been mixed in. Had to pour off most of the water to get back to the right volume. I could well have poured off most of the enzymes as well !

Once the malt had been left to absorb the water in the fridge the malt was placed into watertight (in theory at least) zip lock bags from which I removed as much air as possible. This was now ready to be mashed for 90 minutes at 65 deg C (my normal mash temperature). The mash tun was a picnic cooler box and my HLT the kettle.
Now the fun and games really started, despite my best efforts there was still obviously more air in the ziplockthan I thought and no matter how hard I tried the bag would not stay down in the water (which would have meant no conversion for the top layer of malt. Being a resourceful fellow however the problem was soon solved by the use of a brick and a full jug of water on top of the bags to keep the little buggers from floating to the top. Once the malt had been mashed I placed it into a foil lined baking tray and placed
it in a fan oven where it was dried out before being roasted to the right colour. This was a long process taking about two and a half hours. I did however have a considerable amount of malt and it was probably

spread to thick which needed more time and lots and lots of stirring ! Once finished I crushed a few grains and made some tea with it to check the colour. It all looked good to me, the proof will be in the using which I plan to do soon (A lager extract recipe which calls for crytal malt to be steeped)Homemade Crystal Malt

Many thanks to Peter Grant for permission to use this on our website.

Hydration:

Start with whole, pale malt, add 38% of the malt mass of cold tap water (ie.1000 g malt + 380 g water).1 kg pale malt

yields about 1.1 kg of dry crystal malt. (You add water molecules to starch during mashing).Don't use more water, you

will wash away enzymes. I guess you could pre-boil but I don't bother since malt is contaminated anyway. Pour water

over malt, cover with clingwrap and leave in the fridge overnight mix after a few hours.

Keeping it cold is important to eliminate growth of bacteria found on the malt.Next day, all the water should be

absorbed by the grains.

Mashing:

Put the moist grains into plastic bags, flatten bag to 1-2 cm thick, suck the air out and tie a water-tight knot.

Zip-lock bags will also work if they are water-tight. Almost fill a large pot, bucket, fermentor or whatever with water at

68 to 70 degrees C .Put the bags of damp malt in and mix around a bit, you can adjust temp back

up after 15 min or so. Leave for 1 to 2 hours for the whole grains to mash themselves.

Baking:

(Here you dry, then bake the now mashed whole grains to the desired colour and flavour).Preheat the kitchen oven to

200 deg. C. Line a large baking tray with tin-foil, shiny side up (important because the tray can be very difficult to

clean). Pour your damp, mashed whole grains into the baking tray to a depth of 2 to 3 cm and put into the middle of the

oven. The inside of the grain will be sweet and mushy at this stage - have a taste. After 20 minutes or so, turn gently with

a spoon or egg lifter. The grains will be steaming and starting to dry out. A fan oven will be faster, I don't have one. Stir

every 15 to 20 minutes or so to speed drying. Once the grains are dry they will start darkening, you can take a few out

and check on the colour inside and taste. Once caramelisation starts happening, the grains start crackling (like rice

crispies do when you add milk). That's normal, reach for another home-brew to steady your nerves. Take the grain out

and cool when you are happy with the colour and taste. When cool, store in a dry container as you do with your other

brewing grains.

Types of crystal (caramel) malts you can make:

Carapils - just dry the mashed grain in a warm place (be sure its dry before storage or it will go off).I find this

tends to give too much body and little to no residual sweetness.

CaraVienne - Dry and bake at about 160 deg and stop baking at a very light brown colour.

English crystal malts:

20 L Crystal - Dry and bake at 200 deg. stop at light brown, sweet toffee taste.

60 L Crystal - Dry and bake at 200 deg. stop at darkish reddish brown, sweet toasty dark toffee taste.

120 L Crystal - continue above to dark bitter coffee, sweet toffee taste. -

Pete's Multi-grade Crystal:

Don't stir too often while roasting and get the whole range of colours, all in the same pan even a little blackening here

and there.Great stuff, all the tastes mixed together! My last batch of English Bitter got good reviews at the Worthogs

tasting, I made it with this. 220 g of PMG special + 3.8 kg pale malt gives the right colour, huge body

and a good creamy head