Malting at home

send me a sample and I'll send you some beer when it's ready?

 

Fifteen propane heaters and the garage floor?

 

I'm pretty sure they roast coffee beans in a cylinder so that they keep them moving and don't burn them in one spot too much. What could spin inside of your oven and keep the grain in place?

Edit: What would happen if you use your dryer?

 

His wife would undoubtedly be pissed off big time.

 

I assume you limited on the kilning part right?

Try one of these, http://www.coffeeroastersclub.com/c...ills/22-5-lb-coffee-roaster-drum-for-bbq.html
Or make one if yo got the stuff.

 

If the grain was tied up in a fine mesh bag it might be an option. I have no idea what dryer temps are, though.

 

What ARE kilning temps?

 

I assume he wants to make base malts, so he will temp to hold temps of around 100F for drying and 200F for curing. For roasting and toasting it would be much higher.

 

Looks a little dangerous to me. I'd be reluctant to run that in my house.

But I still say go for it. I like building these kinds of gadgets my self.

Instead of light bulbs or a oven element I would use a small ceramic heater like this style.
http://www.amazon.com/Lasko-754200-Ceramic-Adjustable-Thermostat/dp/B000TKDQ5C/ref=pd_sim_hg_5
It has more wattage than 3 light bulbs and has a fan, some level of control and over temp protection. No guarantee it won't burn your house down, but it would be safer than was was in the video.

I had build an oast/kiln that I only used a few times before abandoning. I used a ceramic heater as I mentioned and one of those metal smokers. http://www.amazon.com/Lasko-754200-Ceramic-Adjustable-Thermostat/dp/B000TKDQ5C/ref=pd_sim_hg_5

Even though I enjoyed it, it was just too much effort. I needed more time for brewing.

Good Luck,

 

There are a lot of home distillers on youtube that malt their own grain and have roller set-ups. I think I might like to give it a go someday but sourcing actual malting barley is difficult for the average hobbyist. The stuff you buy from feed stores isn't usually a malting variety.

 

Yeah, it looks like with all that time and work he's only got about 1# of grain going there.
If you can find a way to do a batch's worth of beer in one shot, I'd say it might be worth your time and energy.

On a homebrew scale, how do you harvest your grain?

 

Interesting, what type of kilning/roasting system have you designed for the 1000lb capacity? Drum, floor etc.
Why not just build a scaled down version of that design? It will give you a change to prototype and debug the design before committing the full size.

 

Awesome project! Good luck with it. I've often thought that making an "estate grown" beer using hops and barley grown on my property would be a really fun thing to do. Unfortunately, my "estate" is rather small for barley farming! Just out of curiousity, I wonder if you (or anybody else who might be reading this) would have a sense of how many pounds of barley a guy could get out of vegetable garden sized plot of, say, 400 square feet?