How To..Make your own Roasted Barley

[Wez]

This method was posted in this brewday thread by llannige

llannige did this the day before he brewed:

Use a 1/3 more grain than you need.
Place them in a shallow tray in the oven.
45 mins.@ 190C
30 mins.@ 220C
30-60 mins,stir @ 30,45,60 mins.
60-90 mins,stir every 10 mins.

 

[lukehgriffiths]

Okay I like the idea of this (as my last order was short of the Barley I asked for but had some additional (and more expensive) hops. Since ordering any will see my stung for masses of postage and the local HB shop does kits and extract but no grain; I thought I may roast my own...

The times here are easy to understand but why does the oven time go to 75 mins and the stirring time to 90? Anyone know which is more likely (or is it a judgement thing and if so what do I judge it by?).

 

[screamlead]

Just keep an eye on it - depends on what type of oven you have gas or electric. Mines electric and tends to 'cook' from the bottom up so needs a lot of stirring. Even more so when doing dark or black as not all the grains cook uniformally so it needs watching and stirring lots.


Have a look here - -http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=32181

 

[wilsoa1111]

i had a go at making some amber malt but i would be a bit worried about the roasted- reckon after 3 hrs i would get bored and would stink the flat up- also some posts i read reckoned it could be a bit smoky
best of luck though (i keep a big bag of patent malt for these occasions in the freezer) :mrgreen:

 

[screamlead]

LOL it only smokes with the real dark stuff as its almost burnt. Wifey dont like the smell but i love it ha ha. Most wouldnt take 3 hours anyway only the real dark stuff or if you are drying the green stuff after germination.

 

[jkp]

In "The HomeBrewer's Garden" it says:

"Roasted barley: Start with clean, dry, unmalted
barley. Roast it at 400°F (200°C) until it's a deep
brown color, about 1 hour and 10 minutes."

which seems similar to the 45min @ 190°C + 30min @ 220°C stated in this "How to....", but it also suggests leaving it for around 7 days to mellow before use rather than using it the next day.

Anyway, I'm wondering if this is for pearl (de-husked) barley or for whole (in-husk) barley? I assume that the timing will be different due to a more direct heating for the former case. Anyone actually tried this out? I have some pearl barley and I fancied giving it a go.

 

[jkp]

Ok, so I had a go at doing this last night. I roasted the pearl barley for 80min @ 200*C. The colour changed rapidly at first but eventually reached a dark brown and didn't seem to get any darker. I then decided to up the temperature to 230*C for 15 min, it was getting late so I stopped there. The eventual colour was a dark brown similar to a coffee bean, so perhaps still not dark enough. The smell during the roast was quite stong, first like toast, then more like biscuits and finally burnt toast. The image below shows the results compared to the original barley and a coffee bean. The taste is very roasty and quite bitter but not burnt. Some of the grains seemed to sweat much like a sweet potato does when you roast them. The sweating shows up as blackened excretions on the side of the grains. Is this a good thing or something to avoid?

 

[jkp]

This afternoon I thought I'd give it another go, this time using a pan on the stove rather than the oven.

It was far quicker and the colour came out much darker. There was a lot of smoke and I had to be very careful to keep the grains moving constantly to avoid burning. The result is shown in the picture below, left is the new stove batch, on the right the oven batch and at the bottom the raw barley. The stove batch is much darker, almost black and much more bitter than the oven batch.

It's a good idea to use an old pan for this as it is very easy to have burnt bits at the bottom of the pan which are very difficult to get off.

I'd say that the oven method was easier to control and maybe easier to reproduce, the stove top was quicker and the result darker but more difficult to control and much more messy.