Malting machine working prototype

I have used many malting solutions so far, including a drum malting machine I built, but this works best so far for various (gluten free) grains. These grains need different temperature and soaking, aerating regimes, so while a drum malting machine may work very well for barley it is not the case for various gluten free grains.

Finally some good progress was made on my home malting machine. The idea is to minimize labor but have great control for better germination. And be able to do it in a condo/ appartement. So the grains are in one container during the whole process. The modified cooling box can heat and also cool, about 12 C below or above ambient. Heating is neccessary for successsful fast germination of rice for example. The stainless perforated container can be used for kilning and roasting too, and it's easy to give it a spin every 15 minutes so the malts roast very evenly. No transferring grains from one container to to the other during the process which can make malting a pain in the butt. And the temperature control helps avoid mold. It produced 2 kilogramms of rice malt, but a bigger container (working on it... ) could fit 2-4 times more in the same cooling box.

Next version will be smart, with sensors and wifi connection. Please give feedback. I am considering making plans available for open source DIY-ing, but also developing this to a product at the same time.

 Stackable perforated trays:

 

Soaking in temperature controlled insulated box (foodgrade):

After repeating soaking and aeration:

 

Drying (altough it works, it need a little work for an amended version, with more conentrated airflow): 

 

Roasting in the oven:

 

Final product:

 

(About the acrosypres... it's easiest to remove them after roasting. In fact shaking the malt in the plastic container removes them and over time they collect at the bottom of the box. I find that an additional step to remove them is not necessary, altough I was doing it as a beginner)

Spruce beer

Original post on Zero Tolerance forum: "I was enjoying some of this spruce beer this week. It's a story of not giving up. I brewed it in may, but it didn't smell and taste nice at all until october. I wanted to throw it, but realized that I wasn't going to brew anything anyway, so I might as wall just let it sit and see what happens. To my big suprise it turned out to be very good. I took it to test with wheateater friends and they had no objections to drink all five liters of it while all sorts of regular beer choices were around for them too. Yeast was S-05, ingredients were rice malt, honey, molasses, and some negligable leftover from buckwheat and lentil malts. My guess is that it was either the molasses that made this take so long, or I might have messed up something with the water chemistry. Almost forgot... the spruce is awesome. "

Gluten reduced beer vs Gluten free beer interactive infographics

 

To educate yourself or others on the case of Gluten reduced beer vs. Gluten free beer, please visit my clickable infographics, developed with the help of Zero Tolerance members. 

 

http://bit.ly/glutenreducedbeer

alternative link: https://fldptr.github.io/gfbeer/

A good choice: old Family grain mill

I have come across this at the flea market. Needles to say it was very cheep, but works perfectly. My first thought was immediately, to check if it can be taken apart so that it can be cleaned thoroughly, to the smallest screw. It becameappearent, that it is great german design, easy to clean. I took it apart almost entirely, except for the wiring of the motor, cleaned it with brushes and detergent, so now it is completely gluten free.

Thhe fineness or coarseness can be adjusted very well and easily, so it fits any grain. Great for me, I use buckwheat, lentils, rice, millet, what not, all different sizes. The speed could be better, but it's definately at least as speedy as any mill turned by hand. The only downside is the size. But I can also use it to mill flour for my breads and baking, and that would have easily been worth the penny even if I got it new, for a much higher price.

old but good as new

unhulled rice crushed

Food safety problems with a corona mill

So, after all I decided to upgrade my milling process. So far I used a kitchen blender which actually worked ok, but part of the grains were not crushed enough while other parts were crushed too much. Not consistent in other words, and it also took long to mill the grains with it, because you can not just run it while continously pouring the grains in it, but run 5-6 batches for a 3 kilogramm grain bill.

First, I got a corona mill, cheapest online, and soon as I unpacked it, realised that the coating was weird. I ran it without grains to see if what I was thinking of was going to happen and of course, metal dust came out of it. Meh. I ran it with grains, but still. Then I figured that the shaving were not only coming from the plates, but the spiral and the shaft. I tried brushing the coating off with my dremel, but that didn't help. I complained and got a partial refund, but I am very suprised to see that the same kind of mill with the same or a very similar coating is sold everywhere, not only online but in brew shops too. Also read on forums that others had similar problems. This is just sooo not good.
Luckily I came across a great deal of another mill so I will think about what to do with this one later.

Another beer

This is an old one, from early 2017.  Brewed with lentils, buckwheat, sweet potatoes, hops and yeast.

Silicon pipes and food safety

I want to share some useful information that I recently learned while I set up a pump on by brew kettle. I decided to use a simple flexible pipe to recirculate the wort, mainly for consistency in temperature but it also helps with efficiency, sparging and moving the wort. First, I went to a local fitting shop and asked specificly for piping that can take up to at least 80 degrees C of temperature and is food safe. They gave me what they called a silicone pipe, and said it was both heat resistant and food safe. I have earlier learnt in another store, talking to a seller, that there are pipes on the market which people call silicone but in fact are plastic. So I thought I would run a test on my new pipes with plain hot water. It got extremely flexible at around 50 degrees celcius, which is not even very hot. That got me suspicious, I went online and found a store that sells silicone specificly. I visited them, got some real silicone pipe, that cost 3 times the plastic pipe, and also looked different (more opaque, white coloured rather then plain transparent). I was also told that plastic pipes burn, and become sooty black, also stink when burning while real silicone turns white in fire, and doesn't burn that much. Good to know. But real silicone feels and looks so different now it will be easy to tell without the fire test. It is heat resistant to about 180 degrees C and food safe. Also, rubbers generally are not food safe, so I got some silicone pipe pieces in different sices so I can cut O rings off them easily to serve as sealents for my gear. For example I got an angle valve as a tap, I which I figured will work great, because it can be disassambled, so clogging can be removed, but also has a filter in it, in case I need extra filtration, and it had rubber seal on the inside! These rubber seals often smell. But even if they don't they are produced from oil, so they are basically a special kind of plastic. Not heat resistant, not food safe, and they wear off easily, and loose pieces of themselves. So I replaced those with silicone for example. Now my gear is food grade.
On the pictures, the silicone tube is on the right, held with the plier, after the burning test.