Toasting malt is a way for homebrewers to add different flavors to their beers. Who knows – maybe with the right timing and techniques, you could create your own unique beer.
John Palmer’s How to Brew book has a good chart to describe how to toast your own malt. Here are some tips:
- Toasting malt can be done right in your kitchen’s oven
- Base malts should be used for toasting
- You can toast malt right out of the bag (dry) or you can toast it wet (soaked in water for an hour)
- Toasting malt that is dry will create different flavors than toasting malt that is wet
- Weigh out malt first, and then pour the malt onto a cookie sheet so there is one, even layer of malt
- Outside of soaking your malt, time and temperature in the oven will have the biggest effects on the flavor of your malt
- For a guide for time and temperatures, check out this page on the How To Brew site
- Give yourself a lot of lead time to toast your malt before you brew. It’s recommended your store your toasted malt in a paper bag for 2 weeks before brewing to mellow out the flavors.
If anyone has any other tips or has had success toasting their own malt, please leave a comment below.
Leave a Reply