Saturday, March 3, 2007

I got some steam-crimped barley at ~$8.00 for a 50# sack awhile ago. I didn’t know the condition of the barley at the time, but my intention in buying it was to try malting it. When I opened the sack, I saw the barley was destroyed and in no shape for malting. I even did a test malt to prove this. However, I decided to try to brew with it anyways. I had to get rid of it, so I needed to use a lot of it. Something like a Belgian Tripel would be OK.

I have made and tasted this beer, and it actually came out excellent for the style, with one caveat–there was a ton of sediment that lingered through to the bottles. The beer would pour clear if it weren’t for it. This is a non-trivial amount of sludge; it’s perhaps an inch or higher. My recipe here will address one place where I think I could have avoided this. Still, I’d recommend brewing more than you need and throwing out a whole gallon of sludge just so the end product is better.

One word of caution: A lot of the homebrewers on rec.craft.brewing think using this feed barley is a bad idea. I think the consensus was:

If you are a woman, it’ll give you cancer. If you’re a man, it’ll turn you into a woman (literally give you boobs), and then give you cancer.

Speaking against this was a doctor and somebody that actually grew feed barley. Whatever.
Redneck Belgian Tripel
Ingredients:

* 20# steam crimped barley
* 5# American 6-row malt (Briess)
* 3oz Special B (Dingemans, 140-155°L)

Don’t omit the Special B. It gives the beer a more golden color, which puts it within style guidelines. It also gives an added dimension of flavor. At this level it’s hardly overwhelming; consider its ratio to the other grains.
Mash Schedule:

* 20 minute Protein rest at 120F by adding 4.5 gallons of 144F water
* overnight beta amylase rest at 144F by adding 2 gallons of boiling water

You may consider getting some amylase enzyme from a homebrew supply store in case the 6-row doesn’t convert all the starches. Modern grains don’t need a protein rest, but I’m betting steam crimped barley isn’t malted in the modern fashion. In fact, it’s not malted at all. So this brief rest will reduce haze. Let it be known it didn’t affect the head.

I leave the sparge up to the brewer. I used 165F sparge water in a batch sparge. Note that this is a lot of grain, so expect to retain more.
Hopping Schedule:

* 1 oz Sterling pellets ~5.5% AA @ 60 minutes
* 1 oz Sladek Saaz ~5.0% AA @ 15 minutes
* 1 oz Sladek Saaz ~5.0% AA @ 5 minutes

Fermented with WLP575 Belgian Style Ale Yeast Blend. It was kept at roughly 74F ambient temperatures during fermentation.

I got an OG of 1.092 after the boil. Things I should have done was added lots of Irish moss, and waited an hour after cooling the wort before racking into the primary. This should have pulled out most of the crap. I think boiling all that solids may have done something to the flavor, but I have no problem with it. The beer is a little too fusel, and was done in my days when I wasn’t so obsessive over fermentation temperatures. To compensate for the solids, one should brew a larger volume. Perhaps use the same grain bill, but add sugar to get the gravity for a 6 gallon final boil volume.

The beer was diluted by half a gallon of water, taking it to 5 gallons, but I had to leave behind about a gallon of crap. For 4 gallons of beer, I used 5 ounces of sucrose for priming.

I don’t have good final gravity notes, but it was at 24 points when I measured the first, undiluted quantity. In my opinion it could have fermented dryer. One way to have done this was adding sugar, and another in tandem would be to rack towards the end of primary (before it has stopped).

Given the grain used, I think the beer is a success. However, it’s not a keeper–or rather, it’s not a beer to give away because it’ll turn people off with the crud in it. Regardless, I am impressed by it, and it didn’t cost that much in ingredients to make.