Homebrewing - Beer, Mead, Wine, Cider

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A community dedicated to homebrewing beer, mead, wine, cider and everything in between. If it ferments, bring it over here.

Share recipes, ideas, ask for feedback or just advice.

Some starting points for beginners:

Introduction to Beer Brewing

A basic mead primer

Quick and diry guide to fermenting fruit - cider and wine

Brewing software

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using regular agricultural barley for making malt (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 1 week ago by nope@sopuli.xyz to c/homebrewing@sopuli.xyz

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Does anybody have experience with using regular barley used as animal feed for making malt on their own? i have an endless supply of the stuff from a friend that uses it as animal feed.

I was wondering if i really need specialized malt or would regular barley make an OK beer. I'm mostly curious and I don't want to waste time on a malt that would definitely result in a bad beer, I'm new at homebrewing and it would take up my only fermenting pot until it finishes.

any thoughts or suggestions? thanks!

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[–] nis 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If I were in your place, I would get a smaller test-fermenter and try small batches with part of the barley being the non-malted feed. Start small and then increase the proportion until something breaks.

[–] nope@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

right, no use making a large batch, i could ferment in something smaller than my 25 L fermenter (aka the bucket with a spout) also malting a few kg of barley would take some time. thanks!

[–] alzymologist@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But at the same time remember, that scaling (both ways) is the toughest task in chemical technology. Small masher has very different heat and matter exchange properties than large one, just take it into account. Expect efficiency to drop 2x or even more on first try.

[–] nope@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

I’ll keep thhat in mind, thanks!