Brewing Your First Extract and Specialty Grain Beer.
In this section of the book, I will teach you how to produce some of the wort from the malted grain itself. We will use an intermediate step on the path to all-grain brewing, known as "steeping," along with extract brewing to produce a fresher, more complex tasting wort than can usually be produced from extract alone. The process is not difficult but it takes some additional time and you need to have an understanding of the flavors and characters of the different malts- those that can be steeped versus those needing to be mashed. This method will be taught in the next two chapters. .
In Chapter 12 - What is Malted Grain?, I will review what malt is and how it is produced. Then I will describe the most common malts and their different uses. The last part of the chapter will discuss how we measure the yield and efficiency of an all-grain mash and compare these numbers with what we can obtain by steeping.
Chapter 13 - Steeping Specialty Grain, will describe how to improve your extract brewing by using small amounts of specialty grains in an example recipe for a porter. This method does not require any extra equipment (except a sock or grainbag) and gives you a lot more flexibility in producing the wort for your intended style of beer. This chapter will guide you step by step through the additions in the brewing process. The additional work is so small and the results so gratifying that you will probably never brew solely with extract again!.
Chapter 12 - What is Malted Grain?.
Barley Malt Defined.
.
Figure 69: A simplified diagram of a barley kernel during malting, showing a progressive picture of how the acrospire (the plant shoot) grows along one side of the kernel. As it grows, pre-existing enzymes are released and new enzymes are created in the aleurone layer which "modify" the endosperm (the protein/carbohydrate matrix starch reserve) for the acrospire's use.