alzymologist

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.

I have similar situation (but right now I have ~20 kg of oats, there are other stuffs around too, I just happened to take oats), so I'm trying to build some decent malting equipment. Unfortunately, doing it outdoors in winter is sad enterprise, but I'm totally just giving it a try when I can! (Doing it indoors would be either stinky or loud, and I already have too many microbiological stuff going in same space) I do not believe I'll lose much except for conversion rate and sugar content, but might discover some new flavor tones. When I'm done, I'll be posting here and trying to share the product.

So I urge you to do the same!

There is no reason to expect that something will not ferment well just because it was not purebred for brewing. Even random yeasts mostly yield good results. Well, yeast is much more definitive in final profile and you CAN screw up by using some really stinky or low fermenting yeast. Grain, on the other hand, is just yeast food and grain flavour mostly (yes, there are other things to fine tune, but first order approximations is what we should care about in experimentation). Does it smell and taste good? Then go for it!

Just to be safe you might consider replasing chloride with sulfate.

Sure this is great way to make thermite or anything that does not exactly care about oxidation state, that part I can confirm.

Furthermore, you are close to iron(6) synthesis here using drain cleaner. Yield would be even lower, but fun is worth it. Be careful though, when literature states it blows up, they mean it.

This is a mixture of oxides, hydroxides, and nonoxidized iron chunks and who knows what else. Also probably some chlorine gas to breath in.

Surviving through November in Finland is good enough.

Sure it is not, grain is not fruit after all. I think grain will turn into angry shoggoth if threated with metabisulfite. At least it would be a mess.

Well, it's bad news, all those super-processed products almost always are treated with metabisulfite or something close enough, and only wine and a few other products require it to be listed on the label. It's pretty much treated as part of detergent for washing fruits. Completely unjustified as product is sterilized later in turning it into extract, but it is simpler to keep buying this historically accepted mild bleach and treating all fruits with it anyway. Maybe increases their storage time in shipping pipeline. Something I do not wish to think about in great detail, for my first lab in Finland was in a rented fruit storage bunker and I washed it and dismantled control equipment myself. Could have been WW2 nazi camp facility for what it was worth.

In my childhood, we had these kinds of root vegetables sliced and caved in on one end, and a spoonful of honey was placed on top and in the cavity. Somehow this sped up conversion to overnight, and it was a treat. I guess, similar process could be used to convert them for brewing.

Although the whole idea sounds a bit like potato for vodka. Nothing wrong with that too, but the flavor might me less than interesting in the end. Worth trying I guess. I wish I had some of those now, not unripe ones from the store.

One of the biggest suspects in this cyser story is metabisulfite treatment that might have happened to apples. I do not know the exact mechanism, but lots of people complained about headache if that was used with apples (and many recipes call for its use, IMO totally unjustified) or in apple juice in factory. Same thing about grapes. Differential is quite clear.

Steamings damage corks, especially sterilizing ones. Their number should be minimized. Now for bottling, I do not think it is important for corks to be sterile, as anything worth of corking will kill whatever might be living on cork surface. Sanitized is enough.

Now repackaging is another beast. Once packaged, corks are left for indefinite time, and if inoculated with something that might survive on bare cork (pretty much this means fungi), it might become a nice growth media. Then, steaming might kill it (and if it is not pressurized, that would not kill spores), but it will not clean it from the cork.

So, on small scale, it is not very important, some corks might get spoiled occasionally. But 6000 is no small scale lol.

What if we apply negative pressure?

This should promote matrix, not signal