# Growing Barley for brewing



## drtablet

Hello all,
I'm looking to plant some barley seeds in the next week or so.
I have an area that is 6m x 6m ready to go.

Would anyone know where I can get suitable seeds to plant and know the seed to area ratio?

many thanks
Craig


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## good4whatAlesU

Hi Craig, great project. 

This article might help with the seeding rate:

http://www.farmweekly.com.au/news/agriculture/cropping/general-news/seeding-rate-questioned/2671037.aspx

Traditionally grains are a winter crop in NSW (sown just before Easter (?) - harvested summer) but you might be alright. Sorry I don't know where you can buy small seed grain volumes, anyone else help?

Edit; A quick search on old threads reveals some people use feed grade barley from a farm produce store. If there's one near you maybe drop in and see what they have.


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## sp0rk

Do you have the setup/ability/patience to malt the barley as well drtablet?


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## mr_wibble

And when you find a source for seed, I want in on the information!


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## RdeVjun

I'm very supportive of anyone having a go at home grown, self sufficiency, off grid, all that sort of thing, however can I just share a bit of reality for a moment to put the project in to some context.
A reasonable barley crop might yield say 1.6t/Ha, given that the planned area is 6m2, expect a bountiful harvest of:
6*6/10000*1600=5.8kg
Ok, so that may be enough for a single batch if the malting process and other losses are kind.
It's been well over a decade since I turned a sod in anger so my agronomy numbers might be a bit rusty, but I believe this should get you in the ballpark.
I don't want to seem cynical, I'm really not, but I sense its worth scoping out the project some more, might avoid some later disappointment.
Anyway, agricultural seed & grain merchants, stock & station agents should sell you a sack of certified seed barley, there are defined varieties for malting grade, other varieties are used for fodder. Sowing rate is 20-50kg/Ha, while nutrition and growing conditions will impact on suitability for malting, simply sowing a malting variety doesn't necessarily mean that your crop will be malted, it's not a given outcome as there are many factors that impact on malting characteristics. In fact much barley that sown with malting grade in mind ends up as stockfeed, but if it does meet the criteria then it attracts a premium.
Hope this helps!
Some resources:
Seed: https://eldersrural.com.au/farm-supplies/plant-genetics/ 
Agronomy: https://grdc.com.au/Research-and-Development/GRDC-Update-Papers/2015/03/Barley-agronomy-and-varieties


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## good4whatAlesU

Dry-land (rainfed) yes 1-4 tonbe/ha but irrigated grain can go 12 tonne/ha.

Irrigated 36m2 could get 20kg if everything goes right. My mate tried to do it in his backyard but his crop got rust (which farmers spray for if necessary). 

I know a quite a few farmers could help you out with grain seed, but the cost of driving to where they are would be 1000x the value of the grain.

Just go down to a local Ag store and buy some feed quality grain.


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## Benn

What is reasonably achievable on a homebrew scale? 
If Drtablet yields 5-6kg from his/her backyard would it be easier to roast the barley rather than attemp to Malt it to Pilsner/Pale specs?
Having 5kg of your own "House Roast(s)" could be useful during stout season. 
Similar to growing hops, far easier just to buy them but...


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## good4whatAlesU

Sounds great! Home grown roast barley. Yum.

Craigs problem in the blue mountains will probably be avoiding late frosts which may damage the crop. Also if irrigating, keeping an eye out for rust etc.


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## drtablet

thanks to all for your council.
Yes I know its a bit bonkers to grow your own. Certainly, its not to replace malted barley bought.

So looks like we can get about 5kg per 6mx6m plot, assuming that all the barley that comes off it is worthy of malting.
Sounds like a trip to to the feed store and then depending on the success roasting some for a nice Porter I make.
I will try and home malt at some stage, most likely "before" this crop so I don't waste this precious crop on malting.

Its a project for interest and fun. I like to try my hand at as many useful skills as possible before the zombie apocalypses comes.


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## good4whatAlesU

Couldn't help but get interested in this. I found out that our local feed store sells whole barley, so I grabbed a 20kg bag today ($13.50).

I'm going to try and malt half and sow the other half and see how it goes. Will try and germinate a handful over the next couple days to check the seed is viable.


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## luggy

I wouldn't bother trying to malt it, barley that isn't suitable for malting is sold as feed grade barley


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## good4whatAlesU

It's a learning process at the end of the day.

If you never try anything you won't learn much. This won't cost very much and is a bit of fun. Better than watching days of our drearies on the telly.


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## good4whatAlesU

Two six hour soaks (barley wrapped in cheese cloth and dunked in a cup of water) with an 8 hour drain in between and the barley seed has begun to 'chit'.

I think the feed grain may work okay.


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## good4whatAlesU

... last night a fair portion of the seeds sprouted and we can see the radicles all popping out:

As this was just a germination test (handful of grain) I will ditch this lot and now do the same thing again with a few kilo's and under more controlled temperatures.


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## klangers

Grain can be classified as feed grade for many reasons.

One reason is that the grains are of non-uniform size, or are not plump enough. These would cause headaches for the maltster whose plant it would clog up.

The other reasons are for protein levels etc, but it would still be worth giving a crack.

Almost certainly not worth attempting to malt for anything other than a learning experience. 

Roast barley would be a good use for it.


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## good4whatAlesU

Here's 5kg going in to seep.

Used a Coles fabric bag so I can pull it out after 6 hours to drain. It's in an air conditioned room about 20C.


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## good4whatAlesU

The grain got a bit warm overnight during the drain - mid 20's? .. so I've whacked it in the fridge to cool down to temperature (15 degrees or so) and added water for the second seep. 

Controlling germination temperature at 15C is going to be tricky.


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## drtablet

good4whatAlesU loving your hijacking of my post.
Equally loving the pics, keep them coming.
I'm gonna join you in grabbing a 20kg bag of barley. I'm going over-seas for the whole of autumn and winter, so I'll sow them and mulch them and see what kind of yield I get when i come back.
Then for fun I'll go down the soaking and germination path as you have. Would be interested if you've been able to separated any grains in the food grade that you think could be worth malting, more than just for trying out the technique.


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## good4whatAlesU

Thanks DrT.. ahem yes sorry for using your thread!

The grain looks pretty good. . If the malting works I'll be brewing from it for sure. 

Professional brewers can only take so much barley, much of the rest that goes for "A grade feed" is still very good quality.

To be honest, it's probably better than what they used back in the early days of brewing anyway (before industrialised fertilisers, herbicides etc.).


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## good4whatAlesU

Second soak seems to have done the job .. although I should have liked to rinse it a couple more times as it looks a bit "frothy" .. but anyway.. . the best laid plans and all that. 

I took it out and rinsed it, put the grain in two foil tins and it's back in the fridge chilling to 15 C to begin germination (should take 4 - 5 days??). Hardest part now will to be controlling the temperature with esky bags and ice bricks. . what could go wrong?


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## drtablet

hats off to you good4whatAlesU you've really embraced this.
Don't you have a temp controlled fermentation fridge you could drop to 15C for this?
or is already full of beer


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## good4whatAlesU

Having good fun. Thanks drT for the inspiration.

Nah unfortunately no fermentation fridge, that would be ideal.

I usually just ferment in an esky bag with a couple ice bricks - holds 17-18C okay.

What I do have access to are some large industrial drying kilns at my work though.. Tenp controlled to .1 degrees. If I get that far kilning should be good..


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## Weizguy

One of the reasons malting is not recommended for home production of brewing grain is due to production of nitrosamines.
The potential production of these strong carcinogens was mentioned at the latest ANHC meeting by Bert Van Hecke, from the BOM maltbakery/ brewery.

You (home maltsters) may want to review his talk from ANHC 2016 and perhaps check if he provides reference material before making yourself crook.


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## good4whatAlesU

Thanks for the info.

Looks like the commercial malt plants use sulphur sprays or "indirect heating" to reduce the nitrosamines to acceptable levels. Mainly a problem in direct gas or fuel (e.g. peat) type systems.

The unit I will attempt to use if all goes well is a fan forced electric unit (element is hidden behind stainless panels). Not sure if that makes any difference?

I suppose people made malt for several hundred years before we knew about nitrosamines produced by fuel malting. The brewer in our family lived to over 90 and made a lot of traditional malt and beer, lucky genetics I guess. No plastic and very little fructose in his lifetime (1782 - 1872).


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## wide eyed and legless

Les the Weizguy said:


> One of the reasons malting is not recommended for home production of brewing grain is due to production of nitrosamines.
> The potential production of these strong carcinogens was mentioned at the latest ANHC meeting by Bert Van Hecke, from the BOM maltbakery/ brewery.


Considering we are making a group 1 Carcinogen with the beer, and most food carry the same risk especially processed meat,(so there goes the bacon) and we have a greater than 50% chance of getting cancer, what the hell. I am interested to see how it goes, I mixed rice hulls with my Perlite and got rice growing, even developed ears.


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## good4whatAlesU

Okay so a small amount of germination this-morning, seems to be going a bit slower as desired (with a bit of temp control). 

For interest I threw a temperature logger in the esky bag last night at around 4.00 pm and left it in overnight. Graph below (click on it to make it larger). It seems a single large Ice-brick keeps the temperature below 20 Celcius for about 10 hours. Beyond that and things start to warm up. May have lasted longer except I left one corner of the bag open to allow airflow. 

Note for self is that the bricks need replacing every 10 hours is up to maintain sub 20 C. Two ice bricks may maintain a lower temp for longer. . 

Edit: What I should have done is put one logger inside the bag and one logger outside the bag do get temperature differential (influenced by the ice-bricks)... Okay I'll do that tonight.


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## good4whatAlesU

Gave the grain a stir with a trowel at lunch time. The deeper grains are germinating a bit more quickly than those on top (Trays are about 7 cm deep). Seems to be going okay though.


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## good4whatAlesU

Changed out the ice bricks for the night, just reaching 24 hours germination. 

Sliced open a few grains and it looks like the acrospire is still quite short, so that's good at this stage (?) not sure if I'm looking at the right part.


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## good4whatAlesU

Day 2 germination. 

The grain seems to be germinating very well, but I am quite disappointed with my temperature control. Delays feeding the ice bricks during the day (and overnight) temperature is not low enough and germination is running at an average of about 19 degrees (about 3 degrees to high) ..... graph below. We'll see how it goes. Perhaps if the germination is all done in 3 days, they at least I can whack the grain in the oven over the weekend.


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## wynnum1

Ice bricks i find using 5 litre containers work the best the ones used for bleach liquid soap fertilizer and other chemicals as long as what was in them is not highly toxic there safe to use after a clean out change before they defrost completely.


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## good4whatAlesU

That sounds like a good idea wynnum. Bigger bricks, the longer they will last. 

I think too because I am leaving the esky bags open to allow respiration/ gas exchange things are warming up more quickly than they would otherwise. Anyone doing this on a larger scale would be better off using a thermostat controlled fridge/ ducted cooling. 

Thought bubble: Ducted Cooling: I was thinking the other day a hose running from my keg fridge to a sealed cupboard with a electric solenoid valve would work. The valve hooked up to a thermostat which opens/closes when temp inside the cupboard gets above or below a certain point. These solenoid valves can be had for $20 or so. ... hose is pretty cheap. That way you could run a number of fermenters/ germinators set at different temperatures, with multiple cooling coming off the same fridge (also being used as a kegerator).


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## Benn

Might be worth checking out the latest Beersmith Podcast, has a bit of info regarding small scale Malting.


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## good4whatAlesU

All's going well this-afternoon. The acrospires appear to be around 1/3 to 1/2 way along the grain. 

I finally figured out how to check the acrospires - instead of cutting the grain in half, just peel back the long (back) side of the hull and you can see the acrospire inside.


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## wide eyed and legless

I have noticed there are a few threads on here covering this, don't know if you have checked them out.
Smoked peat if it could be incorporated might be the go, only need a small amount of grain to add to a brew, wife may cause a fuss if done in your conventional oven in the kitchen, my wife doesn't allow me to grill kippers in the house. Or microwave.


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## good4whatAlesU

Thanks weal. Fortunately I have access to a big computer controlled drying oven at my work. The boss is a good bloke and the company owe me a few weekend hours from past work, so they said I could use it if it's not being used.


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## wynnum1

How is the malt dried would think that if the temperature was high enough that the enzymes would denature and if the temperature was too low that flavor would not be good.


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## mr_wibble

Les the Weizguy said:


> One of the reasons malting is not recommended for home production of brewing grain is due to production of nitrosamines.
> The potential production of these strong carcinogens was mentioned at the latest ANHC meeting by Bert Van Hecke, from the BOM maltbakery/ brewery.
> 
> You (home maltsters) may want to review his talk from ANHC 2016 and perhaps check if he provides reference material before making yourself crook.


Is it possible to see a video or audio-recording of his talk Les?
There doesn't seem to be anything on the ANHC website.


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## good4whatAlesU

wynnum1 said:


> How is the malt dried would think that if the temperature was high enough that the enzymes would denature and if the temperature was too low that flavor would not be good.


It is usually a stepped process - incrementally raising the temperature, drying the malt down gradually. Depends on the type of malt you are trying to create. I'm yet to decide exactly the program (advice welcome for a basic ale malt). 

The acrospires are moving slowly (at 72 hours) mostly at 50% of the grain length, so I have 2-3 days germination left yet I think before the grain is ready .


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## good4whatAlesU

Had a closer look today and it looks like we are ready for the kiln. Acrospires 80-100% of grain length. Would have liked the germination a bit more even but it will have to do.
Spread 4cm or so deep onto 8 alfoil trays and into the oven. 33 degrees for a couple hours then 50 degrees for 24 hours. I'll check them tomorrow and see how it's looking.

Note: The grain really 'fluffs up' as it germinates so don't overfill your trays or they will spill over like mine did. 2 full trays of grain became 8 for the kiln.


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## good4whatAlesU

Looking okay today. The trays on the top shelf with slightly less grain have dried out more rapidly as you would expect. 

I've raised the temp to 65C for a few hours and switched the top trays to the bottom and visa-versa. 

Next increment to finish will be 85 C - I'll have to do this last step at home in the kitchen as the work oven will be needed tomorrow (Monday morning).


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## good4whatAlesU

Into the oven at home for 85C to finish off. A couple hours and we are done.

It's smelling fantastic, sweet and 'malty'


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## good4whatAlesU

7 days graft and I'm the proud owner of a 5kg sack of fresh malt!

Needs 'de-bearding' but it might be more 'hipster to leave it be? Anyway I read your supposed to leave it for a few weeks to age before use, so we'll work that out then. It was a fun experiment, thanks for the motivation DrT.


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## wynnum1

What type of malt is it and what did it cost to produce.


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## seehuusen

That's Cool, thanks for sharing 
Would love to hear how a brew turns out


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## good4whatAlesU

seehuusen said:


> That's Cool, thanks for sharing
> Would love to hear how a brew turns out


Thanks seehuusen, can't wait to give it a try. Hopefully it will be drinkable! If not I'll let you know.

Wynnum I'm not really sure to be honest, temperature of kilning is probably comparable to a regular pale malt. Cost $0.67 a kilo + a bucket load of electricity and a few alfoil trays. Plus a fair bit of time. I don't think anyone would really do this to save money, more just for the fun of it.


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## mash head

I made some malt which I havnt used for any thing yet a while back, I found the germination to full modification was the easy part. Tryng to dry 25 kg of wet grain without thinking it through was the hard part. I now have some industrial size clothes dryers that I am going to modify to produce pale base malt.
Being a grain grower I have a few tonnes of 2 row barley kicking around, most pale malts have enough diastic power to convert a fair bit of un malted grain, so I will probably start using it mixed so I can say that my beer is made with some of my grain.


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## wynnum1

mash head said:


> I made some malt which I havnt used for any thing yet a while back, I found the germination to full modification was the easy part. Tryng to dry 25 kg of wet grain without thinking it through was the hard part. I now have some industrial size clothes dryers that I am going to modify to produce pale base malt.
> Being a grain grower I have a few tonnes of 2 row barley kicking around, most pale malts have enough diastic power to convert a fair bit of un malted grain, so I will probably start using it mixed so I can say that my beer is made with some of my grain.


Have you looked at http://www.whitelabs.com/other-products/wln4050-brewers-compass a 20 kg would do 2.5 tons of grain who in the brewing industry is using this product been around for many years so would think beer is being produced.


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## good4whatAlesU

Sounds like the go mh. Something to turn the grain to get even germination and stop matting would also be good. Temp control has to be reasonably accurate or things can go pear shaped quickly.

I'm sure the people that make breadmakers could easily whack out a 'maltmaker' for less than $200 if they wanted to. Would be quite a market I suspect.

Where there's a will there's a way.


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## mash head

I was unaware of that product, thanks. Still like to stick to traditional methods though. As for the grain matting I just used a rake and moved it around every day on the concrete floor until the acrospire was the correct length, never noticed any matting problems. Unfortunately I tried the same method to dry it, raking it around a fire drum, pretty quickly worked out not to do it this way.
The clothes dryers will only be for drying the grain to kill it, as Ive seen a similar mod done on the net with some stainless fly wire to stop the grain falling through the drum it also debeards the grain as well. The dryers are gas fired with 3 buttons (warm, medium and hot) for temp control so it will take some experimenting to get it right.


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## good4whatAlesU

Sounds like a great project - I think Klangers was working on something similar so maybe drop him a message.

Bigger batches would be the way to go, mucking about with 5kg was fun but hardly economical. 

The breadmaker/maltmaker things don't exist, just an idea.

It's possible to buy small commercial units that do minimum 50kg batches but I'm guessing they would run in the 10's of thousands e.g. http://maltbox.com/


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## good4whatAlesU

On the grain growing topic, there's a heap of land up this way going to waste that could be growing grain. A lot of the horticultural crops (blueberries, bananas, macadamias, custard apples) have a 2 metre wide interrow space where they don't grow anything (just grass which is mowed).

I reckon a little 3 to 5 tine disc seeder would work wonders, but nobody seems interested. Lots of fiddling about and small hectarage but it's awesome soil and high rainfall.


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## good4whatAlesU

Hundreds of kilometers of this sort of thing going on...


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## mash head

Planting and growing would be ok, harvesting would be a bitch, and grain prices are pretty poor atm. Would be better to grow something inter row that will build or feed the soil.


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## wynnum1

Lots of growing space could be created if large growing containers where used that could be moved like IBC containers they could also be used as fire breaks because they kill the weeds and grass under them and can be moved progressively .


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## wide eyed and legless

It's great to do a project like this, the best one I undertook was converting chicken shit to methane gas and making a gasometer out of 2 barrels, my dad dismantled it said I was going to blow us all to kingdom come.
I had read a book about a farmer who converted a diesel engine to run on methane and the slurry which was left spread over the land.


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## good4whatAlesU

mash head said:


> Planting and growing would be ok, harvesting would be a bitch, and grain prices are pretty poor atm. Would be better to grow something inter row that will build or feed the soil.


Yep a little 1.5m header would be slow going .. 

Some of the guys grow legumes (Pinto peanut) in the inter-row which adds Nitrogen to the soil. 

Just coming from a low rainfall area myself .. I see all this green grass getting mowed (not eaten, made into hay or done anything with) and I think .. man, there must be a better way. We are talking about arguably Australia's best agricultural land (Alstonville plateau) and only 30% of it's being used. The rest of it's being mowed by lawn mowers. Crazy.


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## good4whatAlesU

Bit of a funky krausen coming off the feed malt. Pitched with K-97


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## klangers

good4whatAlesU said:


> Bit of a funky krausen coming off the feed malt. Pitched with K-97


I'd imagine the significantly higher nitrogen/protein in feed-grade malt would contribute towards a stronger tendency to foam.


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## good4whatAlesU

Cheers Klangers could be the case. 

I've not used K97 before but I've read it's a bit of a notorious "foamer" so it could just be living up to it's reputation.


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## good4whatAlesU

And down she goes.. that was quick.


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## Lyrebird_Cycles

good4whatAlesU said:


> 7 days graft and I'm the proud owner of a 5kg sack of fresh malt!
> 
> Needs 'de-bearding' but it might be more 'hipster to leave it be?


 At the maltings we cleaned the trial batches by rubbing them over an ordinary garden sieve, eg the type you get at any hardware shop.


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## good4whatAlesU

That would be the go. I ended up using a kitchen mesh/ strainer and it knocked off a fair amount.


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## wynnum1

Would Ceramic Tumbling Media work on removing bearding could build a drum with a strainer that could be rotated.


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## good4whatAlesU

Possibly could, although I think the weight of the grain itself would almost be enough. Very light abrasion is needed to knock the rootlets off.

So long as the sieve is correct size to allow the rootlets to drop out.


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## mash head

The stainless fly wire in my dryer drum will achieve the rootlet removal.


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## drtablet

loving this post. 

good4whatAlesU hats off to you fella, you really have gone for it, Ive loved getting the updates on your adventures.


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## good4whatAlesU

Thanks for posting the topic drt it's been good fun.

I hope your barley growing goes well. I wouldn't mind having a go at growing some too but it's difficult to source malting variety up on the north coast. Local agronomy stores only have fodder types.


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## good4whatAlesU

Might transfer the feed grade brew to a keg today (or at least check the FG). 

It dropped out on Tuesday and has had 5 days to settle/clear. I'll take the keg into work tomorrow where we have big cool rooms and cold crash it.


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## good4whatAlesU

Yep it's ready.

1.005 and a beautiful pale coloured wort. Tastes good.

3.94% ABV


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## mash head

Looks good.


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## good4whatAlesU

Thanks, proof will be in the final tasting, fingers crossed.

I've just put a full keg of stout in the fridge so this will be a few weeks before it gets on the gas.


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## drtablet

In case anyone is still following this topic.
And after the epic effort by goodatwhatalesyou to malt I thought I'd update with the beginning of my Barley "field".

I had pigs and they did a good job of clearing an area of about 15mx15m, pretty crappy rocky soil but 1 year of pig manure in there.
So just 1 week ago, I had a "barley-party" friends and kids around to throw 25kg of feed grade barley around and then a ton of mulch.
Followed by a good watering.

I know that 25kg would probably cover an acre but I threw the lot on for I figured my germination rate would be poor.


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## drtablet

4days in I thought Id check on the progress.
My expectations were pretty low.


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## drtablet

8 days in and still no extra water its looking great.

I'm going overseas for 5months, so just gonna leave it and see what I get when I return.


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## good4whatAlesU

Great fun!

Hope it goes well drt!


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## mr_wibble

My aunt's father always said you can plant out a pig-pen by feeding the grain to the pigs.
Supposedly some of it passes right though, and then germinates in the scat. 

It might also be an old-husband's tale too.


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## good4whatAlesU

Only on the gas two days, but I couldn't resist a little taster - it's lovely! Clean and crisp tasting a bit like a pilsner. First pour as always is cloudy, but it will clean up in a few days. There's absolutely nothing wrong with malt made from this particular feed grade barley - lovely.


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## Benn

Well done G4 that's a pretty bloody good accomplishment :beer: 
With the skills you've displayed you may have inadvertently secured yourself a position on a Presidential Ark somewhere to assist the colony after the fallout...


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## good4whatAlesU

Cheers Benn, but I reckon drtablet gets the spot when he makes some malt from his lovely back yard barley crop. That's the ultimate "home brew".


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## n87

good4whatAlesU said:


> Cheers Benn, but I reckon drtablet gets the spot when he makes some malt from his lovely back yard barley crop. That's the ultimate "home brew".


Only if he couples it with home grown hops and yeast from his beard.


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## good4whatAlesU

Two weeks in the keg it's coming together. Very drinkable.


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