Growing Your Own Barley?

[Superoo]

Ekul,
Stop soaking the grain when it starts to chit, ie: when the little white spot which is the root is about 1/2mm long. That usually only takes a day or 2. You wont need to keep soaking the grain, It will have absorbed enough water to get the acrospire to 80% grain length.

Then just spread it over a board and keep it slightly moist with a spray bottle, and move it around regularly.

10 kg will be a lot of grain by the time they all have roots everywhere.

I did this about 6 mths ago, and all went good. I used barley from my bro in laws farm, and all numbers came up the same as store bought pale malt. I used about 50% of my malted grain in the brew.

Cheers

 

[the_new_darren]

I have some wild wheat growing in my front yard if anyone wants some?

tnd

 

[stillscottish]

Try waxing.

 

[ekul]

Thanks mate,

I was thinking once the grain begins to chit to just hang the bag up for a few days. I figure the inside grain will spread moisture as the outside grain dries out? I don't even know where i would be able to spread 10kg of grain out. Maybe i should have started with a smaller amount! I figured that there would be losses in weight (because of all those chits coming off when i dry) so to ensure i def had 5kg i just doubled the maount i need.

Ekul,
Stop soaking the grain when it starts to chit, ie: when the little white spot which is the root is about 1/2mm long. That usually only takes a day or 2. You wont need to keep soaking the grain, It will have absorbed enough water to get the acrospire to 80% grain length.

Then just spread it over a board and keep it slightly moist with a spray bottle, and move it around regularly.

10 kg will be a lot of grain by the time they all have roots everywhere.

I did this about 6 mths ago, and all went good. I used barley from my bro in laws farm, and all numbers came up the same as store bought pale malt. I used about 50% of my malted grain in the brew.

Cheers

 

[Superoo]

I started with 5 kg and ended up with 4 after drying.

5kg was a bit too much, It just fit onto a board 1 metre x .6 metre.
It was about 40mm deep at the start and about 150 deep when finished due to the roots.

You wont be able to leave it in the bag it will get too big, and go mouldy.

I just left it in my shed, and turned it every time i went past to prevent mould, used a brickies trowel.

And use a spray bottle to mist it regularly and keep it moist.

I did mine in august / sept was hard to dry it out.
I used an old cupboard on its side with flywire, and blew hot air in from underneath with a hot air gun for 3-4 days. Would have cost a bloody fortune in power, but... Its for beer so its acceptable.

I then used a flour sieve rotating thing that swmbo has to strip the roots off of the barley.

Then just crushed and brewed as normal, and it worked out fine.

If you dont have a good / reasonably fast drying method, I would start drying earlier, say when the acrospire is 50%.

You dont need to peel the grain all the time either to see the length of the a'spire, after you look at a few u will realise you can see the shape of it from the outside.

 

[ekul]

I soaked the grain overnight by accident. Anyway, there was a few flies hanging around this morning, hope the grain is ok.

I will go hang the bag ouyt in the sun, shbouldn't take too long to dry. The acrospire is at about 50% so far.

 

[ekul]

Here's soe pics of the (hopefully) malting barley

This is the bag hanging up after it had been soaking. The grain almost doubles in size after soaking for two days.




Here's what the grain looks like. Notice how there's not too many roots coming out. Apparently this happens when the grain is soaked for too long (like i did). When the grain is drier there will be more roots. I tried to get a good pic of the acrospire but it wouldn't ccome out.



And this final pic is how i am drying the grain out. Because there is so much of it i think it will take a while to dry. So i am starting now whilst the acrospire is halfway up the grain, and i'm hoping by the time this dries it will be fully modified.

For size reference, that sheet is a fitted queen size sheet. So its a lot of grain!

 

[sim]

For size reference, that sheet is a fitted queen size sheet.
View attachment 50245

hah, MIAS (malt in a sheet) love it!

 

[ekul]

Also, the sheet that i have on the ground is a different one to the bag thats hanging up. The bag hanging up is my old faithful circle of voille which i no longer use. The sheet on the ground is the one off my bed, its wash day today though. All beer made froim this grain will contain a little piece of me, in the form of dead skin cells mainly.

 

[sim]

ahh, the spice of life

 

[hoppy2B]

Feed barley generally contributes higher levels of DMS to your brew, so it would be recommended to boil for longer than usual when you come to make your beer.
Commercially malted barley is stored after malting to develop the flavour.
The main thing to keep in mind is temperature when drying the grain if aiming for a malt with a high diastatic power.
Cool temperatures and the use of gibberellic acid provide for fast even germination.
Cheers. :icon_cheers:

 

[ekul]

So what temperatures contribute to high diastatic power?

Germination seems to be pretty even so far, there's the odd bit of grain with long roots but they are far and few between.

The nieghbour doesn't look to happy about me drying the grain there, she's scared of rats.

Feed barley generally contributes higher levels of DMS to your brew, so it would be recommended to boil for longer than usual when you come to make your beer.
Commercially malted barley is stored after malting to develop the flavour.
The main thing to keep in mind is temperature when drying the grain if aiming for a malt with a high diastatic power.
Cool temperatures and the use of gibberellic acid provide for fast even germination.
Cheers. :icon_cheers:

 

[hoppy2B]

If you can keep the grain below about 50 degrees Celsius when drying it should preserve all of the enzymatic activity.
For germination, the sort of temperatures encountered in the temperate zone over winter would be preferable to those encountered in summer. :blink: