Malting your own

[ultrasuede]

My latest venture into this fantastic hobby, is malting. I currently have 20kg of feed barley that has been soaked and in now (Hopefully) about to sprout. Does anyone have experience with this? Online resources contradict each other left right and center. I suspect that much of the information available is from people who actually haven't done it. My next grain is corn. There is even less information on corn, and many more failures than success.

[maddogpearse]

I had success.
I built trays, 100mm deep to fit on the racks in my fermentation fridge. After 3 x 8 hour steeps with 8 hour rests between, I filled the trays and germed at 18 degrees. Once acrospire length is about 75% of the length of the grain (on average, they're all different) then stop. Make sure you don't add too much water when germinating or it will grow mold. The water from steeping should be enough. And stir at least a few times a day to keep the temp and moisture uniform.
I did mine in summer so there was plenty of hot days. I did primary drying layed thin on a big board lying on the ground over 3 about 35 degree days. Once the moisture level is down below 10%, (crunchy when chewed) the enzymes are safe from harm, so I into the oven for a few hours at about 120 degrees.

[coffe addict]

Drying temperatures need to be limited
when using a high temperature dryer to
prevent damaging the quality of malting
barley. Since germination is important in
the malting process, 100°F is the
maximum recommended drying air
temperature.

This is a small portion of a pdf downloaded from the American malting barley association.
Another link I've found said that temps above 149f will denature the beta amylase significantly reducing the potential yield.
From my reading the malting will have a higher quality and better yield if you use high airflows and low temp heating to dry after the malting process.

[Sam.]

This works for me :handgestures-thumbupleft: