Malting barley

Hi fellow brewers,this is my first post so go easy on me. I obtained about 20 kg of raw barley last week & wish to have a go at malting. I have read various posts on a few hb websites & so I started with just 2 kg for my first attempt. I now have it germinating & it has been 3.5 days. All the little roots are out & growing, but the endosperms [which I believe is the important part] are at diferent stages of growth. Some are the length of the grain & some have just started to emerge. Can anyone offer any advice as to length of time before kilning. Any answers appreciated. Crusher P.S. How do I post a picture here.

posting a picture requires you to have the picture hosted (placed) somewhere on the net.

Try imageshack.us or photbucket.

Then you need to copy the address of the image and click on the image button in the reply to thread box.

heh heh, he said endosperm, hehhehheh

Shut up Beavis...

crusher said:

Some are the length of the grain & some have just started to emerge.

Click to expand...

That's why most of us pay someone to give us consistent malt.

But joking aside Crusher, I think that is pretty cool that you try to malt your own. I'd kiln when the average shute length is about 3/4 of the kernel. It sound like you are pretty much there.

BTW since the quality of the malt is less than what you can get at the store (don't take this the wrong way, but there is not much you can do about this unless you build yourself some specialized malting equipment) you may have to make it up with a more intensive mashing schedule. This is how they did it in the olden days when the had inconsistently modified malts.

Kai