Barley terminology

I belong to an organic co-op, and we order bulk foods every month or so. I see I can order Barley in bulk .. does this mean I wld need to malt it myself ?

I see in the catalog Organic Barley (5, 10, 25#) but it is listed as:

Hulled
Hulless
Flaked
Pearled


Does anyone know what these terms mean, and if any of this wld be ok for a "garden-variety" AG brew ?

Unfortunately, that list doesn't have the type of barley you need: malted barley.

However, flaked barley is often used in small percentages as an adjunct ingredient in some beer recipes. Aids in head retention and adds body to the beer.

The hulled barley might be viable for malting, but bear in mind, eating barley is not the same as malting barley. Malting barleys are lower in protein. Malting is a time-consuming complex process.

Kappclark:

Good information here from FlyGuy and David42.

To answer your question, hulled barley is more normal barley where the hull adheres to the endosperm. Hulless barley is a type of barley that was developed so that when harvested the outer hull would come off easily leaving the endosperm and often the germ intact. This is like wheat. Flaked barley is hulled barley that is moistened slightly, often with steam, to soften it and then press between hot rollers to flake it. This produces a barley flake containing the hull and endosperm and gelatinizing the starch. Pearled barley is hulled barley that has been put through a process to abrade off the hull leaving the endosperm. The germ is also removed in this process. Hulless barley and pearled barley is what you want to use in making a beef barley soup so you don't have the hulls. Flaked barley is used as an adjunct in brewing as mentioned and some other food applications. Hulled barley used in food is best ground to a flour for use in baked goods. Also as mentioned, there are many varieties of barley grown. Some of those varieties are food/feed types and some are malting types. Malting barley, besides having lower protein levels, has little to no dormancy and greater germination potential. I would suspect the hulled barley you have available to you is a food/feed type and not suitable for malting. Also, I am not sure you have the equipment to malt barley. So for brewing, the flaked barley is the product most likely to be useful as covered by FlyGuy.

I hope this helps.

Dr Malt

You forgot torrified..............don't think it means it was scared.

WOW - I feel like I have gone to graduate-level Barley school !

I do not have the equipment to malt, and there is no reason to @1.20/lb at AHS ..

Thank You for the very good information ... AG here I come !