Malting barley - "animal feed" barley, useable?

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From what I know it is best to keep the temperature while kilning the malt low. If you heat up the barley to above 160 while it is wet you will destroy the enzymes in the barley and it will lose it's diastic properties. Essentially you will be making crystal malt. The reason it was taking so long to dry in the oven was lack of airflow. In the book I referenced he used on old refridgerator with a few incandescent light bulbs in the bottom to heat it and some vent holes top and bottom to allow airflow. Lay some screen on the racks and you have a cheap malt kiln.

Right, I also understand that you need to get the grain as dry as possible at a low temperature before you ramp up a little, and only then to a max of 200 or so.

I can't be sure that I did something wrong there because I didn't take such detailed notes (though I should've), but I have done another batch in the last few days, taking more care over the drying, so we shall see if there was a problem there...
 
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