Alright, enough reading already, I'm tired of it. Here's what I've found and compiled from various Journals, Case Studies and Publications:
From
Pseudocereals and less common cereals: grain properties and utilization
A potential nutritional danger with germinating sorghum is that it results in the formation of high amounts of dhurrin in the roots and shoots. Dhurrin is a cyanogenic glycoside, which on hydrolysis yields hydrogen cyanide.
However, there is clear evidence that drying at temperatures of 30 degrees C and above, removal of the roots and shoots, or traditional fermentation processing reduce the cyanide content to completely safe levels.
Heres the process from a paper titled
Malting Characteristics of Sorghum Cultivars:
Clean grains (100 g, triplicate samples) were placed in perforated nylon bags and steeped for 20 hr in aerated, running tap water at 28-30°C inside a container (Morall et al 1986, Taylor and Dewar 1992). After steeping, the grains were immersed in 2% sodium hypochlorite solution for 10 min and then rinsed five times with excess water. The grains were germinated at 28°C, 95% rh, for five days in a germinator equipped with a humidifier. The germinated grains were dried in a forced-air oven at 50°C for 24 hr. The dried malt was cleaned and the roots and shoots were removed by hand using a corrugated, rubber surface.
From my readings it seems that soaking the grains in an alkaline solution for a few hours, then moving to fresh water, improves the quality of the malted grain and inhibits microbial growth. Good to know!
Also, degerming the malted grain reduces the cyanide levels present to acceptable levels for human consumption. And, according to the WHO (not the band :cross: ) fermentation reduces the cyanide and alfatoxin levels from the malted sorghum.
So there you have it! After all this reading, it seems that malting the sorghum and
removing the sprouts and rootlets would make the malted grain safe to use.
Hope that helps, let me know what you think and what your results are if you give this a shot. BTW- I emailed a supplier in South Africa to see what quantities they sold their malted sorghum in and if they could ship to the U.S. so, we shall see. :fro: