Hullless Barley

[FatDragon]

I've got a couple kg of raw hullless Barley, also called highland barley, Tibetan barley, or qingke barley. Had anyone ever tried using this in a beer? My thought is to use roughly 2/1/1 2-row/hullless barley/wheat (raw? Flaked? Malt?) for a Gose-like beer. Thoughts and opinions? As for diastatic power, I've gone as low as 60% with my base malt with no other diastatic grains and gotten full conversion, so I think 50% stands a decent chance, and that's similar to the grist ratio of a lot of wits so it's not unprecedented.

I haven't tasted it yet since I'm probably not going to get another brew day for a couple months so I'm in no hurry to break the seal and expose the grain to our high humidity just yet, but I might go for it anyway and give my impressions.

 

[FatDragon]

Anyone? Maybe just opinions on raw barley replacing some of the wheat in a Gose?

 

[IslandLizard]

Wheat is a characteristic flavor ingredient in Berliner Weisses and Goses.

I've never used raw Barley, but flaked Barley gives off a fairly strong 'grain' flavor, although not similar to wheat, it won't dominate quickly. Unlike flaked Rye, which has a much more pronounced flavor of its own, and becomes hard to ignore even at smaller percentages.

So if you replace say 1/3-1/2 of the wheat with raw Barley, it should taste a little grainier, while still showing enough wheat. I'd do it! Anything to make them more interesting.