Hi, I'm wondering if anyone here has experience growing your own barley for brewing. I've been trying it for the first time this year, and it's been going well so far. (btw, here's a blog post I just wrote about the experience, actually:
http://plantfreak.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/will-garden-for-beer-part-2-barley/ )
My biggest remaining question at this point has to do with threshing and malting. I know that usually for most uses (like baking, of course) with wheat and barley one has to separate the grains from the chaff by threshing somehow. however, I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried NOT threshing and just malting and roasting as-is. I'm thinking skipping the step of threshing might be fine for brewing, because it's just going to get mashed, it's not like you're making something for eating, and the extra fibrous material would just be further filter during sparging. But, maybe the grain wouldn't sprout properly during malting?
Any thoughts? And if threshing is absolutely necessary, what's the best way to do it for the small amount I'm dealing with (I'll probably only yield 10 pounds at most)?
Thanks!
http://plantfreak.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/will-garden-for-beer-part-2-barley/ )
My biggest remaining question at this point has to do with threshing and malting. I know that usually for most uses (like baking, of course) with wheat and barley one has to separate the grains from the chaff by threshing somehow. however, I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried NOT threshing and just malting and roasting as-is. I'm thinking skipping the step of threshing might be fine for brewing, because it's just going to get mashed, it's not like you're making something for eating, and the extra fibrous material would just be further filter during sparging. But, maybe the grain wouldn't sprout properly during malting?
Any thoughts? And if threshing is absolutely necessary, what's the best way to do it for the small amount I'm dealing with (I'll probably only yield 10 pounds at most)?
Thanks!
