Identifying wheat from barley in the wild

[Grimmrod]

I've recently attempted to malt some of my own grains found in fields around my house here in colorado. The malting went well and the grains sprouted in a couple days.

My question is did I malt wheat or barley? a google search almost yields the same picture for the two grains

Wheat

Barley

How does one tell the difference for sure?

 

[fifelee]

The kernels look very different. Barley is very tan and has a husk ( kind of a skin you can peal off). Wheat is almost flesh color and has no husk.

 

[fifelee]

Here are some quick hot links.

WHEAT

Barley

 

[WOP31]

Someone else had mentioned this before around here and I belive that the Responce was, that the Wheat will all wilt over like in the fist picture, and the barley for the most part stays pointing upward like in the second picture. But that is if I remember it right. Maybe some of the mid-westerners could chime in, that has got to me a farmer out there somewhere!

Cheers

 

[fifelee]

Someone else had mentioned this before around here and I belive that the Responce was, that the Wheat will all wilt over like in the fist picture, and the barley for the most part stays pointing upward like in the second picture. But that is if I remember it right. Maybe some of the mid-westerners could chime in, that has got to me a farmer out there somewhere!

Cheers

Farm boy here. My old man is the Farmer. I hope to change that soon.
The grains head position, is actually the other way around. Barley heads bend over and point downward. Wheat heads stand straight up (most of the time). I think Grimmrod's first picture may actually be barley or its is a really good wheat crop where the heads are so heavy they ended up bending over. The best way to tell is to thresh some out and look at the kernel.

 

[WOP31]

Right on thanks fifelee!

Cheers

 

[FlyingHorse]

I've recently attempted to malt some of my own grains found in fields around my house

Wheat and barley grow wild in your yard? Or did you "find" these grains in some farmer's field (or maybe in an abandoned BMC keg )

 

[Dr Malt]

The difference between wheat and 2-row barley is less confusing than that of wheat and 6- row barley. 2-row barley has 2 rows of kernels up the head as you look at it from the top. Wheat is more of a "4-row effect".

For wheat and 6 row, a closer exam is needed. Assuming the grain is dried down (tan color not green) you can thrash some in hand. Take one or two heads of kernels and rub them in the palm of your hand. The husk will easily come off the wheat but will not come off the barley. See the picture of wheat and barley kernels above. You can see husk on the barley and none on the wheat.

If you are doing the drive by "4 60 identification" (4 windows down going 60 mph), wheat varieties today are generally shorter straw, heads are more straight up (read fifelee above) and the awns are shorter than barley. Keep in mind these are generalities and vary by wheat and barley variety. Also, if you look at enough wheat and barley fields they tend to look enough different that you get better at it with time on the "drive by".

I use to go out and look at test plots of barley every summer as part of my job. All of us who did this use to have those bad days when we would stop the car, walk out in the field and realize we stopped at a wheat field. Guess who had to by the beer that night? You soon learn how to tell barley from wheat.

Dr Malt

 

[Grimmrod]

wow thanks for the response on this, after revewing the posts here i'm 99% sure that what i malted was wheat. Wheat does grow in the wild out here on the gates to the great plains, i just have to find a nice barley crop outside of a farm of course

 

[FlyingHorse]

Man, people on this board know a lot of sh*t!

 

[fifelee]

I use to go out and look at test plots of barley every summer as part of my job.
Dr Malt

Dr Malt,
Are you in the malting business? I would love to malt some of my own crops some day and am always looking for advice.

Grimmrod,
If you ever get up to central Montana I can hook you up with all the barley you can carry.

 

[BlackZX3]

How easy is it to malt your own grain? Out at our farm we have LOTS of wheat. It would be interesting to grow a small plot of barley for homebrewing.

 

[Dr Malt]

Fifelee:

The answer to your question is I was in the malting business.

As far as making your own malt, you can do it, but I would not encourage you to do so.:cross: There is a new malthouse in Great Falls, MT (IMC). Why don't you contact them and see if they will give you a tour so you can see the process? Then you will get an idea of what is involved in malting.

Dr Malt

 

[fifelee]

Fifelee:

The answer to your question is I was in the malting business.

As far as making your own malt, you can do it, but I would not encourage you to do so.:cross: There is a new malthouse in Great Falls, MT (IMC). Why don't you contact them and see if they will give you a tour so you can see the process? Then you will get an idea of what is involved in malting.

Dr Malt

Thanks for the tip. My father has a few contracts with that malting plant. When I get home I will try to do tour.

I don't want to malt on a mass scale. Just thought a few beers that are more homemade would be gratifying even if they are not that good. Do you have any good sources or books that one could look at. I have gathered a few links on malting and roasting, but more info is always better.

http://www.sillyyak.com.au/gfb/gfmalt.html
http://brewery.org/brewery/library/Malt.html
http://***********/feature/284.html
http://homebrewinghobby.blogspot.com/
http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Sanders/roasting.shtml

 

[Dr Malt]

I just skimmed through your links. The first one seems very good. It outlines the malting process. Basically you are getting the barley seeds to take up water, start to grow at cool temperatures (55 - 60F) and then stop them with gentle heat to preserve the enzymes in the malt. This is for base malt. You only want to germinate the grain for about 3 -4 days or just before the acrospire (green stem) comes out from under the husk. This can be tricky because you want as many of the kernels as possible to reach this point at about the same time. Controlled drying (kilning) is a key step in malting also. Drying malt is like mashing in brewing, it involves a stepwise temperature process. You are first tryng to drive the moisture off at lower temperature (100 - 120 F) with high air movement. So you are taking the moisture from about 45% to about 14 %. Once the malt is down to about 14%, you can raise the heat, preserving the enzymes and begin making color and flavor. Again, this is the process for making base malt.

Specialty malts can involve higher Kilning temperatures or roasting in roasters or both, depending what type of specialty malt you want to make (Munich, Caramel, biscuit, chocolate, etc). The roasting process is more involved than roasting say coffeee beans as you are controlling both temperature and moisture in the grain through various stages of the roasting process.

As you can see, the malting process, like brewing, has many variables and involves both art, science and monitoring things like temperature, grain moistures and air movement throughout the process. Unlike brewing, duplicating the equipment in the home setting is not as easy. This is why I don't recommend it. If you just want to play around, try germinating a quart jar of barley and drying in your oven on a cookie sheet and see what you get.

I don't know of any basic books on malting only some relatively expensive textbooks that are more focused on the science aspects of malting. I think the sites you have listed give you the basics and mechanics of the process.


Dr Malt

 

[fifelee]

Thanks Dr. Malt,
I think I owe you a beer. Cheers.

 

[drummstikk]

Reviving an old thread here, I just wanted to highly recommend malting at home. It is true that most of my batches of malt have slightly more variability in modification than commercial malts. I have always done a step mash when I brew with a 100% home-malted grist, and achieved great beer that has commercial levels of clarity, mouthfeel, and head formation / retention.

There are two techniques that require a little practice. First, you need to turn the germinating pile 1-2 times / day, and spritz with water to keep it moist. If you skip a day, you'll get greater variability in the modification.

Second, the available information on kilning times / moistures / temperatures is terrible! If you want to produce a given malt, you'll probably have to do some trials to get what you want out of your oven. I'll post anything I figure out on my homegrown thread.

I have made several beers with homemade malt, and they were all good. I still haven't figured out how to use my oven well enough to give advice, as I always get a malt that's a little different than the one I wanted. (more color, or more/less caramel sweetness) But they all make beer!