Help with sprouting?
I'm hoping one of you sprouting masters out there can give me some advice. I'm 3 days into sprouting some rye and barley seeds. I think the barley is doing well; I started with organic barley seeds with the hulls still on. I've cut into a few grains and it looks to me like the main shoots have grown as long as the whole seed, though they haven't protruded from the hull (except a few precocious guys). Here's how it looks
and a close-up:
Time to start drying them, right? But how do I get the hulls off? Or do you just leave them on and grind it all up?
Next the rye --- here I'm a little worried...the whole tray looks decent:
here's a close-up
These main shoots are about the length of the berries. But on closer inspection, there are a few areas where most seeds have not sprouted at all:
And furthermore, there's a few very suspicious looking berries -
Do these look mouldy? And if so, do I have to throw away the whole lot? Or just the ones that either look hairy and/or have not sprouted or even chitted?
I was planning to dry them in my oven with just the pilot light on - that's about 90-97dF. Does that sound about right?
Thanks for any words of wisdom.
Cherie
not barley with hulls on or pearled barley where part or all of the bran has been removed. Sprouting for sprouted grain usually takes about 24 hours and you want to dry the grain as soon as first rootlet shoots bread through the skin this stage is called chitted grain.
Now if you are sprouting for making malt or to make malted grain for beer you sprout for about 4-5 days and you sprout until the shoot (not the first 3 rootlets that come out of the berry which will be much longer by then) is the length of the seed itself
Yes the last seed is moldy. The hard part about sprouting grain for malt is that it takes a long time and the berries can go moldy, The way to try to stop this is from happening to keep the seed cool 64-68 F and to rinse then at least twice a day as you spout them.
Here is a picture of chitted grain and here is on of malted grain
with both the barley and rye. So do I have to toss all of those rye berries? Or can I just weed out the ones that look moldy? What would DAB do? ;-)
Cheers and many thanks for your help!
Cherie
them out out the dehydrator at 105 F for 4 hours. then take half and warm then up gradually to 325 F until they turn a bit brown.
grind u the white malt and then grind up the red malt and you will have both on hand since they do two different things in bread.
Making Red Rye MaltHappy malting
I had them in the oven with the pilot light on - it was about 100dF and after a few hours, I opened the oven door there was a no-good, very bad, funky (not in a good way) odor. Plus, on very close inspection, there really were a LOT of berries that had not sprouted or even chitted. Maybe I soaked them too long? I'll try again with a fresh batch. To be continued....
4 hours.keep them cool in a sprouter, don't let light hit them and rinse them with clean water every 8-12 hours
If you don't have a dehydrator, you can dry them at a higher temperature. The enzymes won't be killed off at 125 or even 150 F if you have the oven fan on and door ajar. Brewers like me routinely mash their malted barley adn other grains at 150 F since that is the best temperature to extract the maximum sugar from the starch when they make beer. I used to use a convection toaster oven at 150 F with the fan on and door slightly ajar to dry mine before I got a dehydrator - no worries - the berries never dot over 140 F or so.
Happy malting