Malted Barley Flour

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Malted Barley Flour

Post by GHO »

I mentioned I mill malted barley flour. So here's a few things on it and why I produce it rather than buying in:

If you're familiar with clackamas coots, you'll know he's the guy that discovered this little gem. You'll also know he recommends fresh but here's a couple of things you might not know.

Firstly age: a member asked me the other day if I could supply just the cracked grain and I mentioned age. Before I decided to produce this myself I did a lot of reading on barley and also spent a long time trying to source a good supplier. What I found was that most (but not all) malted barley available here is grown in Thailand and shipped across to the UK by the main suppliers. A lot of it is malted there a bit is malted here. But your fresh barley at this point can be two to six months old from malting. The vast majority of this barley is genetically modified for better resilience to pests and better production. By the time it's been through a flour factory bagged, sat on shelves, and made it to you god only knows how old it is. Even stuff malted large scale in the UK can be a few months old at point if purchase. This is why I produce it myself. I get a fresh delivery of malt every week and mill it. By the time it reaches you as I mill every day it will be no more than four days old from milling and no more than eight days from malting. This means the flour and thus the enzymes are in peak condition.

Secondly, producing it yourself. It is done, however what a lot of people don't realise is that enzymes die at around 62 degrees Celsius. To really get this right the flour needs to be fine increasing the surface area so that when you water it in those enzymes can get straight to work. When I started out I tried a variety of blenders and laboratory pulverisers and found that the length of time needed to get this to flour raised the temperature of the flour potentially damaging those enzymes so I moved on to stone mills. I visited a couple of manufacturers in Europe to run tests and eventually settled on one that can keep temps low while milling and I only run it in fits and starts to ensure my mbp is as good as it gets.

I've a few serious growers I deal with that are really happy with the quality over what they were using before. For the work involved and quality I think this is a very fair price.

If you've any questions please let me know.

GHO

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Re: Malted Barley Flour

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Close up shot. Bran left in as all parts of the grain contains different enzymes Image

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Re: Malted Barley Flour

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Usual mornings milling just getting started. Image

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Re: Malted Barley Flour

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The first tests I ran on strawberries showed rapid results. Same pots same medium. Same size plugs this is after seven days. Image

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Re: Malted Barley Flour

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GHO wrote:
Fri Aug 28, 2020 7:42 pm
I mentioned I mill malted barley flour. So here's a few things on it and why I produce it rather than buying in:

If you're familiar with clackamas coots, you'll know he's the guy that discovered this little gem. You'll also know he recommends fresh but here's a couple of things you might not know.

Firstly age: a member asked me the other day if I could supply just the cracked grain and I mentioned age. Before I decided to produce this myself I did a lot of reading on barley and also spent a long time trying to source a good supplier. What I found was that most (but not all) malted barley available here is grown in Thailand and shipped across to the UK by the main suppliers. A lot of it is malted there a bit is malted here. But your fresh barley at this point can be two to six months old from malting. The vast majority of this barley is genetically modified for better resilience to pests and better production. By the time it's been through a flour factory bagged, sat on shelves, and made it to you god only knows how old it is. Even stuff malted large scale in the UK can be a few months old at point if purchase. This is why I produce it myself. I get a fresh delivery of malt every week and mill it. By the time it reaches you as I mill every day it will be no more than four days old from milling and no more than eight days from malting. This means the flour and thus the enzymes are in peak condition.

Secondly, producing it yourself. It is done, however what a lot of people don't realise is that enzymes die at around 62 degrees Celsius. To really get this right the flour needs to be fine increasing the surface area so that when you water it in those enzymes can get straight to work. When I started out I tried a variety of blenders and laboratory pulverisers and found that the length of time needed to get this to flour raised the temperature of the flour potentially damaging those enzymes so I moved on to stone mills. I visited a couple of manufacturers in Europe to run tests and eventually settled on one that can keep temps low while milling and I only run it in fits and starts to ensure my mbp is as good as it gets.

I've a few serious growers I deal with that are really happy with the quality over what they were using before. For the work involved and quality I think this is a very fair price.

If you've any questions please let me know.

GHO

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Loving this. I have tried to seek out raw ingredients for this. I purchased some malted barley powder from an organic garden supplier in the UK. They are far and few in between compared to Canada or other permaculture like society.

I used to try using malted barley extract as that's all I could get on my last grow, don't think it made masses of difference.

I'd consider doing this or getting some from you, I'd also be better keeping it in the fridge by the sound of it to preserve the enzymes?

I bought some neem cake which looks a similar logo of yours?

Keep up the good work man. The company I use are getting stupid Expensive!
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Re: Malted Barley Flour

Post by B.G. »

GHO wrote:Usual mornings milling just getting started. Image

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How much for a kilo including postage


from a green and pleasant land
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Re: Malted Barley Flour

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I'm going to start calling you Windy Miller.
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Re: Malted Barley Flour

Post by GHO »

DIY.Rik wrote:
Sat Aug 29, 2020 1:21 pm
GHO wrote:
Fri Aug 28, 2020 7:42 pm
I mentioned I mill malted barley flour. So here's a few things on it and why I produce it rather than buying in:

If you're familiar with clackamas coots, you'll know he's the guy that discovered this little gem. You'll also know he recommends fresh but here's a couple of things you might not know.

Firstly age: a member asked me the other day if I could supply just the cracked grain and I mentioned age. Before I decided to produce this myself I did a lot of reading on barley and also spent a long time trying to source a good supplier. What I found was that most (but not all) malted barley available here is grown in Thailand and shipped across to the UK by the main suppliers. A lot of it is malted there a bit is malted here. But your fresh barley at this point can be two to six months old from malting. The vast majority of this barley is genetically modified for better resilience to pests and better production. By the time it's been through a flour factory bagged, sat on shelves, and made it to you god only knows how old it is. Even stuff malted large scale in the UK can be a few months old at point if purchase. This is why I produce it myself. I get a fresh delivery of malt every week and mill it. By the time it reaches you as I mill every day it will be no more than four days old from milling and no more than eight days from malting. This means the flour and thus the enzymes are in peak condition.

Secondly, producing it yourself. It is done, however what a lot of people don't realise is that enzymes die at around 62 degrees Celsius. To really get this right the flour needs to be fine increasing the surface area so that when you water it in those enzymes can get straight to work. When I started out I tried a variety of blenders and laboratory pulverisers and found that the length of time needed to get this to flour raised the temperature of the flour potentially damaging those enzymes so I moved on to stone mills. I visited a couple of manufacturers in Europe to run tests and eventually settled on one that can keep temps low while milling and I only run it in fits and starts to ensure my mbp is as good as it gets.

I've a few serious growers I deal with that are really happy with the quality over what they were using before. For the work involved and quality I think this is a very fair price.

If you've any questions please let me know.

GHO

Sent from my SNE-LX1 using Tapatalk
Loving this. I have tried to seek out raw ingredients for this. I purchased some malted barley powder from an organic garden supplier in the UK. They are far and few in between compared to Canada or other permaculture like society.

I used to try using malted barley extract as that's all I could get on my last grow, don't think it made masses of difference.

I'd consider doing this or getting some from you, I'd also be better keeping it in the fridge by the sound of it to preserve the enzymes?

I bought some neem cake which looks a similar logo of yours?

Keep up the good work man. The company I use are getting stupid Expensive!
There's a few other elements to the malt that make it work buddy. Extract etc won't work and some varieties work better than others. It performs way more functions than just facilitating reactions. The catalyst attributes are about half of what it does.
As for preserving the enzymes I believe they degrade over time. I'd say never buy more than a kilo at a time buddy unless you're doing a big grow. I'm not sure how very cold conditions would affect the enzymes. But I'll have a root through the books and see if I've any studies handy that will give me a clue.
I do sell neem mate so you may well have done. Recently switched to Senegalese neem as the active ingredients are higher. Everything is a little cheaper on the site, if you need anything else drop me a line. I've a few more amendments landing this week and I'll be doing fresh worm castings from the coming weekend.
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Re: Malted Barley Flour

Post by GHO »

B.G. wrote:
Sat Aug 29, 2020 2:52 pm
GHO wrote:Usual mornings milling just getting started. Image

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How much for a kilo including postage


from a green and pleasant land
12.20 Inc delivery mate if you use code GROWROOM10 at checkout. For some reason it says three day delivery but I throw everything in first class where possible so it may get to you sooner.
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Re: Malted Barley Flour

Post by B.G. »

GHO wrote:
B.G. wrote:
Sat Aug 29, 2020 2:52 pm
GHO wrote:Usual mornings milling just getting started. Image

Sent from my SNE-LX1 using Tapatalk
How much for a kilo including postage


from a green and pleasant land
12.20 Inc delivery mate if you use code GROWROOM10 at checkout. For some reason it says three day delivery but I throw everything in first class where possible so it may get to you sooner.
Will hit you up on the site ASAP


from a green and pleasant land
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GMO (Sun Aug 30, 2020 4:52 pm)

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