Malting Barley In Mexico III

Just a quick update on my malting progress. The barley has grown as much as I want it to and so now it's time to stop the growth. One interesting note is the growth is very inconsistent. Much of it is over modified and just as much is undermodified. Does anyone have an idea why that would be?

The weather has been partly cloudy but I was able to get enough sun to spread the grain out on the terrace with a temperature of 90f. I collected the grain to keep inside over night and then put them back the following day of additional drying. Here are a few pictures. I layed the chicken wire over the top in a half ass attempt to keep the ginormous grackles and other birds out which seemed to work.

After several hot days of drying, I placed the grains on some aluminum pans to be lightly roasted in the oven at a temperature of around 180f. for a few hours. After that, I pushed the grain around the inside of a colinder to remove the rootlets.

Then next step is the mashing process and I will take some readings on the sugar extractions. I plan to do a batch sparge using a five gallon bucket with a braided hose in the bottom to filter. I've never done a batch sparge as my normal system uses the fly sparging technique. If you have words of wisdom regarding batch sparging, please leave a comment.

For the previous steps in malting barley go to here for step I and here for step II.