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It is not the best year period to produce malt but today I was in a mill (a place to produce flour) and I bought a little rye, this time I want to transmit it into malt and then try a beer with a small percentage.
I started with my buckets (the internal one perforated) This time I found a lot of dirt than the barley. I started cleaning with a washing and I deleted all the stuff that floats

I continued until you get a good cleaning I finished a few minutes ago cleaning, now it's 9 pm in the evening, I think I'll make a small cycle of maceration + dry and then I'll leave to the bathroom until the morning. I think it will absorb water faster than the barley (I think it's similar to wheat). In the past I used a small basket as a "sample test" without weighing the whole lot to measure moisture but I discovered that the measure is distort.

Demy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 10:47 am
This time I found a lot of dirt than the barley. I started cleaning with a washing and I deleted all the stuff that floats

That's a step in the process.

Some folks will put the grain in a bucket.
And slowly over fill it with water while stirring the grain.
Have the bucket leaning slightly, so everything that floats can drain away.

shadylane wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 11:54 am

Demy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 10:47 am
This time I found a lot of dirt than the barley. I started cleaning with a washing and I deleted all the stuff that floats

That's a step in the process.

Some folks will put the grain in a bucket.
And slowly over fill it with water while stirring the grain.
Have the bucket leaning slightly, so everything that floats can drain away.

I use the double bucket for 2 reasons: 1) some things float while others sink (passing through the network to the bottom) therefore greater success with cleaning 2) when it needs a pause ,rise the bucket and let rest!

I like your double bucket idea.

This morning I performed a further washing and put to drain. As expectedt the speed of water absorption is greater than the barley, it is already soft and you can see the signs of start roots. The water temperature is too high for my tastes and this affects both the speed of absorption and germination, generally I make my malt at low temperatures but I hope it goes well anyway, after all it is experimental.

small update

Looks good.
Started malting my second batch Sunday night.I put a cap of bleach in the first rinse and add metabisuphite on the second
Soaked from 10pm Sunday to 6am Monday, aired from then to 6pm and soaked until 10pm.
Aired from then and now at 7:30pm Tuesday it is ready to start drying
Way cheaper to malt yourself - malted rye in Ontario Canada is $75.00 For 55 lbs same bag of raw rye was$10.00
Enjoy, Rod

ROD01 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 4:28 pm 20210720_193722.jpgLooks good.
Started malting my second batch Sunday night.I put a cap of bleach in the first rinse and add metabisuphite on the second
Soaked from 10pm Sunday to 6am Monday, aired from then to 6pm and soaked until 10pm.
Aired from then and now at 7:30pm Tuesday it is ready to start drying
Way cheaper to malt yourself - malted rye in Ontario Canada is $75.00 For 55 lbs same bag of raw rye was$10.00
Enjoy, Rod

Thanks so much. I have used a disinfectant for water many times (I tried caustic firm, bleach, iodine etc.) but sometimes I don't use anything and it seems not to make difference, I usually produce the malt in winter with fresh temperatures, this is an exception. It is very rewarding to create your own malt.

Preliminary drying in the sun, I had a moldy start (to be expected given the temperatures) so I decided to dry and not use for my beer but to distill I think it's fine.

Small update(although perhaps little interest). I made a small mash with only rye malt to evaluate the diastatic power. It seems that enzymes are slightly weaker than the barley.The pH (after 5 minutes from Mash in) was 4.7, very low compared to the barley, perhaps a little lactic acid has developed given the germnation temperatures or perhaps it is natural for rye (some experience?). Here the photo of iodine test after 20 minutes at 65 ° CAfter an hour at 65 ° C (still negative iodine) I raised the temperature at 67 ° C for 15 minutes and then at 69 ° C for 15 minutes.Then I did the iodine test

The must collected at the beginning was turbid so I thought of another iodine test. I thought of creating a malt extract, perhaps for experiments on some beer. I collected 4 liters of must and boiled up to the cololo amber (in the end I gathered about 650 ml)the rest ended up in a maize ferment (all the whole mash).

Nice work how did this end up? I am trying to work out how to dry 8kg corn malt my first attempt.