The brew shop here struggles to sell organic malted barley, I managed to score 35lbs for $15 they just wanted rid of it. The difference in price for regular or organic is 13cents a pound, I find it hard to believe people wouldn’t pay the small extra price for an organic product, but I am not complaining.
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I get a washing up bowl, and put an inch of peatmoss over the bottom, then I take my malted barley powder and sprinkle it over the soil, then sprinkle on top of that some basalt rock dust, then mist with a spray bottle until damp, the cover the top of the bowl leaving just a half inch gap at one end.
After a couple of days check and mist again with water if it looks dry, after a week you should have a nice fungal growth all over the top of it.
Bag the contents in something permeable and hang in a 5 gal bucket of water with a table spoon of mollases and aerate for 24 hours and use, very good for after they finish stretching and get into full flower development.
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Now that is a great idea. I’ve noticed the malted barley will cause a fungus uprising if I put it in the worm bin. It’s crazy to open it a couple days later and see white hair all over.
Do the spores come from the air when you make it that way, or from the peat?
That’s perfect man, I already have plenty of basalt rock dust. Thanks.
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I think it comes mainly from the peat moss and barley, you really don’t get or want air movement in the bowl so there won’t be much coming from the air.
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I know I’ve read that peat comes with micro life. That’s a pretty dang cool trick man. Glad I’m hanging with grow buddies like you.
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Actually the malted stuff that’s dried would only give one like a 2-3 days head start, grind, bubble , water… if using raw un malted you can simply soak, drain and sprout til there’s a nub of a tail , grind bubble, watered same thing home version may be slightly off but not worth the worry almost just like any other SST that we do. @Badger
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Wouldn’t It be all considered organic? I wouldn’t think barley growers would spray anything in a food product meant for consumption but I could be wrong I guess they do it for fruits and veggies but I’m not sure what common practice for grains are .
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I didn’t even bubble mine. I just chopped em up in the old handy chopper, and made some fresh, horemone/vitamin /enzyme juice for my plants. Water that in, they loved it.
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Not at all. Would you want round up ready barley for your tea? 
Just cuz the fda says I can eat it, doesn’t mean I want to.
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My local brew store, I got 6-row for 1.98 a lb milled. I brew one cup in a 5 gal bucket, filter then add aloe/fulvic/silica
How’d they like the sprouted tea?
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They loved it!
I need to start adding some aloe. We have several plants. I need to find some natural sources for fulvic acid and silica. I don’t want to go buy a bunch of bottles. Great recipe, thanks.
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No it’s not all organic, when it’s stored they spray it with fungicide, to stop it doing what I actually want it to do, make fungal bacteria. They also spray with herbicides like roundup to kill weeds while growing, so I always ask for organic but they often didn’t have it, at the brew shop as no one wanted to pay the extra.
I put mine through a blender and turn it to powder. Then just sprinkle a table spoon over the top of my soil, mixed with basalt, the worms love it and it produces lots of mycilium on the soil surface.
@Badger Malted barley has already been germinated, so you need unmalted to germinate and blend for an enzyme tea if you want it really fresh.
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Yeah, @shadey I was lucky to have a friend send me 10 lbs of rye to germinate. He lives in the right place to find it easily.
That’s why I was trying to figure out a plan for when I run out. I didn’t know about the anti fungal, but that makes total sense.
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Yeah all grains can develop a fungal bacteria if not kept really dry and aerated, the big hoppers they store it in usually has air pipes pumping dry air through it.
The fungal bacteria can cause hallucinations, they recon the people of the 16th century were constantly tripping from porley stored grains lol.
The Salem whitch hunts started because of badly stored grains causing people to hallucinate and die, and blame some old lady they saw change into an animal whilst hallucinating the historians reckon.
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I worked at a grain elevator in my younger days. The metal bins had aeration, the concrete house had to be turned manually by moving the grain to another bin. It would air out while moving. We would also test moisture content at the same time and monitor conditions. We only used insecticides to treat. We just watched the moisture content.
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Pretty much like drying and curing buds to stop mold.
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Yup, except buds smell much better, look prettier, taste better when you smoke, are more fun, and get you high.
Yes though, avoid the mold part for sure.
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I’m speaking more to the science behind malting perfectly to have the most of certain enzymes the seeds provide. We can get close, but they have a laboratory and science which can maximize the enzyme content of the malted seed. From my limited knowledge on the malting process, I understand they are trying to maximize very similar enzymes as we are.
Nothing against doing it yourself, I’m sure it works great.
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Ya I was following ya getting the timing right for the development of the enzymes and not wasting to much of the starch within is definitely a balancing act to get as much potential fermentable product as they can out of the grain for making beer in down the road !
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