My roasted barley
Isn’t that pretty? To a beer brewer maybe. Today I was seriously let down by my George Foreman Rotisserie. It just didn’t get hot enough to roast my unmalted barley. I suppose there could be something wrong with it since I did buy it at Value Village for only $20. I let it cook for over 3 hours and it had only a slight change in colour. So I threw it in the oven on a cookie sheet at 480 F and it was done in an hour. I turned the grains every 10-15 minutes because they got quite smokey. Theoretically 6-row barley is better for roasted grains due to the higher protein content. The more protein the more browning that will occur. This browning reaction is called the Maillard reaction. I’m happy with the results and our place smells like a coffee roasters. Speaking of which I had read somewhere that roasted barley makes a good caffeine free coffee substitute. I tried it a few years ago and thought it tasted pretty awful but I had used roasted barley that had most likely been sitting around for months. I tried it with my barley and wow! what a difference. It had a rich earthy flavor, not as rich as coffee, more like a decaf but with the bonus of having more chocolate notes.
Store bought roasted barley
Brewing Beer The Hard Way 