Given the abundant moisture in much of the malting barley growing regions, the American Malting Barley Association, Inc. (AMBA) is asking barley producers to closely monitor grain bin conditions over the coming months to help avert potentially costly losses.
“The 2010 crop year has been a challenging one for growers in many regions, says AMBA Vice President and Technical Director Scott Heisel. Should the rainfall that occurred during the growing season continue into the harvest, there is the potential that harvested grain may have moisture levels that are too high for safe storage.” Heisel indicated that further quality losses could occur to grain that went into storage with little or no outward appearance of having been adversely affected by late season precipitation. These quality losses nearly always lead to reduced germination levels, however, high germination rates are critical to producing usable barley malt.
Barley combined at moisture levels above 13.5{4d08edaf359bc2115b18a651716ebd427a137946ddca2143fa23b3ea721061e4} requires artificial drying for proper storage. To avoid any grain storage problems, it is critical that the farm operator understands the different aspects of using natural-air vs. a grain drying system that uses heat. Natural air/low temperature drying generally costs less and yields higher quality malting barley compared to high temperature drying. Drying temperatures need to be limited when using a high temperature dryer to prevent damaging the quality of malting barley. Since germination is important in the malting process, 100°F is the maximum recommended drying air temperature. Additional information on the harvest and storage of malting barley can be found at https://www.ambainc.org/media/AMBA_PDFs/Pubs/Harvesting_Drying_and_Storing_Barley.pdf and https://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/abeng/postharvest.htm
Source: Institute of Barley and Malt Sciences
Posted by Kaci Switzer
