Making barley flour at home is straightforward: grind whole barley grains in a blender or grain mill, sift out any coarse pieces, and you have fresh flour ready for baking. The whole process takes about five minutes, and the result is noticeably more flavorful than store-bought versions. Here’s everything you need to know to do it well.
Choosing the Right Barley
The type of barley you start with shapes the nutrition and flavor of your flour. Hulled barley has only the inedible outer shell removed, leaving the bran and germ intact. It contains about 17.3 grams of fiber per 100 grams, 12.5 grams of protein, and significantly more minerals than the alternative. Pearled barley has been polished to remove both the hull and the bran, dropping its fiber to 15.6 grams and its protein to 9.9 grams per 100 grams. Magnesium drops from 133 mg to 79 mg, and potassium falls from 452 mg to 280 mg.
For the most nutritious flour, hulled barley is the better choice. It produces a darker flour with a nuttier, more robust flavor. Pearled barley makes a lighter, milder flour that works well in delicate baked goods like cookies and cakes. Both grind easily in home equipment. You can find hulled barley at health food stores, bulk bins, or online. Pearled barley is available at virtually any grocery store.
Equipment: Grain Mill vs. Blender
A dedicated grain mill and a high-speed blender both work, but they produce different results. A grain mill (whether stone or burr) creates a finer, more uniform flour. Finer flour leads to better rise in baked goods and a smoother texture overall. If you plan to mill grains regularly, a countertop grain mill is worth the investment.
A high-speed blender like a Vitamix gets the job done for occasional use. The flour won’t be quite as fine or consistent, but it’s perfectly good for most recipes. Concerns about blade heat destroying nutrients are debated. Some home millers report no noticeable temperature increase during short blending cycles, while others prefer stone mills specifically to keep temperatures low. If you’re using a blender, working in short bursts and not overloading the container helps minimize any heat buildup.
A standard blender with a weak motor will struggle. You need at least 1,000 watts to grind whole grains effectively. A coffee grinder works for very small batches but tends to produce uneven results.
Step-by-Step Grinding Process
Start with a minimum of 1.5 cups of whole barley grains. Smaller amounts don’t circulate well in the blender and grind unevenly. You can go up to about 3 cups per batch.
- Pour the grains into your blender or mill. If using a grain mill, set it to the finest setting and run the grains through once. For an even finer result, run the flour through a second time.
- If using a blender, process for one minute. Stop the blender and scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula, pushing any grains stuck above the blades back into the mix.
- Process for another minute. Stop and stir again. Repeat this cycle two more times, for a total of about four minutes of blending with breaks in between.
- Sift the flour. Place a fine mesh sieve or flour sifter over a bowl and pour the ground flour through it. Any coarse pieces that don’t pass through can go back into the blender for another round, or you can save them to add texture to porridge or soup.
One and a half cups of whole barley yields roughly 1.5 to 1.75 cups of flour, depending on how finely you grind it. Flour is less dense than whole grains, so the volume increases slightly.
Optional: Toasting for Deeper Flavor
Toasting your barley grains before grinding brings out a warm, malty sweetness that plain raw barley flour doesn’t have. This step is entirely optional, but it’s worth trying if you’re making flour for bread, pancakes, or cookies where that toasty quality would shine.
Spread your barley grains on a rimmed baking sheet in a single layer. For a light toast with subtle nutty notes, bake at 350°F for about 20 to 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, until the grains turn a shade or two darker and smell fragrant. For a deeper, more intense flavor closer to roasted coffee, you can push the temperature higher or the time longer, but 350°F for 20 to 30 minutes is the sweet spot for general baking. Let the grains cool completely before grinding. Hot grains will create steam in the blender and can affect flour texture.
How to Use Barley Flour in Baking
Barley flour contains gluten, but not the same kind found in wheat. Its protein content averages around 11.2%, comparable to all-purpose wheat flour. However, barley’s gluten proteins (called hordeins) don’t form the same strong, elastic network that wheat gluten does. This means barley flour won’t give bread dough the stretchy rise you get from wheat. It produces a denser, more tender crumb.
For most recipes, you’ll get the best results by replacing a portion of the wheat flour rather than all of it. Research on barley-wheat biscuits found that substituting up to 40% of the wheat flour with barley flour produced baked goods with high acceptance ratings, though appearance scores started to dip at that level. A 20% to 25% substitution is a safe starting point for bread. For cookies, muffins, quick breads, and pancakes, you can push closer to 50% or even use 100% barley flour, since these don’t depend on strong gluten development.
Barley flour absorbs liquid differently than wheat flour. Your dough or batter may seem drier at first. Add a tablespoon or two of extra liquid if needed, and let the batter rest for 10 minutes before baking so the flour can fully hydrate.
Storing Homemade Barley Flour
Fresh-ground whole grain flour spoils faster than intact grains because breaking up the bran exposes the oils inside to oxygen. Barley flour made from hulled barley is especially susceptible to going rancid since it retains all the oil-rich bran and germ.
Stored in an airtight container in a cool, dry pantry, whole grain barley flour keeps for about 3 months. In the freezer, it lasts up to 6 months. If you made your flour from pearled barley (which has the bran removed), it will last a bit longer at room temperature since there’s less oil to oxidize, but freezer storage is still the safest bet for long-term keeping.
For the freshest flavor, grind only what you need for a recipe or a week’s worth of baking. Whole barley grains stored in a sealed container in the pantry will keep for months, giving you a ready supply whenever you want to mill a fresh batch.