Barley, Pearl, Organic, Superpail, Zone-2

Our pearl barley is certified organic, triple-cleaned and perfect for baking & cooking purposes. 

Convenient & safe storage 

Our pearl barley is certified organic and non-GMO, and comes in six-gallon buckets (or pails... another word for the same container), containing 42 lbs. net weight. When you store pearl barley at home, it needs to be protected in a couple of ways. First, it needs to be protected from a variety of little critters who'd like to get to it before you do. Weevils and rodents, for example. You also need to protect your pearl barley from picking up excessive additional moisture, which can be drawn from the atmosphere. The buckets our pearl barley comes in provide full protection against these storage risks. They have airtight gasket-sealed lids and oxygen absorber packets that remove the oxygen from the air in the bucket after we put the lid on. The O2 absorbers leave an atmosphere of nitrogen in the bucket (because air is mainly oxygen and nitrogen). 

Beat oxidation 

The cellular walls of plants protect nutrients from oxidation. The process of oxidation begins to occur as soon as grain is ground, exposing the cell's contents to oxygen in the air. Flour that is several days (or more) old, has been exposed to oxygen that inevitably diminishes its nutritional value. The way to get full nutrition from whole grain foods is to mill them when you need them, right in your kitchen. Modern high-speed grain mills make it fast and easy to enjoy the freshest, best tasting and most nutritious food imaginable! 

Super-cleaned 

All of our organic pearl barley is triple-cleaned to ensure purity and protect your grain mill from any foreign objects. (Pearl barley that isn't sufficiently cleaned may contain small stones that will damage or destroy a grain mill... not to mention that you don't want such things in your food!) 

Shelf Life 

Our organic pearl barley has a shelf life of 10+ years when unopened and stored in a cool, dark, dry environment. 

Non-GMO 

All of Pleasant Hill Grain's grain products are natural (non-GMO). Also, PHG does not sell any grains, beans, lentils, pulses or seeds sourced from China.

Barley Uses & History

Barley (hordeum vulgare l.), with its mildly sweet, nutty flavor and low gluten content, can be used in a variety of ways from cooking for a salad or risotto-style dish, to thickening soups, grinding into flour for bread, muffins, pancakes or other baked goods, and flaking for porridge or granola.

In ancient times barley was cultivated in Ethiopia, Egypt and Southern China and has since spread to many other countries, including the United States. Today barley is mainly grown in Russia, Germany and France. Barley grows well in a variety of climates, and is drought tolerant. It’s been the primary grain for bread in some cultures, as well as a prized source of energy for athletes.

Roasted barley is used to make a variety of beverages, including a caffeine-free espresso-style drink in Italy, and a tea in Asia that’s served either hot or iced. In England barley is cooked over low heat with a high ratio of water for several hours and strained; wine, honey and lemon juice are added to the water for a barley water beverage that’s thought to reduce the severity of ailments from indigestion to pneumonia. Barley is the most commonly used grain for malting, which is a major use of the grain worldwide both for beer and other malted-foods and beverages.

Barley, like rye, contains a high level of phytase, the enzyme needed to neutralize the anti-nutrient phytic acid (or phytate) found in grains, legumes, seeds and nuts. It’s an excellent source of protein, soluble fiber, B vitamins and niacin and is also a good source of manganese, selenium and thiamine. Barley also has a low starch content, which gives it a lower glycemic-index rating than most grains.

Barley contains less gluten than wheat, so while barley flour can be used in yeast breads, its gluten development is weak. We recommend combining barley flour with wheat flour to achieve strong gluten development in yeast breads. Barley flour can be successfully used for 20-25% of the flour in yeast breads and up to 50% in quick breads and pastries. It can also help tenderize and add nutrition to recipes that tend to become tough from too much gluten development, such as muffins and pancakes made with all-purpose flour.

Unhulled barley is barley in its whole-grain state, with its hull still intact; as a whole grain it can be used for sprouting and malting. Hulls are inedible.

Hulled barley (also called dehulled barley or barley groats) has been minimally processed to remove the tough, inedible outer layer, which is sometimes called the husk. Hulled barley is considered a whole grain, since it contains the germ, the bran and the endosperm of the grain.

Hulless barley (also called naked barley) is barley that grows with a free-threshing hull, which means the hull sheds easily during normal threshing that occurs in the field when the grain is harvested. Due to lower yields and the fragility of the grain, it's an uncommon variety. This type is also considered a whole grain.

Pearl barley (also called pearled) is hulled barley with the ends of the grain polished off, to create a rounder shape. Polishing barley removes its germ and much, or all of the bran. Hulled barley goes rancid easily, while pearled barley can be stored much longer without spoiling.

Pearl barley is available in a range of sizes from regular down to baby pearls. The smaller the pearl, the more bran and endosperm have been removed, leaving a product that’s nearly white, less chewy and cooks quickly. Pearl barley cooks about three times faster than hulled barley. Both hulled barley and pearl barley can be ground into flour. Pearl barley is the most common choice for cooking and baking; if a recipe doesn’t specify what kind of barley to use, you can safely assume it’s pearl barley.

Fiber in barley is present throughout the grain, not just in the bran layer (which is where fiber is restricted to in most grains). This means that pearl barley, while refined, is still quite nutritious, much more so than choices like commercial white wheat flour or white rice flour.

Barley absorbs liquid as it cooks, which makes it triple in size, similar to how tapioca pearls plump up when cooked in liquid. Pearl barley releases starch as it cooks, which is what thickens soups, and makes barley an ideal choice for cooking into risotto. If you don’t want to thicken your recipe by adding barley, cook your barley first and rinse it, before adding it to soups and casseroles.

Cooked barley is pleasantly chewy without being tough, making it similar to rice and pasta. To cook barley, bring 1 cup barley and 3 cups liquid (water or stock) to a boil, then simmer for 20-60 minutes, or until desired tenderness is reached. If the water is absorbed before the barley finishes cooking, add more water. Check the doneness of pearl barley after simmering for 20 minutes, and hulled barley after simmering for 40 minutes. Drain if necessary. The cooking time will depend on the level of polishing the grain has undergone (shorter time for highly polished barley). Soaking barley in water for a few hours prior to cooking will decrease the cooking time.