If you are using pearled barley, which has the bran removed leaving the starchy endosperm, the residue you are experiencing is from the starch in the grain. -Grainlady

grainlady,
It does say pearled barley. It is Quaker meduim barley. It's not the brand I usually buy. And I usually just throw it in with the soup so I have never seen it just boiled before.
As I said, I did it a little different. It called for 4 cups of water to 3/4 cup barley. No mention of draining it and I thought that was a lot of water since rice doesn't take that much but I was getting ready to go to the library for my volunteer shift. I thought I'd just let it simmer and then put the pan in the porch and deal with it when I got home.

Is there a different type of barley that I should be using- One with the bran?
One other thing - there seems to be specks of something dark in the water. That was my main concern - is it the coating coming off? The pan looks perfect.

I just cooked some in a regular stainless pan and the water is a red shade - not grey. It didn't sit as long so I'm going to wait three hours and check again.

One last question for you grainlady. Is it better to cook it separate so I can discard the liquid or to just add it to soup?

thanks so much for taking the time to answer my post.

Does medium barley mean it's a smaller grind, or a less-processed version that takes longer to cook than Quick Barley? Quick Barley I understand, it cooks in 10 minutes. My mother used to toss it in soup towards the end of the cooking time.

I use whole barley (aka Scotch or pot barley - the whole grain that has its bran intact) and have little experience with pearled barley because all the nutrition has been stripped from it. I tend to avoid foods that only offer empty calories and carbohydrates.

I mill whole barley for flour. I also make barley water to drink (a thin gruel) and it's somewhat grayish from the starch. Depending on the ratio of water to barley, the liquid is similar to the starchy liquid after making oatmeal. If you were to refrigerate it, it would congeal and be almost like pudding from the starch.

I use whole barley, or flake it first in my roller/flaker, and soak it overnight using water and a little whey to neutralize the phytic acid in the bran. Then I cook it, either on the stove, or using the Thermos method. It doesn't take as long to cook if you soak it first. I can add it after it's been soaked and drained to soup, OR cook it (usually in a Thermos), drain it, and add it towards the end of the cooking time for soup. But that's using a completely different type of barley so I don't know if that information is very helpful....

If you add the starchy water the barley is cooked in, it will help to thicken the liquid, especially when it's been refrigerated.

-Grainlady