Scratch Brewing The Hard Way

Hi there! Allow me to re-introduce myself.
Last May I signed on to HBT from our organic farm with the news that we had researched and selected an organic 2 row malting barley and were planning to grow a small trial (maybe a third of an acre plot). Since then I've stayed quiet and spent time farming.

We planted our barley in May 2010 and we harvested in September. Not having a combine on our small farm, we hauled pickup truck loads of cut barley to a friend for threshing in his combine. We took maybe 150 pounds of barley seed home for the winter. We fed some to our animals and replanted this spring. Finally I have enough grain in the clear to begin a brew project. We have clean grain, a nice cool basement malting floor and I'm just gonna go for it. My aim is a simple brown ale. If it's drinkable I'll count it as a first try success. We proved that we can grow a crop. Now I'd like to prove that what we have grown is a useful organic malt barley. (At worst the spent grain will feed our chickens!)

I'm jumping in friends and hoping for your input as I go along. I made some kits a few years ago and have some basic tools and understanding of the process. I've seen some really fine material demonstrated here on simple tools and techniques. There's a brew store handy, 2 kinds of hops growing in our garden (which I harvested, dried and freeze packed in mason jars last fall) and we have pure well water that tests out with some nice natural mineral content. I'm short on experience but I've got some ability and I'm not afraid to try. So why not?

Looking forward to your coaching along the way and a tall ale (and a tall tale) when we're all done!

Regards,
- Mygrain

I won't be doing any of the coaching... I've only got two extract brews under my belt, both within the past couple of months, so I'm as green my newly bottled beer.

BUT -- this is awesome and I look forward to reading about your progress.

This sounds really interesting. Where are you located? I wouldn't mind checking out the setup some time.

B

I was wondering about growing and malting barley myself. I wish you the best!

Subscribed!

This sounds really great, and I'm looking forward to reading about your successes. If I had the land, I'd *love* to try this too. There's just something about being involved in every single step of the process. I've done things like this (grew my own cucumbers to ferment my own pickles, for example), so this project definitely intrigues me.

Good luck!

Subscribed!

Have you read the book, "The $64 Tomato"? It is an amusing tale to which you may have some communality.

I like the idea of one day having a beer that was made 100% on my land.
It would be something to really be proud of.

Paymygasbill77 said:

I like the idea of one day having a beer that was made 100% on my land.
It would be something to really be proud of.

Click to expand...

It would also be a truly "local" beer. Except for maybe the yeast.

I'll try to keep it interesting.
- Mygrain

That's alright, we'll just see how it goes!

Thanks!

@ birvine: I'm in Eastern PEI.

You know, when buying the farm, I didn't realize that my first 5 gallon batch would price out at several hundred thousand dollars. : )

That's exactly it - you got it. I just want to see if I can do this from planting to drinking.

onipar said:

It would also be a truly "local" beer. Except for maybe the yeast.

Click to expand...

You could most certainly collect a wild yeast.

Mygrain said:

That's exactly it - you got it. I just want to see if I can do this from planting to drinking.

Click to expand...

We are behind you 100%. What you are doing is the purest form of our craft. Best of luck to you!

I have friends who grow barley around here, and though I know Google knows everything, I would not have a clue how to malt barley on my own, but I still might give it a try if things go well for you in PEI. I might get there some day but not this year - it's a bit far away for a weekend's drive!

B

This is sweet. Subscribed.

Now that's something I'll have to study!

birvine -I found some clear instruction on malting here. So I'm going to try it.
I take it that this is the point of sharing info and enthusiasm for crafting your own brew. It's great to read about and I spent a long Canadian winter dreaming...now it's time to try my own hand at it. I'll post some of information about barley growing for those interested, but really I'm a novice farmer and brewer - and the results are not always pretty!

What has come of this? Any final results?

Yes! Thanks for asking. We planted about 1/5 of an acre of malting barley this spring from the seed we grew last year. We found that about 1/3 of our plot was not rich enough to produce a strong crop. But we did get another certified organic crop. We had a very wet, cool spring and the ground was high enough to drain well (barley doesn't like to have its feet wet) but the conditions of cool wet weather continued through the summer here. In mid September, I cut the grain with my tractor and an old international sickle bar mower that I've been feeding new parts to this year. I let the grain dry in the field for a day then hand forked it into a truck and hauled it to the barn. My son and I put it into the loft in the barn to finish drying enough for the grain heads to shatter. It's still there waiting for me to thresh it. We'll do that the old way with threshing rods by hand, beating the grain loose on the threshing floor and then screening it and winnowing it clean. Very low tech, but also very do-able for small holders and small batch brewers. I'm finishing up a video of cutting the barley that I'll link shortly. I'll do another one when we thresh it so you can see how it works. (We have nothing against combines - we just don't have one and a small plot can be done without it.) When we get some clean grain I'll take it to the local feed mill for testing to make sure it's clean enough to malt (no toxic grain diseases, pests, etc.) Then we'll see how the next steps go. So stand by for more!

Awesome, pictures and videos are good!!

What's the latest status on this?

Any updates on this?

Well, a lot happened after my last few optimistic posts 4 years ago. And a lot of lessons were learned. I ran into a series of setbacks that were disappointing and left me feeling like I didn't have much to share here. But I did keep working on the problems. One of the things I found was that the farming skills and good practices required in harvest and storage left me no time for the additional challenge of a scratch brew project on my own. There were just too many skills to master. So I went back to "school" and took several seminars on growing organic grains and I consulted with farmers and agronomists on soil management and variety trials for this region. I also practiced on several small plots and found that weed pressure was a serious problem that requires some pretty good management.

The grain I had produced four years ago and stored was discovered by rats. They cleaned me out while leaving a mess and a minor population explosion. I still have some work to do on harvest and storage. But meantime I have found some help from farmers, a craft brewer and a start up small malter. So I'm encouraged to try again with some partners on this project.

I'm lined up with seed and I have about half an acre to plow and plant in organic barley this spring. No promises. But I plan to post what happens regardless. Maybe you'll find this story interesting. Thanks!

Mygrain said:

Well, a lot happened after my last few optimistic posts 4 years ago. And a lot of lessons were learned. I ran into a series of setbacks that were disappointing and left me feeling like I didn't have much to share here. But I did keep working on the problems. One of the things I found was that the farming skills and good practices required in harvest and storage left me no time for the additional challenge of a scratch brew project on my own. There were just too many skills to master. So I went back to "school" and took several seminars on growing organic grains and I consulted with farmers and agronomists on soil management and variety trials for this region. I also practiced on several small plots and found that weed pressure was a serious problem that requires some pretty good management.

The grain I had produced four years ago and stored was discovered by rats. They cleaned me out while leaving a mess and a minor population explosion. I still have some work to do on harvest and storage. But meantime I have found some help from farmers, a craft brewer and a start up small malter. So I'm encouraged to try again with some partners on this project.

I'm lined up with seed and I have about half an acre to plow and plant in organic barley this spring. No promises. But I plan to post what happens regardless. Maybe you'll find this story interesting. Thanks!

Click to expand...

nice keep us up to date

all the best

S_M

An update after 3 years - impressive

I've learned just buying ingredients and brewing is a learning process. So it's understandable if your situation requires that much more knowledge. But complete production from growing ingredients to brewing your own will be a great source of pride once you have it down. I'm rooting for ya. Cheers.

There is a lot of benefit to keeping a few rat terriers or jack russells around...

Thanks! Win or lose I'll share what happens.

For those who may be interested I've posted an update on this project on a new thread
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=537169


Is there a better thread to share this material?

podz said:

There is a lot of benefit to keeping a few rat terriers or jack russells around...

Click to expand...

nothing like a good JRT