Growin all our own ingredients

That's right....my buddy runs a farm (he's an agricultural specalist) and we are growin our own barley and wheat plus we have enough green house room for about 20 - 30 hops plants!!!

We are using about 1/8 acre and we don't have to do anything...he has people that take care of it, harvest it and dry it. We aren't doing any specality grains, those will still have to be purchased at our LHBS with our yeast...well...the ones that I am not harvesting. This kicks butt!!!

Plus we are going to 10g batches now :rockin: All we have to do is build a RIMS system...

Rock on!!
Kug

Do you guys have a large place to malt and kiln the barley?

Kugster said:

(he's an agricultural specalist)

we don't have to do anything...he has people that take care of it, harvest it and dry it.

Plus we are going to 10g batches now :rockin: All we have to do is build a RIMS system...

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The Pol said:

Do you guys have a large place to malt and kiln the barley?

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* Fingers opens his bag of popcorn and pours a cool one....*

Yeah the malting is the part I'm interested in...how you gonna pull that off?

The Pol said:

Do you guys have a large place to malt and kiln the barley?

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You'll also need a lot of time to malt it, appx. 11 days of constant attention (Unless your malting equipment is automated), to do it right anyway, I.E. Fully converted.
Now I'll go sit with fingers and wait patiently.

Kugster said:

We aren't doing any specality grains, those will still have to be purchased at our LHBS with our yeast...

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Surely if you can grow, and then malt the barley, ranching yeast and making specialty grains should be childs play.

That would be the best SMaSH ever!!!

wilserbrewer said:

Surely if you can grow, and then malt the barley, ranching yeast and making specialty grains should be childs play.

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I was thinking the same thing! Subscribed!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/happiness-home-malting-107409/

Might wanna read this.

Edit: And this is why I love HBT

Kugster said:

We aren't doing any specality grains, those will still have to be purchased at our LHBS with our yeast...well...the ones that I am not harvesting.

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There was a real good thread on here about making your own specialty grains.
Here.

The Pol said:

Do you guys have a large place to malt and kiln the barley?

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Yeah...like I said, they have the school to do all this. This is a good size program and my friend is one of the Directors. They constantly have grains being soked and kilned...if that makes sence :cross:

About the specality grains...I don't know if we can request to have a small amount of grains to be kilned at special temps...this is getting done for free (as far as I know) so getting the other grains is just easier at the LHBS.

When I find out more details I will keep you posted. But for now...we can kiln the stuff!!

Later,
Kug :rockin:

Just how much yield can you get from 1/8 an acre? Can't be too much can it?

Just what is the purpose of growing the barley and wheat? I mean what is the objective of the university? Usually they are testing new varieties for disease resistance and things, am I wrong? So how is it you just get to keep it? Are they growing it for no good reason but to spend budget money? Who is caring for it and harvesting it? At what cost? Not like they are developing harvesting techniques or needing to learn how to grow grain, been doing that forever, or are they? My point is 1/8 an acre is not going to teach you how it is done on a farm. I guess you learn something though.

Sorry, don't mean to be cynical but with the cost of education these days they should not be wasting money just for kicks IMO.

Sounds pretty awesome. I am curious too about why these grains are being grown, malted, and kilned.

SWEET!!!! I just bought The Homebrewer's Garden to do some research in the area. It's saying you will get a yield of 47 pounds on average from a 20 x 40 foot plot. being in an apartment I don't really think I can grow the grain on the porch. (I don't think my porch is even that big) And the parents are going for it sooooo I'm S.O.L on that but the book suggests buying unmalted barley at a feed store and malting it your self. At a local feed store its costs 15 dollars for 50 pounds of raw barley. I'm thinking of doing some malting in the summer when its warm and in a vertical malting thing. probably will have to rotate the grain daily if i do it this say. with all that being said I'm subscribed.

Kugster said:

That's right....my buddy runs a farm for the University of Arizona (he's an agricultural specalist) and we are growin our own barley and wheat plus we have enough green house room for about 20 - 30 hops plants!!!

We are using about 1/8 acre and we don't have to do anything...he has people that take care of it, harvest it and dry it. We aren't doing any specality grains, those will still have to be purchased at our LHBS with our yeast...well...the ones that I am not harvesting. This kicks butt!!!

Plus we are going to 10g batches now :rockin: All we have to do is build a RIMS system...

Rock on!!
Kug

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Have they actually successfully grown barley out in that freakin hell hole? I never had much luck with my tomatoes out there. Might be better off brewing a prickly pear ale in that climate. just funnin' with ya. When I lived in Chandler long ago, they were growing mostly cotton and not much else. I suspect with global warming coming on like a runaway freight train, it won't be long before the Phoenix area will be uninhabitable. They might have to give that biosphere thing another shot on a very, very large scale. Have everyone living in a giant air conditioned dome. Only two seasons there I recall. Summer and hell.

My friend says that we can yield about 1000lbs. Listen...we are not looking to make any money with what we are doing, they grow grain for research, for companies...this is a large program at the school...I don't go there and not sure exactly what they do but my friend spoke with whom ever, allowing us to grow some personal stuff...cause they are already taking care of thier own...this little bit is nothing.

I am not doing this so I learn anything about farming...or malting...so relax! Don't worry what the school does with it's money...I don't know and I don't care!

This is a nice thing my friend is doing, we are going to only keep maybe a few hundred pounds, I'm sure we could store the rest there if we needed to, but a few hundred punds will make a bunch of beer. Figure we can really perfect some recipes. My friend says that by adding certain nutrients like nitrogen or what ever they do, to formulate the grain to have different protein values or less...basiclly we can taylor our grain to specifics. I'm not sure what we would do...guess I could look or my friend could find out certain levels of what ever in the grain of other beers...I don't know.

Hopefully this more information helps. I'm still finding out specifics...the grains won't be planted till the spring or some time around there, plus rhizomes don't sell till feb so we have time to get the details.

Later,
Kug :rockin:

krops13 said:

SWEET!!!! I just bought The Homebrewer's Garden to do some research in the area. It's saying you will get a yield of 47 pounds on average from a 20 x 40 foot plot. being in an apartment I don't really think I can grow the grain on the porch. (I don't think my porch is even that big) And the parents are going for it sooooo I'm S.O.L on that but the book suggests buying unmalted barley at a feed store and malting it your self. At a local feed store its costs 15 dollars for 50 pounds of raw barley. I'm thinking of doing some malting in the summer when its warm and in a vertical malting thing. probably will have to rotate the grain daily if i do it this say. with all that being said I'm subscribed.

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That's pretty cool...I am going to have to get this book...this is interesting.

jgln said:

Sorry, don't mean to be cynical but with the cost of education these days they should not be wasting money just for kicks IMO.

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Kugster said:

I am not doing this so I learn anything about farming...or malting...so relax! Don't worry what the school does with it's money...I don't know and I don't care!

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You may not care, but you should. It is not the University's money! As a research-based PUBLIC institution, they receive grants from all sorts of places. A quick search shows that the receive funding from many many agencies of the federal and state governments, as well as private sources (co-ops, promotion boards and others).

So no, it's not free....sorry to be so negative, but you only passed the cost on to all of us. I could see if their funding was solely from private sources, and if those sources let you use their money, that's up to them.

Trust me, I work/study at a ag-research station and see thousands of government dollars wasted and no one says a damn thing. With the state of our country at present, this kind of waste is just inexcusable.

mthompson said:

You may not care, but you should. It is not the University's money! As a research-based PUBLIC institution, they receive grants from all sorts of places. A quick search shows that the receive funding from many many agencies of the federal and state governments, as well as private sources (co-ops, promotion boards and others).

So no, it's not free....sorry to be so negative, but you only passed the cost on to all of us. I could see if their funding was solely from private sources, and if those sources let you use their money, that's up to them.

Trust me, I work/study at a ag-research station and see thousands of government dollars wasted and no one says a damn thing. With the state of our country at present, this kind of waste is just inexcusable.

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this maybe from private funding...there are certain companies that pay them to do this research. I know your not being negitive and I understand your gripe. So would you prefer it if we didn't do this? All I know is that we have gone through the proper channels to be allowed to do this. I guess I shouldn't care about the money was maybe a bad answer...I had just woke up and started coffee...sorry Cause I do care about this stuff too...but hey, someone is going to take advantage of things...I never do, so doing this is to me ok...I will still be able to sleep at night...sorry if you can't.

They are already growing this crop for customers, already have people working in the fields...so I am not having this done soley for myself...they are already doing all this, we are just allowed to have AN 1/8th ACRE...were not spending anymore money on this.

Wow...this is a tough room!

Kug :rockin:

Presumably it is 1/8 of an acre that was not going to be used anyway. If that area is going to be used for another product or two, well that's just an extra opportunity for research and learning IMO. Think of it as guys doing homework.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

Presumably it is 1/8 of an acre that was not going to be used anyway. If that area is going to be used for another product or two, well that's just an extra opportunity for research and learning IMO. Think of it as guys doing homework.

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I will get more information on this. I think it will be good too...we might stumble onto something...make super barley!! :cross:

Kugster said:

I guess I shouldn't care about the money was maybe a bad answer...I had just woke up and started coffee...sorry

They are already growing this crop for customers, already have people working in the fields...so I am not having this done soley for myself...they are already doing all this, we are just allowed to have AN 1/8th ACRE...were not spending anymore money on this.

Wow...this is a tough room!

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Sorry to sound so snippy, I hadn't had coffee yet this morning either. And I have to deal with a bunch of bs with the system down here on a daily basis...sometimes I just need to vent.

I thought about it throughout the day, and after the various researches gather the needed data down here, they allow people to come pick/harvest the rest. If that is the case, I know first hand that it'll just go to waste otherwise. And I'd rather see beer made than compost, but I do like making dirt as well!

I guess I just took it as a selfish act to get free shwag, and you just came off as arrogant. Sorry for assuming/accusing incorrectly . I know this wasn't your intention now.

I bet there could be a few good extension bulletins geared towards home gardens from this type of project. You should tell your friend to talk to the extension agents over there about writing some up.

Later,

So I have more facts. There is plots of land in the growing fields that are always left open and they will get irragation water no matter what...so why not? The land will just go to waste of we don't use it...not to waste but watered for nothing...than they would be wasting water...correct? We are only going to use 1/16th acre...because we don't need 1000lbs of grain...500 is enough and we can store the majority of it there as well.

I am not sure how I came off arrogant...but I appoligize if that matters to anyone.

I will tell my friend to talk to the extension agents about this. This past weekend they had a harvest festival and they were brewing beer to show people how to do it and they also built a distillery...so we can now make the hard stuff...don't know if we'll do it but the distillery is sitting not used...so maybe give it a try.

I am going to go down to the farm sometime next week to check everything out. I will start taking pictures of how everything goes and keep anyone who is curious up to date. I really think is going to be something really cool to do. We will have organic beer!

Cheers!
Kug :rockin:

Sounds like an interesting, fun exercise. The more local the better, in my opinion. Keep us posted on how it develops - I'd love to keep up with you on this! Maybe a blog?

In any case, congratulations on what sounds like an interesting adventure in brewing!

Kugster said:

I will tell my friend to talk to the extension agents about this. This past weekend they had a harvest festival and they were brewing beer to show people how to do it and they also built a distillery...so we can now make the hard stuff...don't know if we'll do it but the distillery is sitting not used...so maybe give it a try.

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Home distilling is a federal offense. As such, we don't discuss it here. Please don't give us further updates on the topic.

EDIT: Even if the still is part of the school and has some academic privilege, this is not the place to discuss it. We simply avoid the topic here to avoid any illusion that this site condones home distilling.