1st attempt at growing barley

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funktavious

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Ruffin
It looks to be coming in pretty well!
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barley.jpg
 
Sweet man keep us updated. Any special techniques your using to grow these puppies? Good luck :mug:
 
Very cool. If I ever have a yard, I'm definitely going to try this. And I'll definitely grow hops, as well.
 
No secret techniques. Tilled the earth, scattered the seed with one of those rotary grass seed planters and just let it grow. Didn't have to use any fertilizer and we've had so much rain this year it just grew great all by itself. Probably should have put some kind of nitrogen to it early in the grow season but it seems to have done great without. I'm currently looking around the property for a few places shaded to the west so I can plant a few hop rhizomes. Gets hot down here in the summer and from what I hear plants need shade from the afternoon sun.
 
Are you planning on malting this stuff yourself? It seems to me from reading about the different stages of beer production that malting is by far and away the most difficult aspect of making good beer.
 
Yeah, I'm going to give malting a try. There are quite a few videos on youtube. I figured I'd start out just making a base malt and just buy my specialty malts
 
Let us know how it turns out! I'll be subscribing to this thread as I'm interested in growing my own barley and malting it myself in the future as well.
 
Aaaaah man. I'm jealous- it is still snowy as hell up here. I've grown barley accidentally a few times up here and would love to give it a shot for real. Keep records of your malting process for us!
 
I saw your picture and Sting started singing Fields of Gold[/] in my head.

Can't wait to hear how this goes for you.
 
I'm going to have to harvest it by hand. The area is probably 600-800 sq. ft. I'll probably cut it down with a scythe and then thresh it in a pillow case
 
Nice! What kind of barley did you use and where did you buy it? I have a friend who's looking around for varieties and places to buy seed.


Thanks,
Mike.
 
It's Robust barley which is a 6-row barley. The 2-row doesn't fair so well down here in the deep south.
 
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