100% Homegrown Homebrew?

Has anyone ever not just grow their own hops, but also grown their own grains and harvested their own wild yeast for a 100% "off the grid" homebrew?

I've read that growing hops and harvesting wild yeast are relatively easy, but I haven't come across much on growing your own grains. I assume there's a reason for that, likely with the land needed and care required.

Still the fantasy plays out in mind more and more often, especially since we plan to move to a new house with more land next year.

 

There is an article on malting your own barley in BYO magazine this month. It's a fairly simple process. Haven't read much on growing barley though. My guess is that its so cheap that most people wouldn't bother...obviously cost is not the point here though.

 

That'd be pretty awesome.

 

There are several threads here on malting/growing barley. Search the DIY and hop growing threads.

*edit. - your question is on growing barley - there are not nearly as many threads about that subject in particular. Sorry for the confusion.

 

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f92/100-homegrown-287146/ was a good write up of just what you're describing. Nice start-to-finish thread of growing, malting, and brewing. Don't think he captured wild yeast though.

 

I have not made my own malt yet, but I had a dinner recently, where the pasta and ravioli's, sauce, ricotta cheese and beer were all handmade by me..It was kinda cool.

 

commercial barley growers yield 50 bushels per acre

figure a homegrower would yield less than ½ that, so @ 48 lbs a bushel you would get 1200 lbs an acre.

an acre's worth @ 30 lbs per 5 gallon batch (HUMONGOUS! beers) would put you at the 200 gallon per year federal limit.

 

I like you're style!

 

did all the math because I was positive that the yields wouldn't be enough to make it feasible for homegrown barley.

wow! more research finds that you can plant/harvest barley TWICE a year, so it is very feasible. ⅓ or even a ¼ acre would provide plenty of barley for a year of good-sized beers

 

I am in grain country and in particular 2 row barley. I can look out my window and 4 or 5 miles away see the bud malting plant so you know about everyone is under contract to sell to them.

Long story short though I get raw barley for about nothing. Matter of fact last batch I got I filled up 6 50 gallon drums for a case of beer and a promise to feed his livestock the next weekend so he could go out of town.

It is a huge savings to me to malt my base grains

 

Great way to ensure homebrew during the zombie apocalypse. Seriously though I would like to find out if you could do a micro barley farm in your backyard.

 

Been my experience that no unless you have a huge yard and I mean huge you will not get enough by hand sowing and harvesting to make it worthwhile at least for me. Not to mention it would be some serious work cutting and thrashing that much grain.

Nope when the zombies show up I will trade beer for grain

 

Well at least I can still have a small hop garden.

 

The math (yield per acre) has already been mentioned. I've got ~8 acres, with ~4 of them "farmable," ~1.5 of which SWMBO has agreed to let me "play" in (read: barley and wheat). I've got 5 varieties of barley to play with, 4 of which I'll need a couple of seasons to grow up from small seed samples (5g of seeds only plants ~4 or 5 sqft)...

Throw in a large outbuilding to turn into my brewery/bar/mancave, with plans to build a pergola onto it for hops to grow up. Either a well or rainwater catchment for water. I'm looking at possibly trying to capture a "wild" yeast this year, maybe next.

100% homegrown? Yep, I'm working on it...

 

awesome.

and you're just across the river & up the road (US15) from me

 

Sounds like there may be some looting going on during that zombie apocalypse!

 

On Youtube this guy shows a series of videos where he growes his grain and malts it and maked beer.

Brewing Beer The Hard Way.

http://www.youtube.com/feed/UCoDXW3Rqe2mIsCVKnZwbFXw/u

 

I'll let you know when it's barley threshing time...

--Misha

 

I think this is a fascinating idea. I grew up on a farm, and I'd LOVE to have a few acres to tinker with