100% NC pale ale

[MobyMD]

I found a field of wild barley on my morning run. I kept seeing it every morning and finally did something with it. I first had to figure out what it was. I did some research and if it is barley it will likely bend over because of the weight. Whet will stay straight up as it is not heavy enough to bend over. It was bent over. Barley also has husk around each kernel and wheat does not. This had a husk. Waited for it to dry and harvested it. I just cut the heads off. I gathered all the heads and put them in a pillow case. To break them up I beat it with a hammer. Then there was the winnowing. Set up a fan and passed the grain back and forth between two buckets. The fan blew all the junk away and the grains stayed in the bucket.

Next the malting. Soaked the grains in water for two hours. Drained and rested for eight hours. Repeated until I saw germination. Let if grow out until the roots were just longer than the kernel.

Next dried them all in a food dehydrator at 125 degrees. Then knocked off all the little roots when dry.

Roasted some in the oven to give it some color.

Milled and brewed.

I have a number of varieties of hops growing but I choose my Willamette as they were ready first.

Here is the recipe:
7.5lbs of wild malted grain
1.5lbs of around crystal 20L

2oz Willamette at 60 minutes
1oz Willamette at 10 minutes
1oz Willamette at 5 minutes
1oz Willamette at 0 minutes

The yeast is my house strain I have been using for two years. It started out as Rogue Pacman but i have used it so many times who knows what it is. The beer is currently conditioning. I will let you know when I taste it.

 

[AJBrew710]

Very cool. I've been thinking of doing my own hops and here you run the entire gambit. Cheers!

 

[brooksy]

Thank you for the post sir! Please keep us updated.

 

[larrydcarter]

Wow please post update when available. I'm really interested in how this turns out.

 

[seatbelt123]

Awesome project! Looking forward to the updates.

 

[MobyMD]

The OG came out as 1.040 a little lower than I was hoping for. I really didn't know what to expect from this. It smelt good brewing (especially with the fresh hops). It has finished the fermentation and well into conditioning. Clearing up better than I expected. Still haven't taken a sample yet. I want to but I am trying to have patience. This yeast will consistently finish around 1.009-1.011. I will bottling a Blueberry Hefeweizen this weekend to keep me busy. I picked the blueberries down the road from where I live.