Barley Harvest Fast Approaching

Our experimental barley plots, planted in April, are quickly approaching maturity. For the most part, the experiment thus far has been a success. We planted four different varieties, and they've all grown well. our biggest issues seem to be weeds (other grasses and horsetail), uneven fertility (the pigs were on this land right before the barley was planted, and their manure patterns might have had a big effect), and lodging. Winds about a month ago caused a bit of lodging, and then the heavy rain of this week caused widespread lodging. Lodging is the the term for barley that has fallen over, and thus is not standing up straight on its stalk. It's still alive, but laying on the ground causes all sorts of problems.

Lodged Barley

Over the last two weeks, the barley heads have progressed from tiny fertilized embryos to fully formed grains. The majority of the grain is currently in the hard dough stage (called so because if you squeeze a kernel at this stage it will resemble a firm flour dough in texture). The grain heads are rapidly turning from green into amber waves of grain, and the stalks and leaves are following behind. In a few days, we'll be ready to harvest.

Hulless barley. It seems to have matured the quickest.

We had a lot of interest from local homehttp://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.phpbrewers in turning out grain into quality malt for brewing beer. To get to that point, there are a lot of steps to jump through. Since I don't have a combine, we'll need to replicate the traditional ways of harvesting grain. Since I don't have a scythe, we'll use garden shears to cut the stems near the base of the plant. From there, we'll bundle them stems into sheaves using sisal twine. Depending on how many sheaves we have, we may bundle those sheaves into shocks. The purpose of all this bundling is to let the grain finish drying out under the hot sun. Since we have a lot of lodged barley, this is especially important. Once the grain is dry enough, we'll load the sheaves onto a trailer and bring them to a place to thresh. Threshing releases the grains from the barley heads, as well as breaking off the awns (those long pointy things). There are various methods to mechanically thresh, but we'll probably use a tarp doubled over and dance on the top. From there, we need to winnow the grain, which removes the chaff (those broken awns and stems) from the heavier grain. A box fan should work reasonably well. Now we have barley grain! A combine performs all these steps in one fell swoop, so you can understand why its an essential piece of equipment for harvesting grain in any quantity.
    At this point, the grain can be stored until ready to begin the malting process. When ready, the process begins by soaking the grains to initiate germination. After the soak, they need to be kept most and aerated to discourage mold. During this phase, rootlets emerge from the seed, and the first leaf (acrospire) starts to grow within the kernel. When the acrospire is almost ready to burst from the seed, the germination process is stopped by rapidly heating and drying the grain. This produces a base malt, from which various different malts can be produced by roasting. We are still working out the exact methodology to use in the malting process.

And just in case you didn't get enough barley madness, here is a picture of a six row barley head.

And a two-row barley head. Both can be used to make good quality malt.