I can't thank the experts at the U of M enough for their gracious offer to supply me with a small amount of barley seed for my 'grow it yourself' batch of beer project. If all goes well, I should have enough barley to make a 5 gallon batch of beer in about 4 months. In exchange for the seed, I have agreed to share my progress through this blog, and share some of the final product with them. That sounds fair to me! Now to find a place to plant it.
I've also planted a few
varieties of hops around the house. I heard you don't get much of a harvest your first year... and I've also heard from someone who grew them last year, that a first year harvest can yield over a pound of hops. So, we'll see. The goal will be to grow, harvest, malt, dry and kiln the barley.. Grow, harvest and dry the hops.. Then use it all for a batch of beer in the fall. We'll see what happens!
Did you have any luck with this? I have the same hopes of making a beer that was all created by me (I figure repitching yeast counts as made by me since it replicated at my place). I'm intimidated by all the steps for malted barley and was thinking that I'd use sorghum.
ReplyDeleteGabe, I learned a lot. I was given about 20 ozs of barley seed, which shoudl have yielded enough for a 5 gallon batch. My harvest was only 7ozs!! Apparently the Walnut tree in my boulevard spoils growth for seveal plant species (trees, shrubs, flowers, etc.). The acidity of the walnut roots is the trouble. This is the reason why my barley batch was so anemic.
ReplyDeleteBUT, I DID harvest the 7 oz crop, I seperated the seeds, soaked them, got them to sprout, then dried them. The next step was to roast them. I never did this, partly because of the time it would take in the oven, and the attention it would have taken (you need to keep the barley 'misted/damp' so it doesn't burn). With such a small batch I let it go.
All of the info I found on the web said,'don't do it because it's too time consuming', I ashewed this and tried it anyway. Turns out they were right. But don't let that deter you! Experiment!
Cheers,
-Chris
Have you read the Homebrewer's Garden? I bet you'd like it.
ReplyDeleteSorghum sounds much easier than barley. You can malt the seeds or just boil down the stalks to get the sugars without even malting. You also only need to water when it's a seedling so I figure some day I'll rent out a small plot to grow it since you don't have to tend it much.