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A Year on the Homestead – Spring

Spring is always an interesting time around the homestead. You’re never really sure what Nature is going to do from one day to the next; all you really know is that things will be growing before long, and there’s too much to do.

Boreas, guarding the homestead
Boreas, guarding the homestead.

The animals, likewise, are of mixed opinions about the weather. Bacchus and Boreas, our two Great Pyrenees, would generally rather be outside than in–we keep the house “too hot” for them, and they don’t mind the snow. The chickens, on the other hand, aren’t fans.

Chickens at their feeders in the snow
Two chickens braving the elements

This year, we’ve managed to get garlic, onions, and peas in thus far–with luck, they’ve had enough time to settle in, before this nice snowstorm. I’ll be curious to see how the asparagus does. My various hops have sent up shoots, as well. Mostly, they’re still covered by plenty of leaves and grass debris, so they should be fine.

Part of the plan for this year is to have a portion of the side field tilled, so that I can sow various grains–wheat, maybe rye, and of course my barley. We’re also having the “North hillside” tilled up, so we can scatter a variety of pollinator-friendly plants–we’ve got any number of packets of “bee forage mix,” plus lots of sunflower seed, and I’m hoping to try out viper’s bugloss. As we get all of that set up and going, we’ll be updating things here. And with luck, this year the bees will thrive and survive–they’ll be worth a series of posts all their own.

But all of that is yet to come, as we wait for the snow to melt and the weather to warm, however slightly. We wait, and watch the earliest blooms come to life, and watch the various trees and shrubs prepare to burst into green…

Spring Flowers
Flowers blooming in the Spring
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Fourteen Steps for Brewing Medieval Beer

While sorting through stacks of dusty, old German books, looking for beer recipes that might date to pre-1600, or hints as to where they may be, I stumbled across an interesting series of books: the Oeconomia, oder Hausbuch. They were put into publication beginning in 1563 by Johannes Coler, a German Protestant priest who lived from 1566-1639. He lived in various parts of what is now Germany, including Frankfurt and Parchim, but spent a significant part of his early life in Berlin. Coler’s father, the Provost of Berlin, was the Lutheran theologian Jakob Coler; Jakob authored the books, but was in poor health by 1600, and his son had them printed on Jakob’s behalf.

The topic of the books was a popular one at the time: Household Maintenance. This ran the gauntlet from keeping and maintaining the gardens, hunting, cooking, finances, etc. But the most important chapter, for my purposes, was Chapter 20 of the Second Book. This chapter was entitled: On Brewing. Here’s what it looks like:

One page of the German beer brewing text

To be sure, it’s only one brewing method (“how we do things here in Berlin”), but it’s better than most of the other stuff I’ve seen, which includes more than a little bit of guesswork.  And what’s better, it’s all recognizable! This is all stuff that has equivalents in modern brewing (mostly).  Let’s break it down, with my translation (slightly tweaked for readability, and modern language):

  1. Pour the barley into a butt, and leave it to soak there for three days and nights (in winter, four is as well).
  2. Pour the barley onto a platform, raised into a heap, until it begins to germinate or shoot.
  3. Stir it frequently, separating the grains from each other, until there is a small sprout at its tip.
  4. When enough of it has sprouted, separate the grains from each other, and dry it in the stove-room, in the sun, or in a drying-oven.
  5. Grind the malt coarsely, so that the meal is well-hulled.
  6. In a pot, bring water to “seething;” put the milled malt into the butt, and pour the hot water over it, and stir it together.
  7. Scoop the mash from the butt into the kettle, and stir it well so that it does not burn. If the malt is burned, the beer will taste burnt, as well.
  8. Put wood laths alongside each other in the butt, and pack around them tightly with straw to strain the malt out from the liquid. (The butt needs to have a tap in front.)
  9. Pour the cooked malt into the butt, on the straw, and open the tap, collecting the liquid in another butt. If there is a lot of malt, heat another kettle of water, and pour it onto the grain. (If you want good beer, you pour less water; if you want a lot of beer, but lower quality, you pour a lot of water.)
    The second page of the German beer brewing text
  10. Once you have collected the runoff, pour a little into the kettle, so that it is about one-third full. Add hops–if the beer is going to store for a long time, you need a little more hops; if it is going to be drunk quickly, you need less. Stir the hops in, and bring the liquid to a boil. (The boil duration is as long as you think necessary, which is learned by experience and taste).
  11. When the boil has gone long enough, you add the rest of the liquid to fill the kettle, and bring the whole volume to a boil (without stirring).
  12. After the boil, place a large basket over a butt, and scoop the beer into the butt, straining the hops out in the basket. (If you are making a small beer, re-use these hops in it, straining them out after the boil again.)
  13. Let the beer cool to lukewarm, then add an adequate amount of yeast: more yeast if there is more beer, but less yeast for a smaller volume.
  14. Let the beer ferment for one to three days (or eight days for a Lager Beer), then remove the yeast from the top, and pour the beer into a cask. If it will be drunk soon, let it sit for eight days to clear and carbonate. If it is a Lager Beer, let it sit for longer. Afterwards, tap the cask and drink.

The third page of the German beer brewing text.

That seems like a lot to process, I know, but it’s really not so bad once you unpack what Johann says. At its heart, there are three parts to this.

First, steps one through five take you from raw grain to ground malt. There are a pair of surprises here. The most obvious one is that classically, we’ve thought that brewers purchased “finished” malt from maltsters. According to this, that wasn’t the case, at least in some areas–and if there was a part of the world I’d have bet there were professional maltsters in period, it would have been Germany.

But the really interesting thing to me is the drying of the malt. The most common “thought-experiment” description of medieval beer says it would have tasted smoky, from being dried over wood. Here we have a choice of three methods to dry the malt: “in the stove-room, in the sun, or in a drying-oven.” The drying-oven sounds to me like what we’d call a kiln. While I have issues with the notion that all kilns inherently smoked the malt, I’ll grant that it’s possible.

Drying malt “in the sun,” however, sounds like you’re creating what I’ve seen referred to as “wind-malt.” (I’ll call it “sun-malt,” from here out.) Basically, air-dried. And “in the stove-room” sounds to me like the equivalent of “dry it in a warm, dry place.” While I can come up with a way for the “stove-room” to smoke the malt, however slightly, I can’t really picture sun-malt having any smoke at all. And either of these two would give you an extremely pale malt–easily as pale as the palest of modern ale malts. I’d say at most, you’re probably looking at between 2.5 and 3.5 degrees Lovibond.

Second, from six to about thirteen, you’re taking your malt and brewing beer. Again, there are a few interesting points. First, the “seething” water used in the mash. The German word used is “sieden,” which nowadays can translate as “to boil.” I submit to you, however, that the Berliners knew what they were doing, and knew that if the mash steeped too hot, you wouldn’t get good wort. (Modern science tells us that the malt conversion enzymes denature above about 160 degrees Fahrenheit.) Running the numbers through my brewing calculators, in order to cool a volume of boiling water to mash temperature, you’ve got to have so much grain that your mash wouldn’t work.

If, however, you bring your strike-water to a bit below boiling–seething, or (as the English have so poetically put it) “smiling”–your mash temperature will tend to even out in the 152 to 156 degree range, given a number of other variables. This is perfect mashing temperatures. (William Harrison, in his 1577 Description of England, calls several times for seething water.)

Scooping the mash back into the kettle and presumably heating it (all the while stirring it, to prevent it from scorching) looks to me like either decocting, or heating the mash up to “mash-out” temperatures (stopping the enzymatic activity)–probably the former. If the malt is of uneven quality, this would probably help to bump up the mash efficiency a little bit. I’ll have to do a bit of experimentation here, and update this with my results.

Straining the wort out from the malt is fairly straightforward. Pouring more water onto the grain to increase the volume of beer is sensible, as well. I find it interesting that they’re actually adjusting the quality of beer by adding more or less water–the end volume doesn’t seem as important, here, so much as the quality of the end result.

Then they fill the kettle a third of the way with wort, and boil it with the hops. The odd bit here is that they’re doing a partial-boil initially, then later adding the rest of the hops. I’m not certain the purpose of this–again, some experimentation will be forthcoming. (Another interesting point is re-using the same hops to make a small beer…)

Third, step fourteen, is fermenting, racking, clarifying, and (eventually) drinking the beer. The beer goes through what, for lack of a better term, I’ll call primary fermentation: up to three days, or “eight days for a Lager Beer.” Bear in mind, “lagers” in the modern sense were unheard of, at this time. This is attested to by the notion of “removing the yeast from the top”–skimming off the krauesen, or foam. If this were an English ale, we would call this “top-cropping” the yeast.

Having removed the yeast, the beer is now poured into its serving-cask, where it will sit for eight days, or–again, the interesting bit–longer, if it is a Lager Beer.  Either way, by most modern standards, this is really quite quickly done. Most modern ales are around a month old or more, when you’re able to buy them; lagers (in the modern sense) take at least twice as long.

But they’re calling for the beer to be “clear and carbonated.” So, apparently it works… Yet again, further experimentation will need to take place.

There you have it! How to brew beer, in the style of Berlin, circa 1596. Great! But what’s the recipe? Well, for that, you’ll have to wait for my next post. What do you think? Please comment below…

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How, When, and Why I Started Brewing

The things I’m asked most often about when I started brewing are how, when, and why, exactly, I started.  To answer these questions and more, we need to set the way-back machine to 1994, when I was a young Sailor stationed in Hawaii.

At the time, I was in my early 20’s, and a bare novice at all things alcohol. The craft brewery scene hadn’t really launched yet, to say nothing of the homebrewing scene. Oh, I had been ‘introduced’ to beer–I did mention that I was a Sailor, right?–but when I had tried it, it was mass-produced swill, and the low-quality version, at that. (I was young, and the “premium” stuff was too expensive…)

What I was interested in, though, was cooking. I missed home-cooked meals, and the chow hall on base simply wasn’t cutting it. The house I was sharing had a lovely kitchen, but my cooking skills were mostly limited to grilled cheese and soup.  So, seeing an opportunity, I set about learning, by raiding the local bookstores for cookbooks. (I did mention that this was a while ago, right? the Internet was barely in its infancy…)

One fine day, while perusing the shelves in a Borders Bookstore which undoubtedly no longer exists, a book quite literally leapt out at me.  Seriously, it fell off the shelf. That book was The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing, by Charlie Papazian. Intrigued by the promise of learning “to make beer just the way you like it,” the book came home with me, and I devoured its contents in the space of a couple of nights.

It was about the same time that Sam Adams began distributing to the islands, and I had my first taste of the Boston Lager. To put it mildly, I was blown away, and hooked.

It wasn’t for another six months, though, in early 1995, that I put my first batch together. It took a series of things coming together. First, I had found a store that sold homebrew supplies. Second, I moved to a new rental house, with a different roommate. And third, we decided to throw a housewarming party. I scraped together a little extra cash and bought the basics:

  • A 10-quart pot, to serve as my “boil kettle”;
  • A 6-gallon plastic fermenting bucket, with a lid and airlock;
  • A bunch of siphoning gear (tubing, cane, wand); and
  • Two cans of malt extract, two ounces of hops, and a sachet of dry yeast.

I started the batch before we had even finished unpacking. I had my first boilover; we cooled the pot in the sink, and the freshly-pitched batch fermented happily away in the hall closet. I’m not sure exactly what the ingredients were–I was so new at it, that I didn’t even know what was important to record, at the time. I believe that it was Munton and Fisons malt extract (but can’t swear to it); I’m told it was a can each of dark and light extract. The hops were recorded as “one ounce of high-alpha hops, one ounce of low-alpha hops.” As to the yeast, your guess is as good as mine. (Thinking back on the batch, as best I can–this was over twenty years ago–and I’d probably use Nottingham, if I were to try it again.)

Subsequent purchases included bottles and caps, priming sugar, and a bottling wand. Two weeks after the batch was started, it was bottled; about three weeks after that, we had the party.

The beer was extremely well received, with favorable comparisons to Sam Adams. (By this time, I had discovered a local watering hole that carried hundreds of brands of beer, and my tastes had branched out considerably.) Most of it was gone by the next morning, but the feeling of satisfaction from knowing that I had made the beer, and that people liked it, remained.

Many batches followed that one; most of them were less successful. I was still largely flying blind, with just the one guidebook (and the one, very limited, source of ingredients). I had my first infected batch, and more than a couple of “drinkable, but less than tasty” batches. And then I moved back to the mainland; things paused for the duration of one military course, and two years in Japan.

But the urge to brew again never left. The instant I had another place stateside, I went looking for more information–and things had radically changed. There was a homebrewing community, and the Internet had happened (mostly), and craft breweries were popping up seemingly everywhere. And I’ve never really looked back.

Since that first batch, I estimate I’ve brewed nearly 500 batches. I’ve refined my technique, branched into meads and wines, upgraded equipment, shifted to all-grain, and things continue to move. When my wife and I got back into the Society for Creative Anachronism, that opened up the aspect of historical brewing. And things have continued to go, since then.

Let’s see where this all takes us.

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Brewing Status Update, October 2017

I’ve got four types of hops growing, assuming the Sterling survive the winter.  They were looking a little weak, but then, so were the Magnums when they were initially planted, so I’m just sort of waiting.  The Magnums are doing pretty well–I actually got some hops from them.  Not much to write home about, but it’s a harvest.  The Willamette plant is absolutely going gangbusters–I need to dig up that crown and split it, this winter/early spring.  I’ll probably be able to divvy it up into six or eight healthy crowns, without trying very hard.  And the Cascades (all 3 bines) are doing quite well–I didn’t get as much of a harvest as I might have liked, but that’s on me, not on the plants.  Next year, hopefully, will be another story.

I’ve been trying my hand at beekeeping; so far, with much less success than I’d like.  I had two colonies last year; both absconded.  Started over with two this year; one has absconded, but the other appears set to at least go into the winter…  We’ll see how they fare.  These have all been Italian bees, and I think part of the reason for them absconding has been mite pressure, combined (this year) with some pollen-bound comb.  I’ve got an order in for two nucleus hives of Russian bees for next spring; they’re apparently mite-resistant.  If they work out, that’ll be outstanding; if not, I may take a break for a year & come back to the hobby again later.

In SCA terms, well…  The King felt it worthwhile to induct me into the Order of the Laurel two weeks back (!!!).  Reasons cited included my baking, woodworking, and a few assorted other crafts… but primarily my brewing.  Which is what brings us here today…

My goal, when starting the latest bit of research, was (and still is) finding a good semblance of a recipe for the original Einbecker Bier–the ancestor of today’s Bock.  I’ve seen references to it from numerous period sources, describing it variously as subtle, light, and “a paragon among all summer, light, hoppy beers.”  The beer was one of the main drivers for Einbeck joining the Hanseatic League; through the League, the beer was shipped as far as Novgorod, England, Italy, and even Jerusalem. (Reportedly, Hansa Hofs and Kontors even built special warehouses, to hold the casks of Einbecker Bier.)

A moment’s thought should bring a conclusion: the beer was likely big, in every sense.  Strong and hoppy.  The descriptions keep calling it “light;” that’s probably more a color thing than flavor–but experimentation may provide other insights; despite being at this issue for several years, now, I’m still pretty early in the hands-on part of the exercise… Maybe next year.

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Brew Day, January 2016

The winter barley is getting its first snowfall of the year (!). Chickens are giving us the occasional egg, mostly holding out for slightly longer days. I probably could have harvested hops, if everything hadn’t gotten away from me; they’ll have to wait for this year. Likewise much of the garden. On the bright side, there were no real disasters, so I’ve got that.

I’m brewing regularly again. In fact, there’s an historical-ish English ale coming up to a boil as I type this. I’ve got a half-batch moscat pyment on deck, for my wife. And I’ve got to decide what to make next month… I’m leaning towards a brown ale, for drinking in the late spring or early summer.

Also on deck, I’ll be a beekeeper, come springtime (mid-May or so). I’m looking forward to it, and not just for the honey and wax. I’ve long been interested in bees, and now I’ll get to work with them up-close.

Here’s to a new year, and new excitement!

Harrison’s Wife’s Ale (this recipe is #148 in Misha’s Little Black Book)

8 lbs Maris Otter malt
2 lbs Dark wheat malt
1 lb Oat malt
2 oz East Kent Goldings pellet hops (4.6% AA, 1 hour)
1 Whirlfloc tablet (15 minutes)
1 pack Wyeast 1098 British Ale Yeast

Mash at ~158F for 1 hour. Pre-boil wort volume 7.5 gallons.
Boil 1 hour, hopping to schedule.
OG: 1.052
(Kegged 21 Feb 2016. Color was surprisingly light.)

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Springtime!

Well, things are rolling around to springtime again, so it’s been out to the garden/field for me.  It looks as though my Maris Otter barley has survived the winter; with a few more sunny days, it should pop up fairly quickly.  My hops also appear to have survived, at least mostly: the Cascades and Willamettes are already full of shoots, and there appear to be at least a couple of shoots from the Sterlings and Magnums.  The “retired” Cascades are set to go berserk this year, as well.

As a bit of insurance, I ordered one of each type of rhizome this year from Midwest Supplies; they arrived earlier this week, and I got them into the ground yesterday.  The Sterlings and Magnums went to supplement last year’s, and the Cascade and Willamette went into new areas by a fence between my back yard and the “back field”.  I’ll let them climb on the fence, for this year, then put up poles for them in the fall, for next year.

I’ve got to say, also, if you’re going to order rhizomes, go through Midwest.  I’m not affiliated, yada yada; I’m just exceptionally happy with the rhizomes I got this year.  Last year’s, from another source, were kind of wimpy; they looked like they’d been out of the ground for a while, and might not have been viable.  (They’re hops, and tenacious; at least one of each variety survived long enough to put up shoots; I had deer problems…)  The ones this year were sizable, and had at least six or seven shoots  on each rhizome.  (The Magnums had probably a dozen, and the rhizome itself was thicker than my thumb!)  Yes, they’ll be establishing roots, this year, but I’m confident that if I can keep the critters away, they’ll be productive next year.

I also managed to sow my Bere, Hana, and Sprat barley, with another test-planting of volunteer wheat.  It’s year 3 for the Bere, so I’m reasonably confident in it; I hope to double my yield of Hana, this year–I might have gotten 50g from the 5g sown, last year.  This is year 1 for the Sprat; we’ll see how it goes.

I’ve got a few other things going plant-wise, right now, as well… New blackberry plants, in a location hopefully relatively safe from the deer.  I’ve got some hazelnut seedlings in, and hope to be able to “play” with those in a few years.  My apple trees are all budded out nicely, and the cherry trees are looking to follow suit–in a week or two, I expect the orchard area to be awash in white and pink petals.  Plans are afoot to get some beehives; their location is selected, and if things to go plan, I’ll get the bees next spring.  Things are moving along!

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Turning up cups!

Due to Winter(tm), and the associated weather, my outside brewing has been limited, lately.  Instead, I’ve got three batches of mead burbling away.  One is a traditional, made with Radish and Christmasberry honeys; the second is a Blackberry/Raspberry melomel, with these berries in some blackberry honey; the third is my wife’s popular Cranberry, with varietal honey and two pints of homemade cranberry sauce.  The ciders from the fall (2.5 gallons of perry, 5 gallons of apple) are seemingly quite happy, as well–settling out and clearing nicely.

So, given the abundance of “free time,” I’ve been playing with wood.  But not just any playing. Me being me, this is SCA playing.

I wish I could say that I’m using period tools, but I’m just not there yet.  (Yes, I did say ‘yet.’)  I’m working up to using period materials–I want to get some basic skillsets down before I go whole-hog and pay the pretty pennie$ necessary for the right wood varieties.  So, I’m practicing on and off with chest-making; I’ve got a pair of Mastermyr-style chests done.  I really like them–the sloped sides are aesthetically pleasing to me–but finding hardware is a pain.  I’m working up to being able to make my own–but blacksmithing is a whole ‘nother skillset…

Most of the fun, though, has been woodturning: bowls, cups, and plates.

Assortment of my early attempts at turning bowls and cups. Banana for scale
Drinking vessels, in assorted birch, maple, ash, and cherry. Banana for scale.

It’s relatively early days, yet.  I’m almost to where I really want to be with the basics–I don’t have to do much post-processing (sanding), if I take my time and work methodically.  Still, I’m running 45 minutes to an hour per vessel; I might be able to bring it to more like 30 minutes, given enough practice.

I’m doing quite a bit of study, too, to find period-appropriate shapes and styles.  Oddly enough, wood types matter here, too, although it’s not quite as crucial.  Most of what I’ve been turning have been drinking bowls and cups–and they tended to be maple, ash, or birch, depending on what part of the world you were looking at.  (Maple seemed to be a universal; ash and birch–mostly ash–were popular in Russia, while alder and birch seemed to be favored in England.)

So, I’m doing up a class, for Gemutlichplatz (a semi-local event, focused on brewing and brewers), on turned wooden drinking vessels.  I hope to have enough examples to do a bit of drinking with them, too.

But a thought which struck me, recently: how much demand is there, in the SCA community, for period wooden drinking vessels?  Is there enough to support my getting a business license, and peddling them at the odd event or two?  Perhaps an Etsy shop?  I’ve been thinking about this more than a little bit, lately…  Perhaps three “tiers” of wares, to start:

  • Period material and design (researched design);
  • Period design, modern selection of material;
  • Plausibly- or non-period design (inlays, etc.), modern material.

At the least, it might support my hobbies somewhat–even if only to make the turning sustainable.  (Woodturning is an amazingly fun way to make a whole lot of wood shavings…)  I have designs, eventually, on making some pottery and pit-firing it, too–probably using the shavings from turning–which might find its way, eventually, into the second or third tier of the storefront.  Add in carved things (spoons, bowls–particularly the big dough/bread trays), and it starts looking really interesting.

I plan on gauging the reaction at Gemutlichplatz, and asking a few trusted individuals between now and then, and making my decision towards spring.  If I do go for it, it wouldn’t be before fall; I’d have to build up an inventory.  What say you, good Reader?  Is there interest?

(2018 edit: I decided there was enough interest, and have opened Holmgard Trading Company on Etsy. The focus is still mainly on turning bowls, cups, and plates, but I’ve also branched into carved bone items, and will likely expand past that in the future.)

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Malting, The Next Adventure

So, after almost twenty years (!) of working on the brewing art, I’ve decided to step up my game, and go to the next level: malting.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m now in the process of growing my own grains. This is year two; my total harvest, from less than 120sqft of seed sown, is probably about twelve pounds.  Not much–but not bad, when you consider that I started from just over an ounce total from four varieties of “heirloom” seed (Hana, Bere, Maris Otter, and Halcyon), and added in about a quarter pound of modern commercial seed (Conlon) last year.

I’ve combined the Maris Otter and Halcyon seed, for what I’m calling “MoH”.  Halcyon is derived from Maris Otter, and it’s hard to tell the two apart–particularly when the dogs “helped” with the sowing, and thoroughly “tilled” the patches of sown seed, mixing the two.  No loss.  They’ll be spread across a 50’x50′ area this fall, assuming I can get the rototiller started in the next few days.

In the meantime, I’ve purchased a 25# bag of Conlon seed from the lovely folks at Johnny’s Selected Seeds, and built an Arduino-controlled malt kiln and a decidedly low-tech couching bed, as well as a number of food-grade plastic buckets (can you ever have too many?) and an aquarium air pump.  With this, let the malting begin!

I’m doing this, at first, in six-pound batches.  Once I get things figured out, I might be able to go as high as fifteen; container size is a limiting factor.  The first step is to clean and steep the grains.  I put the grain into a bucket, covered them with a few inches of water, stirred, and poured off the chaff that floated to the top.  Repeat a few times, then just leave the water in, and let ’em go. The picture below is the grains beginning their journey…

Malting: Grains steeping
Grains cleaned and steeping.

After a couple of hours, pour off the water, and let the grains “air” for six to eight hours.  Then cover them again with water for six to eight (or ten or twelve, depending on your source), and repeat.  After about two days, they should have begun “chitting”–you’ll see little white tips on the grains.  At this point, they’re ready to begin germination.  Drain the water thoroughly, then let the grains sit, stirring them (gently) every so often–three or four times a day is supposedly good enough. They need oxygen at this point, and will be giving off CO2 and heat; the stirring keeps them oxygenated, and lets the heat dissipate somewhat.

Let them “rest” a day or two more, and they’ll have developed rootlets:

Malting: Chitting and roots
Grains “chitting,” and root development
You’ll want to start checking for acrospire growth at this point–every now and then, grab a grain, and rip it apart lengthwise.  Look for the shoot, connected to the rootlets, and see how long it is, relative to the grain.  At 2/3 to 100%, you need to start drying and kilning; less, and they need to sit a little longer. If too many of them go longer, you’ve got some lovely animal feed–the chickens love it.

 

If you’re drying them, there are multiple ways to go.  Easiest for most is probably the oven–but be careful; if you go over about 50 degrees C (about 120F), you’ll kill the enzymes you need for mashing. This is where my kiln comes into play:

Malting: Arduino-powered kiln
Arduino ‘kiln’, sitting atop the couching bed

I can’t take credit for it–that goes to Richard Oliver, whom I haven’t been able to contact, and his kiln design.  I believe mine works exactly the same, even though I’ve built it slightly differently (larger, and different temperature sensors).  Basically, there’s a low-wattage hot-air gun (the green thing, bottom center) blowing hot air below the grain (suspended on a stainless mesh).  There’s a temp sensor below the grain, and another one resting on top. The gaggle of wires is for an Arduino, which monitors the temperatures–if the bottom sensor gets to a set temperature, it starts cycling the heat gun, trying to maintain temp.  (The Arduino is programmed to function like a PID, “learning” to hold the set temp.) Once the top sensor reads the same as the bottom, that means the grain has dried.  In theory, I’ll be able to get most types of base malts with the kiln–crystal and roasted malts will take the oven.

So, the first attempt used the leftover Conlon I had for the planting–it was fairly old, and I’m not certain I got good germination from it. I’ve started batch #2, and will tweak the process, and report back.  Too much fun!

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Barley, Round II: One-Month Check In

Okay, the winter barley has been in the ground for about a month now, and it’s time for a check-up.  They’re doing fine; I’d put overall growth at almost a foot.  I gave the growing plants a “haircut” about two weeks ago, clipping them from ~9 inches down to ~4 1/2; my reasoning for this was multifold: a) the deer did it (and more severely!) last year, and it didn’t hurt them a bit; b) I wanted to suppress any excessive tillering before the first frost, to promote having a more established root system; c) something had been sleeping in the tall, lush “grass”, and I wanted to discourage it; and d) some high winds were making things “lay down” a bit more than I liked, and I wanted to minimize whatever damage might occur.

A more experienced farmer might allow point “b” as sensible, and the rest as unnecessary/irrelevant, but there it is–I couldn’t come up with a good reason not to, and had at least 4 reasons for doing it.  Regardless, they bounced right back within about a week.  (For the curious, whatever had been laying down in the barley–possibly a rabbit, squirrel, or chipmunk–stopped.)

The deck on the Undisclosed Location has been completed–well, all the decking is down, anyway.  I’ve still got the pergola to build, as well as steps and possibly a handrail or two.  Additionally, I’m looking at a smaller stoop out of the side-door from the UDL, with a ramp down to the decking, but that will require the removal of a few trees.  I’ve also got to get moving on trash removal–the debris-pile from the various construction we’ve been doing has reached ridiculous proportions.  Still, progress has been made overall.

It is with this in mind that I’m calling for the first Brew Day at the new house: November the 16th, 2013.  I haven’t yet decided exactly what I’ll brew, or any further details than that. I’ll update as I can!

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Barley, Round 2

Halcyon barley, sprouting

Well, the Autumnal Equinox has come and gone, and with it the “four-to-six weeks before first frost” mark for my area.  What does that mean?  Time to sow the winter barley!

As I write this (the 28th of September), the barley has been in the ground for just over a week.  Again, two varieties of winter barley: Maris Otter, and Halcyon.  I put down roughly 200g of each seed, using one of the garden planter-boxes.  I added a thin mulch layer, and have watered every other day for a few minutes (enough to soak the soil); I’ll keep up with that watering regime (less days when it actually rains) until I start seeing reliable predictions for the actual first frost.  (About then, the grain will go ‘dormant’ for the winter.)

Since the seed was planted in the garden area (near the house), as opposed to out in the field (‘far’ from the house), I’ve been able to keep an eye on them.  That, and having an electric fence I can put up have made it less likely to suffer from deer predation (as happened last year).  Watching the seed chit, then sprout, then grow, has been fascinating!

Here’s what we’ve got, a week into things:

That’s the Halcyon on the left, and the Maris Otter below, on the right.  (Yes, there’s a bit past the PVC pipe where it’ll be hard to distinguish between them; since Halcyon is a descendant of Maris Otter, and since they’re ultimately going to be malted together, I’m not terribly worried about it–I may, in fact, simply mix the two together next year.)

That looks roughly like 100% germination, or quite near enough.  If I get as good a harvest next year as I did this, I should end up with about 17lbs of each.  (Call it 15lbs, to account for inefficiencies in harvesting, etc.)  Not only would that get me set up to be “malt-sustainable” after one more harvest, it gives me more time to acquire the equipment I’ll need for the larger-scale growing.

My hops didn’t fare as well, this year: my “retired” Cascades are fine, but the Willamette was the only variety of “new” stuff that did well enough to give me hope for next year…  The Magnum may have survived, but the “new” Cascade and the Sterling both thoroughly croaked.  I’ll replace them next spring. They’ll have better access to sunlight, as I’ve got a number of trees to take down; I’ll also be better able to “baby” them along.  (Not to mention getting them in the ground earlier than I could, this year.)