The Backyard Homestead by Madigan Carleen

Author:Madigan, Carleen [Madigan, Carleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
Published: 2009-02-10T23:00:00+00:00

two-row barley

six-row barley

The greatest advantage of home-malting (whether or not you grow the grain yourself) is that you can bring the cost of brewing a batch of beer down to almost nothing.

Harvest. When the grain is ready to harvest, the stalks should be golden; the individual grains should be hardening and difficult to dent with a fingernail but not brittle. They will have lost about 30 percent of their water content at this point. The ears will be bent over. The grains will be pale yellow and will easily pull off the head. Wait until the grains are perfectly mature before cutting the stalks and curing them in the field. The stalks will need to be threshed (bashing bundles of grain to separate the grains from the dried seedheads) and winnowed (using a fan to blow away the chaff) before they can be used for malting. Store the grain in burlap sacks in a cool cellar until it’s needed.

Homegrown Hops

Although hops aren’t grains like barley, they are a major ingredient in beermaking. They are also attractive plants that make great arbors, wreaths, and arrangements. Every home-brewer who owns a piece of land should try his or her hand at growing a few hop vines.

When you grow your own hops, you can pick them at their absolute peak of readiness. As soon as hops are picked, they start to lose the essential oils needed for good flavor and aroma. The best way to know that hops haven’t been sitting on a shelf for a year is to grow your own. Commercial whole hops, the least processed form available, have been cut down, run through a packing machine, dried, baled, shipped, repackaged, and shipped again before reaching the homebrew store. Inevitably, some of the hops’ bitter resins and essential oils are lost during processing. Your own hops will never have to run the gauntlet, making them fresher, more aromatic, and better for brewing than any you could buy. The aroma alone will be enough to convert you, to say nothing of the flavor.

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