Growing Your Own Barley?

[JulesSeddo]

Anyone out there tried to grow and malt their own barley in a backyard or a small property?

Looks like commercial barley growers get something like 1000kg per hectare so I figure I'd need about 100 sqr m to get about 10kg (enough for say 2 x 20L brews).

The malting sounds a bit more difficult at home - with only a domestic oven.

Anyone tried????

 

[Lecterfan]

I know this isn't actually a reply - but I was reading some of the links from this one recently just for shits and giggles:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=29901

 

[Greg.L]

The biggest problem is getting the seed - it comes in 40kg sacks, a lot more than you would need, maybe a bulk buy. Barley is pretty easy to grow with a bit of fertiliser - urea and super mainly. I tried it once but got hit by a bad frost, that was the end of that. You can't use the seed barley to make beer because it's treated.

 

[JulesSeddo]

Loved the old posts thanks - I haven't read the main article referred to yet but I will.

Good to see some others have been thinking along the same lines as myself. I'm surprised by the nay sayers though. If too hard, too much time, not enough consistency in results were to put us off we wouldn't brew our own beer at all - just get a six pack from the local.

And I don't get the pessimism regarding growing malt quality barley - professional farmers don't have anything magic that can't be done at a smaller scale - id anything they are limited in the time and inputs per unit area of land compared with a keen backyard gardener. What did local communities do in the days before diesel headers and artificial fertilizers? They grew barley and hops, malted on their farms and made beer from scratch....

 

[FNQ Bunyip]

1000kg /ha , would hardly be worth harvesting ..
you might need to do a bit more research ..
cheers

 

[Brewing_Brad]

Anyone out there tried to grow and malt their own barley in a backyard or a small property?

Looks like commercial barley growers get something like 1000kg per hectare so I figure I'd need about 100 sqr m to get about 10kg (enough for say 2 x 20L brews).

The malting sounds a bit more difficult at home - with only a domestic oven.

Anyone tried????

I'm giving it a go right now. I'm only doing a small bed (10m2) just as an experiment, but the biggest lesson I've learnt so far is; beware the birds! They ate about 10-20% of my crop before it even had a chance to germinate.

My advice; either sew more to account for the loss or somehow protect it - maybe a jack russle?

 

[sim]

i grew some wheat a couple years ago in the backyard in Brisbane, and it was about as succefull as - sow 1 espresso cup of seed, harvest 2 espresso cups of seed.

I was pretty casual about the whole thing, im sure if there was more at stake (like cost and quantity) it would have been more successfull.

Good luck to you!

 

[komodo]

On small scale id suggest bird netting like orchards use would be your best bet

 

[Malted]

On small scale id suggest bird netting like orchards use would be your best bet

Scale everything down and you'll be fine!

 

[Braumoasta]

A problem you may come across is getting the correct strain of barley. Different strains of barley are used for different purposes, so finding a strain which is good for malting for your beer would be required.

Nevertheless I say give it a go. The end result may not (and lets face it, probably wont) be perfect, but it would be an excellent learning experience. There is really nothing to lose...

 

[mika]

....
but the biggest lesson I've learnt so far is; beware the birds! They ate about 10-20% of my crop before it even had a chance to germinate.
....

Official way of dealing with this as suggested by the Agriculture Board, when the birds attacking your crops are a supposedly endangered species, is to plant a decoy crop and that will take care of all your problems..... I think they were serious too ?

 

[manticle]

Do you have to paint the decoy crop a special colour so the birds know which one to go for?

 

[Feldon]

 

[Greg.L]

A problem you may come across is getting the correct strain of barley. Different strains of barley are used for different purposes, so finding a strain which is good for malting for your beer would be required.

Nevertheless I say give it a go. The end result may not (and lets face it, probably wont) be perfect, but it would be an excellent learning experience. There is really nothing to lose...

The variety I used was called "Schooner" so it sounded right at least. Any seed supplier will know the difference between feed barley and malting barley.

Really the seeds are so cheap per weight that if you have to sow a lot to account for birds you will still have seeds left over. They don't sell the seeds in little packs at Bunnings, you have to buy a whole sack.

 

[JulesSeddo]

I was involved in some ecological research in this approach to crop pests - we looked at decoy rice crops in SE Asia to attract rats. The idea is to plant the decoy crop so it ripens earlier than the main crop. You then trap intensively around the decoy crop to reduce pest numbers. Birds my not be so easy as more will just fly in from outside the area - also it's all well and good with rats as you can knock'em on the head but native birds are a different kettle of .......

 

[Greg.L]

Decoys aren't much good when the problem is birds eating the seeds sown on the ground. Planting a bit deeper would help.

 

[JulesSeddo]

True. My approach will be to plant more than I need also to set my cat loose - He'll be happy to spend hours chasing off seed theives!

By the way - what sort of area did you try to grow?

 

[MarkBastard]

One thing you could try and do is say grow less the first time around, and malt and then roast it yourself and use it as part of a recipe. That way your own malt only makes up a part of the recipe and if it isn't that good the beer should still be drinkable. Also means less work the first time around as you'll only need a few hundred grams of finished product instead of 5kg or more.

If it's a success you can then expand of course.

 

[Greg.L]

I tried an area about 20x10m, it grew well enough but got frosted while flowering. If you can get the seed I think it would be a good experiment, you just need to prepare the ground by digging and fertilising, and occasional watering if it dries out.

 

[JulesSeddo]

That's what I had in mind as the area I have a the moment isn't big enough to supply each years pale malt requirements (not that I make that much but even 2 or 3 brews is 10-15kg). I was thinking of a small area in the garden to supply enough for making some medium and dark malts as additions to the basic brew. That way I get to play around untill (with luck) I have a bit more land down the track.

The other idea was to try to get some malting barley and do the malting on comercial grain while I wait for the homegrown stuff. That way the teething problems are sorted before trying on my own hard won and scant supply.