Micro malt house DIY for home malting automation

[arzaman]

The project is a little bit slowing down and I'm working to traction control waiting for new pulley and belt

In the meanwhile I'm doing some experiment with manual malting process according to BYO recent article with locally produced barley.

now steeping

stay tuned
Davide

 

[mr_wibble]

Which issue of BYO is that?

Ah, Jan-Feb 2013.

 

[arzaman]

Yes January-February 2013
Good theoretical and practical article

2nd day steeping..

 

[arzaman]

I'm continuing my manual experiment at home

After 3 cycle of water-air rest of 12 hours at 15C the germination has started regularly and after 24 hours first rootlets appear

I have left the barley in a fresh room mixing sometimes and after one week of germination I have tried to understand acrospire development

Is not so clear to me what to observe but I have dissected some grains and to me seems that the length is below 50% of the total so I still wait for drying

stay tuned
Davide

 

[MauricioUY]

Hi Davide,
Are you already using your malting machine? or just making some tests?

rgrds,
Mauricio

 

[Not For Horses]

Hi Davide, looking at the rootlet development in your third photo, I would say that 50% is about right. Hard to know from a photo but looking good so far.

 

[arzaman]

Hi Davide,
Are you already using your malting machine? or just making some tests?

rgrds,
Mauricio

Hi Mauricio just doing malting experiment in order to familiarize with the process
The drum malting machine is slowing progressing..now solving drum traction problem

Davide

 

[arzaman]

I have progressed a little bit also on the malthouse equipment

I have bought two timing belts 1,5cm wide with 2,5mm step and a proper pulley to insert on the stepper motor shaft

Than I have used one of the belts in order to make the wash machine pulley that is originally smooth a sort of coghwheel. I cut the belt and I stuck on the wheel

Than I have tested the assembly connecting the stepper motor to a H-bridge driver based on LM298 and an Arduino Uno controller where I have loaded a basic stepper motor sketch

This is the result.. it seems to work!

http://youtu.be/awmj4AM9UFo

Unfortunately the bipolar motor absorption exceeds the 2A of the driver so after a while the heating protection starts
Next step source a more powerful driver

Davide

 

[mr_wibble]

What part is making that noise ?

 

[arzaman]

What part is making that noise ?

Good question , I'm surprised me too
I guess that the cause is the stepper motor controller: due to the fact the controller is not supporting that power and is chopping the current the stepper starts after few seconds “vibrating”
Moreover all the assembly nuts are very loose in order to test the solution

Hope the final version will be much more quiet

 

[arzaman]

Bought a new stepper motor driver and now the drum rotation is ok (even much lower noise)

http://forum.hobbycomponents.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=1371
is tipically used for high torque high current CNC stepper motor, lot of feature and simple to interface to arduino

short video of the rotation
http://youtu.be/IW_C9lQ7NW8

So the transmission issue has been fixed, heating and fans seem ok, I have to test water and solenoid valve / level sensor

stay tuned
Davide

 

[arzaman]

Unless the malt house project is proceeding slowly due to time contains and other project priority the barley is growing well

hope to have some spare time to complete the malt house automation before the barley harvest !

Davide

 

[mash head]

Looks like it could use some Nitrogen. Your malt box looks awesome though.

 

[mr_wibble]

G'day,

How are you planning to harvest the barley?

I want to grow some, but my wife asked how I was going to harvest a hectare of barley ... "By hand?!" she says, but I didn't have an answer.

 

[arzaman]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Harvesting time is quite close [/SIZE]and my barley field has changed greatly in the last months
[SIZE=10.5pt]Unlikely lot of Zizania (wild rice?) started to grow and in some area overhang the barley[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]two weeks ago[/SIZE]

Yesterday

[SIZE=10.5pt]Like in the bible I have to find a way to separate the “good form the bad” ..if someone has an idea how to perform this is welcome[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]The harvesting will be manual and I keep you posted about my labors [/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Davide[/SIZE]

 

[mr_wibble]

Just ideas - I don't have any experience with this ~

Can you sieve the final grains based on seed size

Or blow air through them such that lighter/smaller seeds are separated - I guess this is just winnowing.

If you are harvesting by hand, is it possible to just cut the heads you want ?
I guess this would take hours if not days.

 

[arzaman]

Today I have tried to harvest barley regardless the huge amount of "zizzania"
I have used the manual method with sickle ...it has been quite hard and I'm not so satisfied with the result and due to the amount of wild grass I have collected all together


Now I distributed over a tarpaulin In order to dry and the idea is to trash beating with a wood clapper

I'm little bit demoralized but determined to collect some kg of row barley to malt for at least a batch of beer

Davide

 

[Not For Horses]

Great work Davide!
Zizzania sounds a bit difficult.
MrWibble's post above might have the best ideas for separating the good from the bad. Separating by hand sounds time-consuming but it would work well.
I wonder if you could malt zizzania?

 

[Mardoo]

You are one awesome dude Davide. Keep it up. Very inspiring work!

 

[MastersBrewery]

you'd need a beer or 2 after all that hard work, please god don't let me win lotto and buy a small plot, cause I'll grow grain and kill myself harvesting the bastard for grain for beer! :unsure:

 

[mr_wibble]

When I was a kid our family owned a blueberry farm.

We had a sorting machine which was primarily a bunch of rollers with rows of large rubber bands - this formed a slotted conveyer belt.

The berries would roll along the belts with the smaller ones dropping down between the bands.

Perhaps to sort the seeds, you could make a wooden box with many slots (of the correct size) cut in the bottom.
Shaking a small amount of seeds would allow the smaller ones to drop through. I think this would work well for the very small seeds in the rightmost photo.

But the zizzania look much the same size as barley. Google translates "zizzania" as "discord", how appropriate.

cheers,
-kt

 

[mash head]

It seems you didn't think this through, you did such an awesome job with the malt maker, and now you need to make a machine to separate and sort your grains.
In the real old days they would beat the stalks against a hard piece of ground to break up the heads of grain, they would then shovel up the grain and on a windy day throw it in the air to allow the chaff to blow off. This should also remove the weed seeds, as they look a lot like ryegrass which is a lot smaller and lighter than the barley.
If you want to keep growing grain see if you can buy an old harvester, Ive seen them used stationary with people feeding material in the throat and clean product coming out the other end.
If you can break it down to just the heads, a set of soft rollers would probably break the grain away from the back bones.
Good luck

 

[MauricioUY]

Hi Davide
The weed you have in your field is named “Rye Grass” or Lolium Multiflorum.
It´s a very common weed in barley or wheat crops, here in South América.
You could control it on field with Pinoxaden + Cloquintocet-mexyl (AXIAL - Commercial product of Syngenta).
Now, your best solution is to be patient.

Good luck.

Rgs,
Mauricio

 

[changchuyo]

I would like to see pictures of it working. Looks awsome, congratulations!

 

[arzaman]

Hi Davide
The weed you have in your field is named “Rye Grass” or Lolium Multiflorum.
It´s a very common weed in barley or wheat crops, here in South América.
You could control it on field with Pinoxaden + Cloquintocet-mexyl (AXIAL - Commercial product of Syngenta).
Now, your best solution is to be patient.

Good luck.

Rgs,
Mauricio

Thank you for advice Mauricio
I know exactly the weed..and I know that there are techniques to prevent it but my choice has been not to use any chemical product...let say organic

So patience is included and admitted in organic production

Ciao
Davide

 

[MauricioUY]

Thank you for advice Mauricio
I know exactly the weed..and I know that there are techniques to prevent it but my choice has been not to use any chemical product...let say organic

So patience is included and admitted in organic production

Ciao
Davide

Much better this way!
Good luck!

Rgds,
Mauricio

 

[arzaman]

This we I have continued with the manual approach trying to get some grain from the harvested barley

Going back to the ancient method I have built a special tool in order to beat the barley on the ground

After a couple of hour of work I was able to get some seeds and strow..and using a DIY sieve I did a first selection

I hope after next selection process to get at least enough grain for a batch

Davide

 

[mr_wibble]

Nice Flail.

You should be able to winnow away a good lot of that chaff on the next windy day.

 

[arzaman]

I have collected the minimum amount of grains after the manual thrashing and I try to winnow the good from the bad using a sieve and a 12v fan
The result is not so bed after 2-3 cycle and I was able to separate the straw even if the small seeds of zizzagna are still present.
I think I can eliminate them during the soaking phase since I expect they will float.

My estimation is to produce 5-6 kg of base malt for at least one batch ! The batch of my life

Davide

 

[MauricioUY]

Congrats!