Cleaning Barley for Beer. The Old Way, My Way

Bud grew barley this year and low and behold, it produced nice seeds because he didn't green chop it. So me, being the opportunist I am, snagged 200 pounds of uncleaned grain. Under normal circumstances, with normal people, one would buy clean grain from the brewing store and be done with it. Not only would it be nice barley of a sort fit for the brew kettle, but it would be malted. Screw that, I want to go primitive.

I wanted to start from bottom up and make a beer of my own doing. Grain from the field is natures way because come the revolution it will be of value to just go out get some grain and make beer. A person has to have beer. I mean, God put grain on the earth so we could have alcoholic consumption and in turn a nice two beer buzz. God loves a buzz if she didn't why would we have all this other nice stuff---you know, all this stuff we have, like friends and squash and cars (oh we made those), and lakes.

The machine I used is a Kenosha Fanning Mill made right here in Kenosha. I wanted to keep it local and support labor right here in my home state---only problem is the patent is from 1870 and it was probably made not long after that, so most of the workers, all of the workers , are long pushing up daisies. I will have to drink a beer in their memory.

I found the mill at a yard sale and for $50 it had to be mine because I suspected there would be a need to clean grain at some point after fossil energy ran out. Can't believe it. Right here under my beer guzzling nose was the opportunity of a life time. Catch this fantastic You Tube video of me doing beer preparation. Fellini at his best, some say. 

http://youtu.be/aDpbOXVIGjs

Today we cleaned 20 pounds of grain in a few minutes. Got rid of chaff, exotic seeds that mostly looked like ragweed, and numerous grass hoppers, all very dead and not happy and a bit of dirt. It was big fun and fueled with muscle power--that had been spiked with the numerous beer we drank last night. Plus the exercise. Win, win deal, I tell ya.

What it amounts to is I am on my way to a natural, locally made beer, I mean a beer from scratch. Now I just need to learn to malt it and that can be done, it would appear, without any more heavy equipment. I have the brewing outfit and a great attitude so Annie bar the door. Ya gotta love the simple life. Stay tuned for the rest of the story.