ilultham

 So I have a friend who is interested in this small scale grain raising like I am - I know I was as surprised as anyone!  so he sent me a few grains to get going in my plot here, ones I could over winter.  Just a teaspoon of each really but it means I can sow a little patch or a planter with them next year and then have enough to produce a whole bed next time, a slow but rewarding process.  Some interesting seeds and some from Salt Spring Seeds In the US - they seem to have quite a few interesting ones! I'm looking forward to watching these grow - especially the blue tinged wheat and the kamut two I've read about - I think they all look beautiful growing.  I admit grain is one of my more mad cap endevours and I know it doesn't interest everyone but I will keep posting here as I like to keep a record of it! 

 I foolishly said on a previous post that threshing the grain wasn't the issue - Well it turns out I was wrong there as well.  My hulless oats have been causing me trouble as well.  In fairness I think I'm trying to deal with the difficult grains that are left as I thought I had pretty much lost the lot due to birds attacking it while it was still standing, but the grains haven't come out easily even in this (don't get me started again about my emmer wheat). Hitting it with sticks, although fun, did nothing much.  When I upped it and made a semi lethal thresher for my drill things improved slightly.  Then I ran it through a sieve to get rid of the big bits.  And then tried winnowing it with a big fan - this proved to be too strong and I was getting grain blown about.  So I went back to my seed cleaner and run it through a couple of times - I really need to make a better hopper for this!  In all I spent an hour and got this whole jam jar full of hu...

  I've grown a small amount of Emmer wheat with the hope of planting more of it next year, or potentially as a crop to over winter. Its proving difficult to hull though. This isn't threshing - this is the act of removing the grain from it's protect hull - something that is a lot more suborn on these "less developed" grains. Does anyone know of any open source plants to build a dehuller? Or seen a method that works well by hand. I'd rather not use heat as want all the seed to still be viable. Currently thinking I'll get an old hand grinder and create rubber plates for the seed to rub through, which should take the hulls off. Although I'm open to suggestions!