Garden Update 2017

I’ve got a new plot! (again). Last year’s new plot turned out to be a bit of a disaster. It was big and had been neglected so it was full of weeds and rhizomes. I had a heck of a time trying to pull out the grass that kept coming up. It was also in a poorly drained part of the field so it wasn’t a good choice for spring planting. The new plot although smaller 20×30 ‘ is close to my old plot, which I’ve kept, so I’ll be alternating the barley between the plots each year. I planted on March 11 before we went away for a spring break vacation and when we came back everything had come up beautifully, especially the barley under the remay. You can see the difference in this picture, the beds in the front had the remay. The other beds will catch up after a few weeks.

Two weeks after planting. Temperatures ranged from 3 to 10 C

AS soon as I removed the remay, these jerks showed up and started snacking on the seeds

I had to do something, so I took the shirt I was wearing (I had two) and stuffed it with the remay to make this creepy scarecrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bere is coming up well but the Chevalier seems a little sparse.

Chevalier

Bere

 

Lightly Toasted Malts, Victory, Amber and Biscuit

These are easy malts to make because they start out as pale malts and are lightly toasted. There are several ways to make them and there is plenty of information to do this on the internet, but I wanted to try it myself so that I could see and taste what effect the different times and temperatures had. Victory and Amber malts are pretty much the same and are a little darker than Biscuit. However, these malts will vary between malting companies.  I found that the most pronounced roasted flavour came from a short roast at a high temperature. This is not surprising given the appearance of the malt. At 350F there is some significant darkening that occurs in a certain percentage of the grains, in other words, some grains look burnt, not charred, just well roasted.  I found that soaking did not have much of an effect on the flavour, it just extended the kilning time. Because of this, it was not possible to get a light coloured biscuit malt after soaking.  The flavour of the soaked grains was comparable to the grain roasted dry at a low temperature (250F) which was more mellow. Here are the times and temperatures I used to get malts with similar colours.

Biscuit:

1.  250F for 1 hour or
2.  300F for 30 min or
3.  350F for 20 min

Victory and Amber

1.  250F for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or
2.  300F for 45 minutes or
3.  350F for 30 minutes or
4.  If soaked for 1 hour 350F for 45 minutes (or just until it’s dry)
5.  If soaked for 2 hours 250F for 3 hours (do not recommend)

Amber Malt: From Malt and Malting:  An Historical , Scientific and Practical Treatise. H Stopes 1885 p. 159-161

Germinates as a pale malt

• Kilning: First 12 hrs. below 80F  26.6C
• End of hour 18  85F  29.4 C
• End of hour 20 125F 51.6C
•          ”          21  140F  60C
•          ”          22  160F  71C
•          ”          23  180F  82C
•          ”          24  200F  93C
•          ”          25  220F  104.4C
•          ”          26  240F  115.5C
•          ”          26.5  250  121.1C

Stopes also recommends that the final curing stage (last 5-6 hrs) can be carried out with dry beechwood in the kiln for the best flavour.

My version seen in the video was to start with a pale malt and kiln at 200F for 1 hr. 220F for 1 hour 240F for an hour then 250F for an hour.