Anyone grow amaranth as a grain?

I bought Four Star Explorer Mix amaranth this year as part of my ongoing efforts to find grains i can grow for myself. Its gorgeous!

I will grow it again just for the beauty and the delicious salad 'greens'. But a grain? Ah! It seems to finish all at different times, and there is far more chaff than seed, i ended up having to freeze it to kill of the last of the bugs, and cleaning it seems impossible with all the methods i have tried (sieves, gravity, lightly blowing on it, wind, water... etc). I lose more grain than i keep, and will be only have enough cleanish seeds to replant next year.  I have also tried harvesting at different stages, etc.

Do you grow amaranth? What varieities do you grow? How do you harvest and clean it as a grain?

I have wanted to grow amaranth almost my whole life.  I love the varieties that are red.

I didn't know it was a grain until several years ago when I found permies.

You may have seen these though if not I thought you might enjoy these threads:

https://permies.com/t/17351/Grain-Amaranth-harvest-process

https://permies.com/t/15943/Grain-Amaranth

I bought seed for a couple varieties but didn't get around to planting them this year.  I also ordered some of the grain and tried cooking that. Not bad. Suspect with some practice cooking it I will really like it.  I just toasted it a bit, then boiled it like I would rice.

I too worry a bit about the harvest/winnowing process.  I might end up just growing it for my chickens, assuming I can get them to eat it.  They can be picky about seeds.

Anne - you definitely should grow it! Mine was 8 ft tall, bright red, showy flowers. I had people walking by ask me about jt, they could see it in the backyard. Further research since i posted this made me determine that mine is a nongrain variety/species (black seeds)
I think i weeded out a lot of the diversity in the mix. Oops.

Dan - i suspect the grain varieties may be easier to winnow than mine. Chickens would definitely like it, and not for the seeds - i have never seen as many bugs as crawled out of mine. Yummy chicken snacks!