What tools are required to sort out grains, for seed production and tiny scale flour production ?

Hello permies,

It's been a while, as I'm very busy especially with the garden. I am thinking about moving most of it into bio-intensive, in order to produce as much as possible (especially since I don't own the place and can't invest in trees there) and improve the soil, and this mean that I will be having a lot of grain. "Easy" ones such as corn (in term of ease of processing after harvest), and other more complex to harvest: amaranth, barley, rye, wheat are those that are guaranteed to be used.

It's mostly for carbon production for the compost, but at some point I'd need to get back enough seeds to plant them again, and if I can enjoy even only a few kilograms of homemade flour, that would be beyond amazing.

I work with computers, so beside processing wheat in Minecraft, I have absolutely no idea of the tools required.

Which tools are used to sort out grains and process them, that I could obtain and use, for a small scale ? Bonus point if it can still be used for more serious grain production.

The more low tech they are, the better. However if they need a bit of electricity that's not an issue (as long as I don't need 5 nuclear power plant to run it).

Ideally, they can be used for more or less any grain: quinoa, amaranth, rye, wheat, sorghos, barley, oat... but if there are some specifics for each grain, well so be it.

I googled your question
THis paper os great.
Try the google function yourself and see the rest perhaps.
https://www.fao.org/3/ca1490en/CA1490en.pdf

Hi Mike,

It's interesting to hear that your primary motivation for growing grains is to produce carbon. I've not come across anyone else with that aim!

Have you considered hemp as an alternative? I don't know what the laws (and social stigma) in France is like on such a matter but it would be easier and likely more productive than grain. You wouldn't reap the same product but hemp seed is useful in itself.

As for grain processing, the most simple tools would be a sickle for cutting/reaping, a stick for threshing, a basket for winnowing and a mill for producing flour. The latter is the only  expensive piece of kit.



This is an Indian-style millstone, although similar ones were used in Europe too. It's two heavy, round stones. The bottom stone is grooved to allow the flour to move outwards as it is ground. You might be able to find something similar at a flea market or sitting outside an old farmhouse - I bought one for £85 at an antique store in the UK (but I need to remake the wooden bearing block and handle as they were eaten by worm).

Alternatively, there are cast iron mills for cracking and grinding corn, wheat and other cereals. They can also be had for a bargain, if you're lucky. Over here people use the big ones  as garden ornaments so they are often seized or overpriced. I'd like to find one, one day.

I've just had a quick search and you can buy table-mounted mills for small amounts of corn. Here is one example, without a price. That might be your easiest option.

Please report back with photos when you do grow/process some!

I've not processed corn for baking yet, but am curious about it as well on a very small scale.  I use cornmeal for staple foods like corn bread, corn dogs, hushpuppies, & catfish breading.  So, I think cornmeal would be a good place for me to start.  

I've been on the hunt for an old cast iron corn sheller, which are fairly common around here.  However, like all classic Americana from my childhood, they now sit in antique stores and command a ridiculous price.  I know they make new ones, but I have a passion for restoring old tools to be useful again.  So for now, I just wring the kernels off the cobs by hand until I find the right deal.

I haven't looked online yet, but I would think there should be something out there for the hobbyist to start with.  I've seen manual crank coffee grinders & small electric ones that hold about a cup at a time, so it shouldn't be too far of a stretch.

As we approach late summer here, I see several mature seed head producing weeds that make me think they could be used as a foraged wild grain.  I don't know the species, but if I ever got some free time, I'd ID them & explore that.

From what I hear, hemp is one of the most underutilized plant fibers around.  

John C Daley wrote:I googled your question
THis paper os great.
Try the google function yourself and see the rest perhaps.
https://www.fao.org/3/ca1490en/CA1490en.pdf

Thanks for the resource I'll try to check it out.

However I asked on the forum specifically because I will not limit myself to one grain only, so I guessed it was best to ask here to get an answer for all at once.

Luke Mitchell wrote:Hi Mike,

It's interesting to hear that your primary motivation for growing grains is to produce carbon. I've not come across anyone else with that aim!

Have you considered hemp as an alternative? I don't know what the laws (and social stigma) in France is like on such a matter but it would be easier and likely more productive than grain. You wouldn't reap the same product but hemp seed is useful in itself.

As for grain processing, the most simple tools would be a sickle for cutting/reaping, a stick for threshing, a basket for winnowing and a mill for producing flour. The latter is the only  expensive piece of kit.



This is an Indian-style millstone, although similar ones were used in Europe too. It's two heavy, round stones. The bottom stone is grooved to allow the flour to move outwards as it is ground. You might be able to find something similar at a flea market or sitting outside an old farmhouse - I bought one for £85 at an antique store in the UK (but I need to remake the wooden bearing block and handle as they were eaten by worm).

Alternatively, there are cast iron mills for cracking and grinding corn, wheat and other cereals. They can also be had for a bargain, if you're lucky. Over here people use the big ones  as garden ornaments so they are often seized or overpriced. I'd like to find one, one day.

I've just had a quick search and you can buy table-mounted mills for small amounts of corn. Here is one example, without a price. That might be your easiest option.

Please report back with photos when you do grow/process some!

I don't know if you're familiar with the Grow Biointensive method, but growing plants that provide a lot of carbon is essential to it. Basically, those are crops that gives good calories but not the best (potatoes beat wheat any time in term of space). They do however give a lot of biomass, whereas calories rich plants (tubers) will not give much. Said carbon is then used to make compost, which is then used to improve the beds, etc.

Since I am doing it on a tiny scale, I can't really count on grain being a decent source of calories (although I might make a few kg of flour from it).  If I can get food from it good, but it's mostly done so that I can improve the soil.

Hemp is unfortunately illegal to grow for non professionals in France, even the variety without narcotic properties. So having dozens of plants in the garden is not really an option, especially in an urban garden. Now, I have no idea how to process it, but I'd guess the stalk would be useful for carbon production (since it's a "bit" taller than wheat... 4 meters is an interesting performance), or at least the green parts would make a wonderful green manure.

I'm hoping for an easy way to process the grains. Any recommendation on those tools, like the basket for example ? Last time I processed wheat it was a pain in the...

I do need to look for mills and such tools, invest in some good ones.

I'll try to keep this thread updated with the results. Right now I have wheat waiting to be process, and I am growing amaranth as well as corn.

Cy Cobb wrote:I've not processed corn for baking yet, but am curious about it as well on a very small scale.  I use cornmeal for staple foods like corn bread, corn dogs, hushpuppies, & catfish breading.  So, I think cornmeal would be a good place for me to start.  

I've been on the hunt for an old cast iron corn sheller, which are fairly common around here.  However, like all classic Americana from my childhood, they now sit in antique stores and command a ridiculous price.  I know they make new ones, but I have a passion for restoring old tools to be useful again.  So for now, I just wring the kernels off the cobs by hand until I find the right deal.

I haven't looked online yet, but I would think there should be something out there for the hobbyist to start with.  I've seen manual crank coffee grinders & small electric ones that hold about a cup at a time, so it shouldn't be too far of a stretch.

As we approach late summer here, I see several mature seed head producing weeds that make me think they could be used as a foraged wild grain.  I don't know the species, but if I ever got some free time, I'd ID them & explore that.

From what I hear, hemp is one of the most underutilized plant fibers around.  

There is something you might not know about with corn. It comes with the sweet name of "nixtamalization". Basically, you first cook or dip the corn in an alkaline solution (the pre-columbian civilization who did this used amaranth leaves ashes in the cooking water). It seems to greatly improve the nutritional quality of corn. As I'm growing both amaranth and corn this year, I plan on trying this at some point.

Hi Mike,
I don't have much experience, but I did grow some wheat one year. I borrowed a scythe, cut it, and dried it in sheafs (that doesn't look like its spelled right...). That much went fairly ok and as planned. I had read on google how you could just take a handful and bang it on the inside of the trashcan. That did not work at all, and we ended up threshing our wheat by hand. Literally pulling off the heads one at a time. It was not fun. I had also read on google how you could use a rolling pin on the wheat heads in a bag. That didn't work either. I had also head that if you poured the chaff and wheat back and forth in bowls in front of a fan it would winnow out the chaff. That only kind of worked. we had trouble adjusting how far away we should be to blow the chaff, but not the wheat.

All that to say... I would try to find a purpose built machine (preferably rented or shared) rather than try to make do. I would also suggest lining up the equipment to process before you actually plant.

I think I originally heard about this from someone here on permies, but there are bicycle powered thresher plans available for free. I think it could be good for small scale production.
https://farmhack.org/tools/bicycle-powered-thresher

As to dried corn, I have seen similar items to this one that worked quite well. I know nothing about this specific one, though it has good ratings. I'm just giving an example.
https://www.amazon.com/Maximizer-Sheller-Manual-Thresher-Shucker/dp/B011TIK87Q/ref=sr_1_1?crid=11UBMXOI4DHL4&keywords=hand%2Bcrank%2Bdried%2Bcorn&qid=1660306858&sprefix=hand%2Bcrank%2Bdried%2Bcorn%2Caps%2C66&sr=8-1&th=1

I believe that there's a tool to harvest small quantities of wheat that looks like a blueberry rake with finer openings but I can't find one. It's possible that a blueberry rake would work if the slits were fairly clogged so that the wheat grains fell into the collector pan because the slits were so filled with the spikes.

Harvesting grains is super easy and low tech. Western civilization was built by harvesting grain by hand.

Cut the seed heads from the plant when dry. (I use secateurs or a knife).

Throw them into a pile somewhere (bin, tarp, threshing floor).

Jump up and down on them, and/or beat them with sticks.

Rake off the chaff.

Winnow.

That's it. It's the same process for any grain of any species.

For one hour of labor, I can harvest, thresh, winnow, and clean enough wheat to feed myself for a week. Other grains are similar.

I grow my own grains. I keep about 4000 ft2 in rotation all told and have pretty well stopped going to the grocery store, ever. It's not more work than I can keep up with doing most things by hand, but it's as much as I want to do ... and it certainly doesn't "pay" given how cheap commodities are when grown on scale. If you do it, you do it for love.

Tools:
Broadfork and garden fork
Lots and lots of silage tarps
Sickle *more on this below
Tubs, tarps, sheets
Thresher (pdf attached)
Buckets for winnowing
Once in a while I borrow my neighbor's electric grain mill and do a lot at once.

The garden is split into 5 sections.
1500 ft2: Three year rotation of oats and soup peas / bread wheat / popcorn, squash, and climbing beans (500 ft2 each)
1000 ft2: Three year rotation of barley and chickpeas / pastry wheat / millets and cowpeas (330 ft2 each)
720 ft2: Three year rotation of garlic and shallots (heavy mulch) / durum wheat / sorghum, sunflowers, and edamame (240 ft 2 each)
540 ft2: Three year rotation of potatoes / other roots (mostly carrots) / this’n’that (poppies, cabbages, seed crops, experiments) (180 ft2)
and 380 ft2 in the regular garden.

Each crop when pulled gets smothered with a tarp until the next one. So oatsnpeas get planted as soon as soil can be worked, harvested in August, weeds smothered for 6 weeks, then planted to wheat. Wheat gets harvested in late July then given a heavy application of (somewhat raw) manure, smothered, and left until the following May, when it goes to summer crops. Those get harvested in November, smothered, and left until the early spring planting of oats. I have found the staggered use of silage tarps saves me an awful lot of digging, and I probably couldn't otherwise handle a garden of this size without mechanical tillage.

I harvest the small grains with a sickle. I've used a scythe to make sheaves (sheaf is singular, Matt, so you weren't far wrong ) but I find that extra straw gums up the bike-powered thresher something awful. I do know people who make it work by running sheaves through a brush chipper, and that's probably your best bet for medium-scale small grain processing (like an acre or so). The purpose of the traditional stooking of whole sheaves was to let the wheat finish ripening a week or two extra, but I find that even if the chipmunks are hitting it hard and there's soggy weather coming so I have to bring it in early, it seems to ripen with nothing but the head reasonably well, so long as it has plenty of airflow to prevent mold. In our soggy summer climate, I have to harvest most things a bit green and then bring them inside for a few weeks to finish drying down.

The bike-thresher works fairly well for about everything, including beans and most of my seed crops, although it can be dusty in use and it gets frustratingly bound up in stalks and stems sometimes. If I were building it again, rather than slavishly following the attached pdf, I would make one significant modification:
The shaft should be TWO pieces of pipe, one smooth and running straight through and the other a sleeve. That way when you assemble it, you can hold the sleeve inside the drum while sliding the core through it. This eliminates any need to make that slanted end, because now you can populate the ENTIRE sleeve with beater attachments and still be able to put the thing together. So you could just use any standard drum.
I'd also save myself welding all those little hooks for interchangeable attachments and just tack chunks of light chain directly to the sleeve. It's multi-purpose enough! The thresher ran me about $150, including my neighbor's help with the welding.

Once you get any grain or seed threshed, you winnow, which is just pouring it from bucket to bucket on a very mildly windy day. In fact, I find it easiest on a day that's *almost* still. I don't recommend you use anything shorter than a 5-gal pail, because otherwise the seeds all bounce out. But winnowing is easy. Unless it's amaranth. I never figured out how to clean amaranth. The seeds don't seem to weigh any more than the chaff, nor fall free.

Hand grinding can be a terrible chore. I have a little hand grinder, but it's gonna be SHTF before I use it much. I just borrow my neighbor's electric mill.
*A note: There's basically no small mill that can handle flint corn. If you want to grow and grind your own corn, I recommend you stick with the softer flour types, like Painted Mountain.

I've tried other thises and thats. I'm impressed with the grain sorghum as a rice substitute. I want perennial grains to work for me, but I find they don't thresh well. Anyone know of a good way to shell sunflower seeds in quantity, I'd like to hear it.

Weed whacker in a trash barrel works to thresh small grains too. But it's loud, and you may wind up with hundreds of tiny pieces of plastic string in your grain, which I suppose you'd have to float off and then dry the grain again. Still, it's a place to start.

I've tried grinding by hand. Wow. That's a tough job. I decided to invest around $100 - $150 in a small electric grain mill and I am very glad I did. There are many brands out there. Google "800g High Speed Electric Grain Herb Spice Grinder" to see what's available.  800 gram capacity seems to be on the lower end, but it does a fine job for me grinding one batch of maize, barley or wheat at a time. One caution is that you need to be careful not to raise the temperature of what you're grinding too high. You can grind in short increments, allowing time to cool off in between.