Harvest Amaranth Seeds

I harvested a bunch of Amaranth seeds and have a hard time getting rid of the chaff. I tried blowing with the seeds and all on a baking sheet but it doesn't seem to be working that well.
Of course, I can embrace the bran but was wondering if someone found a good solution.

Also, how  do you all cook Amaranth grain?

On a small scale, I have dehulled amaranth by “scrunching” and rubbing  the seeds to loosen hulls, then putting them in a deep bowl of water; seeds sink and hulls float. Of course, then you need to dry the seeds again if you plan to store them.  But maybe you could store them whole, and just hulls them when you plan to cook them.

I know amaranth is said to be a nutritional powerhouse, but man the seeds are tiny and the hulls tenacious.

I wonder, could they be roasted hulls and all, put in a blender with water, and strained through a fine mesh for a sort of oat milk?

I built a vacuum de-hulling machine based on an YouTube Video.

That one they introduce works not so well.

- The Vacuum Cleaner they use is overkill

- You need to have a freezer box with lid (Tupperware or so)  first and shake the seeds for a while to loosen the hulls from the actual seeds.

- The Ventilation lid needed a bit of "fine tuning" but finally I can clean my quinoa, amaranth and sorghum seeds to at least 95%.

- the drop shaft can have more steps and also should be longer..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4c1-ajSILA

...a good and successful farmer has a spot behind the barn where lots of scrap pieces laying around, that are actually failed improvements to make the farm work easier... (True words)

I dont bother either. But i got mine from réal seeds un UK. Great club of enthusiast in Wales who have been working on  selecting for easily hullable big seeds.
They're 3 colors as a bonus.

Mk Neal wrote:On a small scale, I have dehulled amaranth by “scrunching” and rubbing  the seeds to loosen hulls, then putting them in a deep bowl of water; seeds sink and hulls float. Of course, then you need to dry the seeds again if you plan to store them.  But maybe you could store them whole, and just hulls them when you plan to cook them.

That is a great idea. I could do that before cooking with them.

See Hes wrote:I built a vacuum de-hulling machine based on an YouTube Video.


...a good and successful farmer has a spot behind the barn where lots of scrap pieces laying around, that are actually failed improvements to make the farm work easier... (True words)

Thank you so much for this. Right now, we are in a temporary location but will try to build one when we are back home.

And why do people think that the piles of treasures to be used for great future projects are trash and an eyesore? 🤪

Hugo Morvan wrote:I dont bother either. But i got mine from réal seeds un UK. Great club of enthusiast in Wales who have been working on  selecting for easily hullable big seeds.
They're 3 colors as a bonus.

That is interesting!
What I have right now are wild seeds. We are for a year on a work assignment on the Navajo Nation and the housing we were assigned to had tons of Amaranth growing. I fought the housekeeping people who want to chop anything that grows down and harvested all the stalks when they were ready. WE can find fun projects anywhere, right?

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:I know amaranth is said to be a nutritional powerhouse, but man the seeds are tiny and the hulls tenacious.

I wonder, could they be roasted hulls and all, put in a blender with water, and strained through a fine mesh for a sort of oat milk?

Hmm, worth an experiment. I don't have a fine enough straint=er but maybe through a cloth might work.

Have you used different grains for milk making?