Harvest and Store Grain - food.straw.storegrain PEP BB

I processed wild rice last week!  It's not nearly as easy as corn...  You have to harvest with a canoe, duck push pole and knocking sticks.  Then the "green" rice has to be dried in the sun for a few days.  Then you parch it over a fire.  Then you "dance" on it to dehull the grains.  Then you winnow and start eating.  It's stored in a cool, dark place in a 5 gallon bucket.  The lid was snapped on after the photo was taken

Dave Burton wrote:
Minimum requirements for this BB:
- Grain - Do one of these things (Includes hulling/threshing and winnowing)
  - Harvest and store 2 gallons of wheat rye

To show you've completed this Badge Bit, you must provide proof of the following as pictures or video (<2 mins):
   - harvesting the grain
   - threshing/hulling and winnowing of the grain
   - storing the grain properly  (meeting the above stated requirements)

Threshing wheat and rye gave me more than I could ask for of splinters. Wheat was easier than rye but the rye seeds were larger than wheat. This effort took me about 5 days to do. I enjoyed winnowing. It's hard to not cherish every last grain for how much effort went into this.

The organic field that I harvested this from, with permission, had wheat and rye intermixed a bit. There were 2 distinct types of wheat and 1 type of rye or rye-wheat hybrid. I'm not sure. I learned a lot about grain doing this BB but I also learned that there's so much more I don't know.

I'm storing the grain in a glass jars with metal lids at the bottom of my cool pantry that doesn't get any direct light.

For this BB, I used Little Barley, Hordeum pusillum, or a cross species of it. It grows in little patches along dirt roads where I live. It's been used by indigenous cultures for food. It is higher in fiber than wheat, and a good source of other vitamins like calcium.

This week, the heads started drooping. So during my sons' soccer practice, I started stuffing boxes with it! 😆 my yukon is loaded with bits on straw.

I cut it with snippers, close to the seed head, so not much thrashing was needed. I stomped it in batches in a cut barrel. Then I parched it in my oven with the broil function.

Winnowing was done in front of a fan on a sheet. Then I sifted out the bits left in a noodle strainer.

I'm storing it in glass jars: half gallons. 4 of them is 2 gallons.