Excited to share the news of a bountiful harvest! Back in June we collected grain samples from around our region and patiently waited for the lab results. The early reports were strong, showing solid protein levels, strong germination, and little evidence of pre-harvest sprout. 

After reviewing these data, we’ll be bringing in a majority of our grain from North Carolina….which is always the goal we strive for! Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky growers will supply the remaining portion. We’ll also have Georgia-grown wheat and some Florida grown rye available, too! We decided to have a little fun with the name on that one…..calling it Flo-Rye-da.

We applaud all of the hard work that goes into growing a beautiful crop of barley. Our growers are definitely “students of the game”, always looking to fine tune their approach. It could be as simple as switching to a field with slightly better drainage, or something more technical like updating their pest management strategy. Their efforts and increasing experience levels are beginning to pay dividends. When grain yields in the Southeast begin to rival those of the traditional barley growing regions out West (>100 bushels/acre), you know they are doing something right!

Seeing these bright, plump kernels and hearing about increasing yields illustrate how much has been achieved across our supply chain. Early on, we were probably a bit of nuisance to our growers…..asking for small amounts of specific varieties with strict quality parameters. Ten years later, we are receiving truckloads of grain every few days. These volumes provide meaningful income and support jobs at each link in the chain. Portions of these purchases also support the research that will bring us the next round of 2-row varieties. 

Couple all this good news with the rise of some stellar craft lagers and single malts that are being created from these grains and you have a distinctive a host of beverages that showcase a terrior that is unique to Southeast!

• Brent

Homebrewing was an integral part of our early development and we are excited to celebrate National Homebrew Day on May 7th!

I started homebrewing back in Wilmington with an old 5 gallon pot and igloo cooler. I cobbled together a gravity system with old chairs and end tables in the driveway for those early brews.  I always tell people that I had “Dogfish Head Syndrome” when it came to recipe design. Whole fruit, spices, and other adjuncts were all on the table….and I had no business adding these things! A particularly gnarly batch of Winter Warmer comes to mind…way too much ginger!

Then I picked up a copy of “Brewing Classic Styles” by John Palmer and “Designing Great Beer” by Ray Daniels. These two books marked a sea change in my approach to brewing. Out with the spices and in with the classic, fresh ingredients! Zeroing in on ingredients and process improved the quality of my beer in just a few short months!

The hobby gathered steam as I began diving into podcasts like Brewing with Style from The Brewing Network. The show, hosted by Jamil Zainasheff, takes a deep dive into each style, explaining the history, ingredient selection, and important process tweaks necessary to reproduce more technical styles.

All of the accumulated knowledge and experience came in handy as Brian and I began to explore the world of malting. As Brian often points out, I was hesitant to malt a 6-row variety as it was not the preferred barley in a vast majority of the styles I had explored. However, I did understand flavor contributions and brew house performance….which quickly changed my mind about Thoroughbred. Just a quick mill adjustment and we were getting great flavor and decent extract from our early test batches. We entered one of these in a homebrew contest and were chosen by Mike Karnowski from Green Man (now Zebulon Artisan Ales) as his favorite!

This is just one of the “happy accidents” that got us where we are today. Happy National Homebrew Day and we look forward to sharing more memories as we explore our 10 year history over the next few months!

Here’s the original recipe….

We work hard to produce consistent, quality malt. As part of this process, we send every batch to a third party lab which provides us with a full Certificate of Analysis (CoA). A recent review of a discrepancy in color, prompted an interesting discussion between the two laboratories that we use, Montana State University Malt Quality Laboratory and Hartwick College Center for Craft Food and Beverage.  Cheers to Hannah (MSU) and Aaron (Hartwick) for the their thoughts and edits on this post!

To provide some background, each component of the CoA has a standardized methodology associated with it that was developed and approved by the American Society of Brewing Chemists (ASBC). All laboratory testing follows these guidelines. However, different equipment, staff, and testing conditions can lead to variations in results.

How do our intrepid scientists address this potential problem you ask?

They employ rigorous internal and external quality practices to ensure both precision and accuracy in test results. . These include 1) participation in the ASBC Lab Proficiency Program – regular testing of blind samples with comparison of results across 19 labs from the US and Canada and. 2) daily in house control charting  to catch any inconsistencies on the spot. 

It is important to note that this level of effort helps define and control the acceptable levels of variability within each lab, but does not eliminate it!

Let’s look at a few examples that illustrate this point…..

1. Color – As we’ve grown, consistency in this department has become paramount. Brewers (and their customers!) have expectations regarding the color of their finished products. If we miss in this department, problems can arise quickly. Note that a normal difference  between labs can be up to 0.6 SRM. Given this information, we typically allow for a swing of 0.5 SRM in our base malts.

• Extract – Another “hot button” topic for larger breweries. Lower extract/efficiencies equals lost revenue at a measurable scale. A variability of 1.4% could mean the difference between winning a contract or making a price concession. We have recently updated our specifications on the website to reflect a “minimum” rather than an absolute percentage to reflect this reality.

Understanding and accepting this variability comes with the territory of working with an agricultural product. Definitely something for both maltster and brewer to keep in mind when discussing final results!

If you are interested in learning more about this topic, The North American Craft Maltsters Guild is hosting a Malt Analysis webinar on March 25th!

https://craftmalting.com/events/member-webinar-meaningful-malt-analysis/ 

The typical variation for the most common malt tests are listed below: 

The “repeatability” (r95) is the maximum expected difference between two test results on the same sample from the same lab.  

The “reproducibility” (R95) is the maximum expected difference between two test results on the same sample from different labs.