How To Make A Quinoa Thresher

So my friends who grew the Quinoa last year and wrote about it to share on here have upgraded how they've threshed their grain. Gone is the child labour and in it's place is some home made technology - my favorite kind! 

They've kindly written me another blog post on processing this years harvest and hopefully I'll get to borrow their thresher to use on my own quinoa which is still hanging up in the extension! 

Last year we threshed our quinoa the old fashioned way with sticks on a tarp which was great fun but felt it was very energy intensive and we didn’t get as much of the grain as possible.  This year, after some research I decided the simplest (and cheapest) option was a home-made flail powered be a cordless drill. 

I already had the drill and some chain left over from another project, the rest I bought from Wickes for about £5.

I had an old black plastic bin with holes in the bottom (that I never got around to throwing away) that we used to grow potatoes in at our previous house. We had such a tiny garden! I used it to hold the quinoa for threshing.  I sat the bin on top of a fine garden riddle and put it all in a plastic trug to catch all the grain. 

The quinoa has been hanging up in the garage to dry off as much as possible. 

I found the most successful way to thresh was to strip as much of the seed heads off the stalks and into the bin and discard the stalks into a compost pile.

Once the pile of seed heads is 4-5 inches deep I begin flailing.  

I started off at a slow speed setting for the first bit and once the heads have been bashed about a bit I switched to the fastest speed whilst covering the bin with a feed sack (I lost the lid years ago!). At this point there was a lot of dust. The seed heads got pulverised and most of the grain was knocked out of the seed heads and I was left with light, fluffy and hopefully empty seed heads.  

I checked to ensure most of the seed had been removed 

 and then tipped the contents of the bin into the riddle 

If there was grain left  I went back to the flail with the drill on the slow setting for another gentle thresh.

Once the grain has been riddled it all ends up in the trug with some of the chaff ready for winnowing / cleaning.  You can see in the photos that the seed is actually pretty clean and almost no stalks or leaves got through the process – it will be interesting to weigh it before and after cleaning.

Parts List

Round bin or bucket

Fine garden riddle (optional but makes life easier)

Garden trug / another bucket to store threshed grains in

Flail

M10 Threaded Bar x 1

M10 nuts x 8

M10 Washers x 4

Chain (long enough to reach from centre of bin to side) x 2

Flail Assembly

1.       Cut two lengths of chain to enable them to reach the side of the bin from the centre when spinning.

2.       Thread two nuts up the treaded bar followed by 1 of the washers

3.       Slide the chain against the washer followed by another washer and then 2 more nuts

4.       Tighten the nuts so they lock tightly against each other and clamp the chain tightly to prevent it moving.

5.       Repeat the process with the other piece of chain ensuring it is 180 degrees aligned with the first (to keep the flail balanced when spinning) 

Thank you Spence! What I love about this is that this is written by the other half of the couple that wrote the last last one on growing the quinoa - a real family concern! 

I also like the fact that he seems certain that his yield will be more due to a better threshing method, less grain will be left in the heads and chucked int he compost. they're going to borrow my seed cleaner and see what they come out with and I'll do the same with mine. I should be able to work out what I can grow per square foot to see if it really is worth growing as a self sufficiency staple. 

So let me know what you think! I'm sure you'll all agree that was a great blog post. 

How would you thresh a grain like this?

Quinoa Growing - Small Scale Grain Growing

I'm very lucky to have a few friends who live quite near by and live a very similar lifestyle. 

Last year when I was at one friends house I was very impressed with their beautiful quinoa growing in their back paddock, I asked them to take a few pictures so I could post it on the blog and she's written a great description of what they did below. 

"We planted a 100 square foot bed with about 120 plants. The seeds germinated really easily in the greenhouse in a normal large plug tray.  I planted them out when they were between 10-15cm high about a 10 to 12 inch spacing between each plant and row. They didn't need staking but did need protection from cheeky rabbits. Birds will not eat the Quinoa seed as it is coated in saponin so netting overhead isn't needed. I only watered them a couple of times to get established then maybe twice during growing season when weather was really hot for a prolonged period. They were very low maintenance plans. I mulched around the plants with grass cuttings to keep down the weeds. The colours on the Quinoa when it is flowering is stunning - we planted Rainbow Quinoa and had beautiful yellow, orange and red colours throughput the patch.

The seeds are ready once the flowers start to die back and colours go dull on the head of the plant. You can tell when the seeds are dry enough because they come out easily when you rub them between your fingers. We harvested ours on 10th September last year. They take around 90 days from planting to harvest. Once we had picked the flower heads we placed them onto a tarp and threshed them with garden canes. The kids absolutely loved this stage. Once we have a nice pile we passed it thought a garden riddle to get large pieces of leaf and stalk out. We then used a very simple system to winnow the grains using an electric fab to blow the chaff away from the seed, letting the clean seed drop into a bowl. We had to repeat this 2-3 times to get clean grain. We managed to get 2.5kg of grain from a small patch of very heavy clay soil.

I decided I would wash the quinoa before cooking rather than wash the whole harvest then attempt to dry it all out. The quinoa grain needs rinsing in water twice before cooking to get rid of the saponin. I was surprised how easy this was as the grain feels a bit sticky when you handle it. The result was a delicious quinoa that tasted fresher and nuttier than anything I have bought in a shop. A revelation on cooking the quinoa gave amazing results. Use twice as much stock as quinoa, and  bring it to the boil then simmer until the quinoa has absorbed all the water (15-20 mins). Once the water is all absorbed, remove the pot from heat, cover it and let the quinoa steam for about 5 minutes."

Thank you Sarah! 

I've long been interested in growing grains and trying to provide some of our staples from the garden, for the last few years I've said I was going to try Quinoa but haven't got round to it or haven't had the veg bed space ready. 

I've read that it's one of the only grains worth growing on a small scale, especially as maize or corn doesn't grow that well here. From the look of their harvest it certainly looks like it would be worth some garden space in the future and she's given me with some seed to start my own if I want to.

What do you think? 

Have you ever grown quinoa or another grain to eat?

How did you find it? Was it worth the effort? Is there another grain type crop that yields as well in a small space?