Harvesting Barley: Hard Dough, Awns, Threshing and the Hull Problem

Judging when the grain is ready

Barley ripens from the base of the plant upward, and the straw tells you almost as much as the grain. The lower stems and leaves yellow first, then the color rises, and the ear itself turns from upright green to a pale straw color and bends over on its neck. That nodding ear is the classic sign, and in most types it appears a few days before the grain is genuinely fit to cut.

The reliable test is the grain itself. Rub a few kernels out of the middle of an ear and press one with a thumbnail. At the milky stage a white liquid squeezes out and it is far too early. At soft dough the grain squashes into a paste that holds a fingerprint, and it is still too early. At hard dough the grain dents under the nail but does not squash, and this is the moment to cut. Wait until the grain is glass-hard and you cannot dent it at all, and you have waited too long.

Cutting at hard dough rather than fully hard is deliberate. Barley ears become brittle at the neck as they dry, and an over-ripe crop drops whole ears on the ground when you brush past it. The grain finishes ripening perfectly well in the stook or on a rack under cover, and the losses you avoid by cutting a few days early are far larger than anything you gain by leaving it standing. Barley is also the earliest small grain to ripen, so this decision arrives sooner than most people expect.

Test kernels from the middle of the ear, not the tip or the base. The tip grains ripen last and are always the smallest, and judging the crop by them will keep you waiting a week past the right moment.

Cutting the crop, and dressing for the awns

Barley awns are long, stiff and barbed along their length, and the barbs point one way. They work into cuffs, collars, gloves and skin as you handle the crop, and they travel further in the following hour. This is not a minor irritation. Anyone who has cut a barley block in a short-sleeved shirt remembers it, and the fix is entirely a matter of what you put on beforehand.

Wear a long-sleeved shirt buttoned at the wrist, tuck it in, close the collar, and wear gloves. Trousers over the top of boots rather than tucked in, so nothing funnels down. Eye protection is genuinely worth it when you are threshing indoors, because awn fragments fly. Change and shake out your clothes outdoors afterwards rather than in the room where you will sleep.

Cut in the morning while there is still dew on the crop. Damp ears shed far less grain as you move them, and a barley crop at hard dough sheds noticeably when handled dry in the afternoon heat. Take a handful at a time, grip it before you cut, and lay it down rather than swinging it. Cut low, three to four inches (8 to 10 cm) above the ground, and leave the stubble in place.

1. Dress for it before you start Long sleeves buttoned at the cuff, collar closed, gloves, trousers outside your boots. The awns are the reason, and no amount of care with technique substitutes for covering your skin.
2. Spread a sheet beside the block Everything cut goes straight onto it. Grain that shakes loose during cutting is a real share of a small crop and it is only recoverable if it lands on something you can gather up.
3. Cut a handful at a time with a sickle or shears Grip first, cut second, lift steadily without shaking. Lay the stems parallel with all the cut ends aligned, which makes tying and threshing far easier later.
4. Tie loose bundles and stand them in stooks Bundles about four inches (10 cm) thick at the tie. Stand six or eight together leaning into each other with the ears up, so air moves through and rain runs off.
5. Move under cover within a few days Hang the bundles ears down over a sheet, or lay them in a single layer on a rack in a shed or garage. A cut crop rained on repeatedly will sprout in the ear, and sprouted grain will not store.

Threshing, and the hull that will not come off

Threshing is straightforward. Once the bundles are dry enough that the straw snaps rather than bends, put a few ears at a time into a strong sack or a clean bin and flail them with a stick, or rub the ears hard between gloved hands over a tub. Then winnow: pour the mixture from one bucket to another in a light breeze or in front of a fan, and the chaff and awn fragments blow away while the heavier grain falls straight down. Two or three passes give a clean sample.

What comes out of that process depends entirely on which barley you grew, and this is where a first crop often goes wrong. Naked barley threshes like wheat and the husk comes away with the chaff, leaving bare grain you can cook. Hulled barley, which is most of the barley in the world, has its husk chemically fused to the kernel. It survives flailing, survives winnowing, survives everything you can do to it in a kitchen, and the only industrial answer is pearling, which abrades the husk off against a spinning stone.

There is no satisfactory home workaround. Soaking and rubbing removes a fraction and leaves the grain wet and prone to spoiling. Milling whole hulled grain gives a coarse fibrous flour that is edible in principle and unpleasant in practice. Hulled barley threshed at home is best used as poultry feed, as fodder, or as seed for the next crop, all of which are perfectly good uses. If your intention was food, the fix is to sow a naked type next season, and that decision is made at sowing time rather than at harvest.

Drying, cleaning and storing the grain

Grain that goes into a jar even slightly damp will mold in the middle of the container where you cannot see it. After threshing, spread the grain in a layer no more than an inch (2.5 cm) deep on trays somewhere warm, dry and airy, and stir it daily for a week. The test is simple: a properly dry kernel shatters when you bite it or crush it with a hammer. If it dents or squashes, it is not dry, whatever it looks like.

Clean it once more before storing. Even well-winnowed barley carries awn fragments, which are sharp and unpleasant in cooked grain, so a final pass through a coarse sieve and a second winnow is worth the time. Pick out any grain that is discolored, shrunken or shows a dark tip, since that is usually mold or an ear disease and one bad kernel will spoil the jar.

Store in sealed glass or metal in the dark and somewhere cool. Well-dried barley keeps for years, and hulled grain keeps better than naked grain because the husk protects the kernel. A few days in a freezer before the jar is sealed kills any grain moth eggs that came in from the field, which is the commonest way a stored home crop is lost. Set aside the plumpest grain from the best part of the block as next season's seed and label it separately.

What to record at harvest

Record the cutting date against the sowing date. That interval is the true length of the crop in your garden, and it is the number you will use to decide whether barley clears the ground early enough for a following summer crop, which is one of the main reasons to grow it.

Weigh the cleaned grain and note it against the area you cut, so that next year you are comparing like with like. Write down whether the husk came away or stayed on, in plain words, along with where the seed came from, because that single line answers the hulled or naked question permanently. Note how much loose grain you found on the sheet and on the soil, because grain on the ground means you cut late and should test kernels a few days earlier next season.