Processing seeds?

[Chasing Rainbows]

Hi all.

I keep reading about dehusking, whinnowing and parching wild seeds but I can't find a 'how to' article anywhere online. Could someone point me in the right direction please.

I'm also having trouble with the idea of beating grasses to harvest seeds. Surely one ergot infected seed would mean loss of the whole batch?

Help would be much appreciated.

-Cheers

 

[Chasing Rainbows]

It's cool, I found a page as soon as I started spelling winnowing properly.

http://www.jonsbushcraft.com/blog page 2.htm

 

[Toddy]

You're asking several different things really.

Ergot is *not* to be taken lightly.
It doesn't need much to make you incredibly ill, and those of us who forage would rather go hungry than eat suspect grain.
It is 'usually' found on rye, but it will infect other grain crops too.

If the crop is infected, and there's any way you can find other food, burn the crop, don't even think to try picking out the black horns. If the horns are there, it'll be in other plants nearby too.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[xylaria]

For this time of year you might have some plantain seeds still about. They are always totally safe as they arent a grass. There is a knack to every differant seed, you can only learn by doing. Plantain I find plastic pudding bowl with static eletricity helps winnowing. i never have found knack to bullrush heads, just one massive really irrating mess. Wheat I rub between two cloths then flick to winnow. We have a lot sedges around here but they appear to have dropped their seed already. As for beating i cut then sandwich between two sheets and tread on them. Dont know if it is the right way, but it is a way and in small amounts it works.

just go out and experiment is my advice.

 

[wildranger]

Hey Chasing Rainbows, this is something on my list of things to try next autumn, when the seeds from various grasses are available. If you're talking grasses and sedges, I've heard that yorkshire fog and pendulous sedge are good candidates. I'm also going to try cocksfoot and others. It seems that the way to harvest them is by beating the heads of the grasses with a badminton or tennis racket with a bag held open underneath. From what I've read, with most seeds, you first parch them, either with hot stones or with dry heat, to loosen the husks. Then you rub the seeds between your hands to free the husks from the grain. The final step is to winnow the chaff away. However, I have no actual experience with the process so I suppose my help isn't worth much!

 

[Chasing Rainbows]

Thanks for the replies all.

Agreed Toddy, I was looking into how ergot propigates itself. It's very clever really, it hijacks the seed production system to produce honeydew laced with spores. Insects touching the honeydew transfer the spores to other heads. So it's reasonable to assume that one ergot fruit has already infected all the seed therabouts.

Beating the grasses seems like a haphazard technique to me. An ergot fruit could be easily missed. Pulling the seed loose seems laborious but considering the reasonable price of flour bulk harvest isn't on the cards. I wonder if harvesting with a sickle and threshing is a good option? It seems better since a tied bundle would consitute an individual 'batch' which could be discarded without losing the whole haul.

@xylara: That's good advice mate. The plantain is indeed with seed right now but I haven't seen it in great quantity around here. Flicking is just knocking the heavier seeds away while the lighter husks just float right?

Thanks Wildranger. Your help is worth much. I was favouring the same species. I hear pendulous sedge is ergot immune, although I'd like to cross reference that before I take it as gospel.

I was reading about a technique for winnowing: Pouring the dehusked seeds between two buckets on a windy day. The wind carries off the husks while the seeds fall true in the bucket. Much like seperating the white from an egg really.

 

[Toddy]

It sounds easy, but you lose a lot of seed that way too.

Basically you need to in some way loosen the seed in the hulls first, and winnow over a cloth so you get a second shot at the seed collecting and wrap a scarf around your face and neck....the wee bits get everywhere.

The old method was to use a flail....google that for images. It's just really beating the seed heads before winnowing them, but you can take a small stook and just hit it against the back of a plain wooden chair or similar......the old frames used for beating rugs were very good .

Other seeds need parched, sort of lightly roasted, to free them from the layers of casings. Oats for instance, heating them fluffs up the layers and loosens them. Oats that have been treated this way are then called groats.

Dockens, when very dry, are good tossed through a flame to burn off the winged seed casings, and then the seeds can be collected for food. Think of a wok with a fire underneath and that works well, if you get the other way wrong you can end up with a flaming stick.

Wild rice, and the wood millet, just needs gently tapped and the ripe seeds fall off while the undamaged plant gets on with ripening the rest.

Lot of different plants, lots of different processes

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Chasing Rainbows]

Thanks very much Toddy.

This wild seed business is turning out to be far more interesting than I could have imagined. It really highlights how knowledgable our pre-farming ancestors had to be if one type of food required varied techniques to gather.

I have to say I'm really looking forward to the new experiences and varied dampers that I'll be enjoying as the year rolls on.