Another Experiment in Threshing Wheat

Wheat harvest is in June, and we try to get it threshed and winnowed as quickly as possible. It’s much easier to store as grain than in a bulky, non-threshed form (easier to protect from moths, too). In the past, both Dan and I worked on this together, but last year, I had an abundance of tomatoes, figs, and pears, so that I didn’t have time to spare for the wheat. The other day, I got out the last of the wheat heads and thought about how to thresh it.

 Of growing wheat, I’d have to say that the growing is the easiest part. Scything isn’t too bad, or last year, we had a small enough patch that we could just cut off the heads with a hand sickle. The hardest part is the threshing, which is separating the grains from the seed heads. Winnowing is just tedious.

To thresh, we’ve tried stomping, pounding, flailing, and rubbing. Dan even tried converting a little yard chipper into a thresher (pictures and explanation here.) Even so, every year we’re still looking for an easier way to do it. 

And that’s where my experiment came in. 

I turned the heat off and set the dryer to the longest timer setting, which was 70 minutes. Then I let the bags of wheat bounce around in the dryer until the timer went off. Here’s what it looked like when I dumped it out.

It worked!