“From Field to Flour: How to Grow Wheat”

As reported by Steve Cox, in  Mother Earth News  April/May 2014:

” Ancient Wheats and Their Pesky Hulls

Liberating the grain of an einkorn, emmer or spelt crop doesn’t end with threshing. North Dakota State University’s Steve Zwinger, who has done research on emmer for 20 years, says, “Hulled wheats are actually the easiest to thresh. But for small plots, it’s hard to come up with an effective, inexpensive way to dehull them.” Because hulls adhere tightly to the relatively soft kernel, they can be difficult to rub or knock off without also cracking the kernel.The GrainMaker company will offer a Homestead Huller Kit as an accessory for its Model No. 99 mill later this year (shown in the Slideshow), priced at $275 per pair of dehulling disks. With interest in hulled wheats growing fast, Zwinger says, we can expect growers themselves to come up with a new generation of small, relatively inexpensive dehullers. He says that in these situations, farmers are the creators. As an example, Zwinger points to Nigel Tudor of Weatherbury Farm, located 40 miles south of Pittsburgh. Tudor, with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is building a dehuller for emmer and spelt. But, Tudor warns, his dehuller is designed for larger-scale crops. “It would require a minimum of 60 pounds of grain to work efficiently,” he says.”

More information on Farmer Nigel’s spelt dehuller is available.