Worm Tea

Cup of worm tea, anyone?

Served up with a tasty crash course in composting, perhaps? 

Yes? Oh, we’re so glad you accepted! You’ll just have to hang on a year or so.

Welcome to Farmers Todd and Steve’s latest regenerative project: a Johnson-Su bioreactor.

It sure sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Like something straight out of an Austin Powers film, right up there with “sharks with laser beams attached to their heads.”  But as much as it might evoke something high-tech and sci-fi-worthy, it’s really just…a pile of organic matter and some worms. But before we dive into worms, let’s back up a minute to cows.

We’ve been doing traditional windrow composting for years at Olander Farms. It’s a system we believe in to add nitrogen to the soil and divert waste products, mostly dairy manure, into something useful. Here’s how traditional composting works: Mix carbon-rich materials (i.e. cornstalks) with nitrogen-rich materials (i.e. manure,) add sufficient moisture, and then let it process by alternating periods of allowing the piles to sit with regular intervals of turning it to mix it. Through this process, bacteria in the pile really get cranking, heating the pile up, breaking it down, and creating a nitrogen-rich end product to add our fields. 

Great, right? Sure is!

But what if we could do better?

We’re giving it a shot with the bioreactor experiment.

While certainly of value, traditional composting has limitations. First off, it is a bacteria-dominant form of compost. Why does that matter? 

An ideal agricultural field has soil with a 1:1 fungal-to-bacterial ratio. Currently, however, most fields - ours very much included - are bacterial dominant, which means quite simply, that the balance is off. We know, from extensive soil testing on our own fields, that our microbes aren’t where they should be for the land to be maximally healthy. We’ve got far too many bad microbial critters, and not nearly enough good ones. 

Enter the bioreactor.

Developed by Dr. David Johnson of California State University and his wife, huiChen Su, a Johnson-Su bioreactor is a new(er) system of composting that creates the fungal-dominant, high-microbial product that our soils so desperately need. 

An admittedly oversimplified explanation of the process looks like this: set some large, tower-like containers on top of pallets (for airflow) on the ground. Intersperse pipes running vertically throughout the bins (this will also be for airflow) then fill them to the top with damp organic matter. Let it heat up (those bacteria will do their thing, just like traditional composting) and then, when the temperature of the bioreactor drops to 80 degrees or below, pull the tubes (you’ve now created air pockets) and add…worms! Red wigglers to be specific, an excellent composting worm. After that, allow the bioreactors to sit for one full year, watering them occasionally.

What makes this relatively straightforward process different? The combination of organic matter + worms + time (with a little water and air thrown in) creates fungal-dominant compost. It’s teeming with microbes, worm castings, and all the good things that are lacking in our farm fields. After a year, when the bioreactors are taken apart and the compost extracted, it can be used to brew a “tea” that can then be sprayed on fields to give them a dose of microbiology. Or the compost can be applied directly to the fields, much like our traditional compost.

We’re going to go the tea route for our first try. We just built our initial bioreactors last month, so they’re only beginning the process of creating microbes. For this farm year, we’re working with a vermiculture company out of Ft. Collins to try and kick off the farm season with some local, homemade vermi-tea.

It’s probably about as tasty as it sounds. While we enjoy sharing, our honest advice is maybe to stick to the beer and whiskey made with our award-winning malt. Leave the tea for the barley and rye. 

Cows and compost. Worms and water. Microbes, fungus, and fully planted fields. 

We’re excited to be jumping into another growing season, excited to be learning new things, and, as always, excited to have you with us.

We’ll keep you posted on the compost. If all goes well, maybe we’ll invite you out to sip on a brew while brewing some poo. Worm poo that is.

Just another day of fun (and fun-gal!) in farming.

- Your Olander Farms Crew

Beefy Steve's Cow Corner, Episode 1: What In The World is Beefy Steve Up To?

A Crash Course in Cattle (and More!) with One of Our Favorite Farmers

Steve Olander has been farming longer than some of you (okay, many of you…) have been alive.

With decades of experience under that perpetual Western hat, and three generations of knowledge collected before him, Farmer Steve is one of this country’s most valuable treasures: a veritable encyclopedia of lived agricultural experience. Well-versed in everything from barley, to corn, to irrigation systems, and tractor repairs, Farmer Steve can do it all…but given a little free time, it’s likely you’ll find him behind the farmhouse hanging out with his “ladies.”

Cattle have long been a passion of Farmer Steve’s. So much so that it’s earned him the nickname of Beefy Steve and a reputation for selling the best farm-fresh beef around.

But in a high-quality farming system, cattle aren’t just for T-bones and hamburgers. They’re an integral part of a healthy ecosystem; and a lot of thought, science, and care goes into raising them.

We’ve mentioned cattle many times before on our posts and on our socials, but we’re going to partner with Beefy Steve himself to do a deeper dive into all things bovine at Olander Farms.

So, let’s begin…at the very beginning:

Beefy Steve’s Bovine Count:

The herd has grown by a good bit this year!

The Carr Herd:

Beefy Steve acquired 53 bred cows this year which means exactly what it sounds like: 53 pregnant mommas. Those mommas are calving right now, so soon we anticipate that number…well, doubling!

Because everyone loves baby pics, here’s our first calf of the year.

Name suggestions, anyone? Look at that little spot on its head. Spot! Too obvious?

This herd is a mish-mash of different breeds: Red Angus, Black Angus, Hereford, Black Baldies, and probably a few others mixed in. Beefy Steve’s take, “They’re a motley crew, but they’re cool!” This herd is referred to as the Carr Herd, and you’ll hear a lot more about them, soon.

Billy’s girls:

The home herd, affectionately referred to as “Billy’s Girls” for Billy the Bull, are 16 bred cows that live right out the back door of the farmhouse. (When they’re not meandering about grazing fields, anyway.) The ladies are Angus, Billy is Wagyu, and this herd has been responsible for Beefy Steve’s high-end beef sales. If you haven’t tried a Wagyu-cross steak yet, you haven’t lived.

the rest of the mob:

Over the course of the year, an additional 270+ cattle will graze our farm fields under grazing leases. An easy food source for the ranchers owning the cattle, the grazing is also actually a key part of our farming operation as it helps us regenerate and improve our fields. More on that, soon!

What’s next for Beefy Steve’s cow corner?

We’re planning our upcoming posts! In April and May…calving updates! Lots of them. Stay tuned to learn from the Beefy Master himself.

And, as the weather to from winter to warmer, if you’re looking to get grilling and support a local farm, you can always order Olander Beef directly from Steve! Give him a call or text at 970-217-2342 to order.

N, P, K-illing It

What do farmers do in winter?

Sip whiskey? Ski the slopes? Repair tractors?

Sit in the malthouse office and listen to presentations on soil science while perusing photos of weevils and root balls?

The last option, obviously. Maybe a little of the first three, as well.

While the winter is the off-season for farmers, it certainly doesn’t mean that it’s all whiskey while skiing. Or beer while repairing. Or sleeping in late, eating pancakes, and taking long walks with the dog in the park. (Who are we kidding anyway? Thompson doesn’t do walks or parks. He does cornfields at Mach speeds, only.)

Winter provides a good time for reflecting on how the last growing season went, and planning how to do better for the next one. Our soil, the most valuable commodity we have, is a key part of that reflection and that’s why this year we partnered with Red Dog Soils during the growing season to monitor the work we do and evaluate the current state of our fields. At the end of 2023, we sat down to get the results.

As with so many things in life, the results were a mixed bag.

Soil science is very….well…science-y. It’s kind of math-y, too. Just look at this summary. This is one of 52 slides we reviewed in doing an in-depth dig into our soil.

Don’t worry….we’re not going to give you 52 slides worth of soil samples.

We’re gonna give you the, “Quick! Summarize it! We wanna go drink beer!” version.

N, P, K (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium) is the baseline chemistry of all a farmer does. As key as water and sunshine, these three elements are absolutely necessary to produce healthy plants. A deficiency in any of the three will have visible impacts. Once the NPK in a field is nailed down, there are all sorts of other goodies to dive into: micronutrients, soil fungi, bacteria, beneficial insects, detrimental insects, the list goes on and on.

But, as we discovered, we don’t even have our NPK straight. Not even after the years of work we’ve done. We’re short on Phosphorus and Potassium in most fields. We’ve got too much bacteria and too little fungi. We have lots of pest nematods and a whopping zero beneficial nematodes. Several fields need improved soil structure and, and, and…

So should we throw in the towel and stop farming?

Nah.

Nothing worth doing is easy and we are making progress. The fields we cover crop are retaining more moisture, a key to improved biology. The plants we used a foliar spray on showed marked improvement. We’re constantly evolving our crop rotations, reducing tillage, and giving our land a chance to heal.

It’s easy, sitting in a Farm-to-Fork restaurant to preach the benefits of regenerative agriculture and wax poetic about compost, carbon sequestration, and this new generation of eco-responsible farmers, but the boots-on-the-ground reality of farming is that it’s not just about sprinkling some fairy dust in the form of cow manure around, then calling it good. It’s a slow process. We’ll make mistakes, figure out adjustments, and try again.

But when you get one try per year, it takes time…lots of time.

We’re in it for the long haul, and we’re in it for generations: future generations of farmers to whom we hope to leave an optimistic legacy and healthy fields.

Right after we go enjoy just a couple more winter beers, that is.

— Your Olander Farms Team

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...

…as Michael Myers moved stealthily through the dim malthouse, unconcerned about the Thunder and Lightning around him, plotting his next move…

No, we haven’t confused our holidays and we’re not intro-ing another Halloween-themed blog (though the sheer convenience of having a malthouse manager named Michael Myers makes it tempting), but December did bring lots of Thunder and Lightning to the malthouse, it just did so in the form of…barley.

If you’ve been following our winter barley saga, this is the episode you’ve been waiting for! How does it all end??

For those of you just joining…here’s the 15-second version: Thunder and Lightning are two fall-planted barley varieties, a rarity in Colorado where barley is typically spring-planted. We’re trialing them as part of our attempt to be more resilient in a changing climate. We’ve never grown them before and it’s been a wild ride, including nearly losing both crops to hail, but despite the odds, they rallied, enough to harvest some grain and so…we malted our first batches!

And, as this entire, drama-filled experiment has been, the malting process was…yet another wild ride. A big, stormy, soggy Thunder-and-Lightning filled adventure.

Thunder was our first batch. We had enough of it to do two batches, so, we figured, if we screwed one up, we could always run another. This is the sort of excellent thinking that frequently saves our rear-ends, because naturally, we proceeded to immediately screw up the first batch.

When Thunder went into the steep tank, we discovered it had an extreme water sensitivity that hadn’t shown up in our previous tests. The water uptake on it was faster than any batch we’ve ever seen. Much faster. The barley sucked up water rapidly, swelled to the point of nearly popping out of the manhole of the tank and, essentially, drowned itself. When we realized what was happening, we quickly transferred it out and into the drums, but in malting, steeping is perhaps the most impactful part of the process in terms of creating a high-quality product and if you don’t get it right, it’s hard to recover.

The barley didn’t recover. It was stunted and unhappy, so we kilned it dry and gave it to the Olander Farm cows as an early Christmas present. The cows were thrilled. The malthouse staff, less so.

The second batch came out much better. We knew the shenanigans that Thunder was pulling now, so we moved much faster. We reduced the first steep time way down, we reduced the dry steep time way down, we reduced the second steep down, and then transferred it as fast as possible.

It worked beautifully. The kilning went without a hitch and the end product is gorgeous. We just got the specs back on it and it gives every indication that it’s going to be a fantastic malt: it has high extract, high friability, and the protein is right on the money.

But does it make good beer??

Well, you’ll have to be the ones to let us know! We now have 18,000 lbs bagged and ready to roll out the door. If you’d like to be one of the first to give Thunder Pilsner a try, give our sales team a shout! We can’t wait to see what comes of it!

And what about that Lightning?

Have we mentioned that nothing is ever easy?

Since they are essentially sister varieties, we anticipated the same behavior. We were ready with our timers and our hoses and our tank. We would steep it quickly and move it efficiently.

So naturally, it pulled the completely opposite stunt.

Lightning required more water and longer steep times. It didn’t show the same vigorous water uptake and didn’t need to be transferred as quickly.

Just goes to show that processing new barley varieties has a rather….steep…learning curve.

The jury is still out on Lightning. It’s in the drums as we blog and then we’ll send it off for testing.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for more good things, remember that we’ve run two other experimental batches this year! Our first chit malt was just released last month, and our new Munich Wheat malt just got a shout-out in this article by The Colorado Sun on brewers and distillers using local grains.

Realistic New Year's Resolutions

January is a slow month on the farm. (Slow in farmer-speak, mind you. There are still tractors to be worked on, cattle to care for, and fences to mend, but hey…that’s easy, right?)

We’ve been using the extra time to sip on some whiskey and stout and stare into the fire. It’s a high-quality way to pass the time. We highly recommend it. Not only does it help you unwind, but it also allows for reflection, rumination, a whole reevaluation of how life is going and if that’s the actual direction you want it to go.

It also, occasionally, provides for some meaningful insights. That’s what happened to us this year. We were just sitting in front of the fire, enjoying a couple of craft beverages when - boom! - just like lightning, we realized…

New Year’s Resolutions don’t have to be boring.

Who made that rule anyway? Why does everyone talk about going to the gym, losing weight, eating better, and reducing spending? Why can’t a New Year’s resolution be a commitment to hide in the coat closet and scare the bejeezus out of a family member monthly? Or to order dessert more often when you go out to eat? Or to take more sip-and-paint classes, excel only at the sipping part, but still gleefully hang your artwork in the garage for your cars to admire, no matter how bad they are??

We also realized during our fireplace staring, that fun resolutions can also often do good, in which case you get all the smug satisfaction of doing something right, along with the joy of just having fun.

So, if you’re looking for a few New Year’s Resolutions that don’t involve working out or keeping your house cleaner, we’ve drawn up a list of craft beverage-inspired suggestions for you. Support local businesses, invest in the local economy, and try all sorts of new tasty libations. Win, win, and win.

Crafty Commitments for 2024

1. Try every beer that your local brewery brews over the course of this year - even those that aren’t your typical style. You might discover a new favorite!

2. Go to a distillery with a friend. Read the cocktail menu without talking. When drinks come, each of you orders, then… drinks what the other person ordered. Repeat monthly. Expand your horizons…or maybe test your friendships!

3. Commit to petting every dog you see on a brewery patio. (With permission, of course!) Enjoy that oxytocin in tail-wagging form!

4. Pick a local spirit that you love. Learn to create one absolutely stellar cocktail with it. Make that your signature drink for the year and take it to all the parties.

5. Commit to attending at least one brewery event that you wouldn’t, usually. Trivia, running club, stitch ‘n’ bitch…something new that sounds like a good time!

6. Leave a new positive Google review each month. Got a series of breweries, distilleries, or other small businesses that you frequent regularly? Give a glowing Google review for one each month. A little love goes a long way for small businesses.

7. Be a new brewery/distillery superfan! Keep tabs on new craft beverage joints scheduled to open in your area, then visit them (frequently) as soon as they do. It takes a lot to start a small business and every bit of support helps!

8. Try monthly mixology. Purchase some local spirits and research a new cocktail recipe each month. It’s okay if they’re easy…as long as they’re tasty!

9. Buy the right glasses for different types of beer and spirits and learn how to use them. Still sipping whiskey out of that old coffee cup you inherited from grandma? Get a tulip-shaped whiskey glass and learn how it changes the experience.

10. Cook with craft: beer isn’t just for brats. Stout chocolate cake, beer cheese soup, honey, and ale chicken sliders. The craft beer-inspired recipes are endless…and you can sip while you simmer, confident that you’re supporting small business and filling your belly!

These were just the first 10 craft-inspired resolutions we came up with this week. We’re sure there’s more. Have some good ones? Send them our way!

Suddenly, this resolution thing seems so much more manageable…

Cheers to the New Year!

—Olander Farms and Root Shoot Malting

Malthouse Math (and a Little Year-in-Review)

Let’s do some malthouse math for a minute. 

Yes, we’re aware that you probably told Mrs. Jones, your 4th grade teacher, that you would never actually use math in real life. You may have even whined during science classes. But that was before you became a craft malt aficionado who, (albeit grudgingly,) realized that both math and science are actually key components in the business of making good beer and good spirits, and you most definitely aren’t whining over that glass of craft whiskey in your hand. So…you probably owe Mrs. Jones (and likely your high school biology teacher) an apology, accompanied by a high-quality craft beverage. 

While the two of you sip away, we’ll run you through some of the numbers that created that craft cocktail you’re enjoying.

so much malt

• 125 total batches. At 20,000 lbs of grain per batch, that’s 2,500,000 lbs rolling out of those drums and into your beer. And we’re not done growing yet! If we ran all 3 drums at full capacity all year, we could do 156 batches of malt, equaling around 3,000,000 lbs of grain. We’re almost there…but this year’s malthouse construction combined with some learning curves around running our newest drum, meant we weren’t running all drums all the time. When we do, there will be all kinds of magnificent malt coming your way.

• 1,000 deliveries. Magnificent malt is no good unless it makes it into your beautiful brews and divine distillations, so we went out to you 1,000 times to make it happen.

• 350 pick-ups. Teamwork makes the dreamwork, and many of you made our lives easy by swinging by the malthouse for your orders. The honest truth of it?  We just love getting to see you.

Trendsetter Tips

When you’re sending two and a half million pounds of malt out the door, you start to notice some trends - and we’re not talking about mom jeans and mullets. More like Malted Oats and Munich Wheat.

• Folks like lager. Last year, we malted 53 batches of Genie Malt, our biggest seller. This year, we only did 39. Why? Because Pilsner was up. We ran 23 batches of Pilsner Malt and talking to our brewers, most of that Pilsner was going into lagers, a welcome relief for some from the IPA craze of the last few years.

• The IPA craze (and haze!) isn’t going away. Malted Oat sales grew by over 50% this year and most of them…yep…they’re going into your hazy IPAs.

• Whiskey is where it’s at. Our distiller’s malt sales were up by 70% over last year. We’ve got a…spirited…bunch of customers. 

It’s not just the numbers

We’ve hit a few milestones that have nothing to do with pounds of malt or deliveries down I-25, but they’re a pretty big deal for us, nonetheless.

• Our build-out is complete.

A lot more goes on in the malthouse than just bags out the door. Perhaps our biggest success this year was finishing construction. For the entire seven years that we have been in operation, we’ve been growing, building, and moving malt - often literally, from one side of the malthouse to the other as we figure out the best system to add equipment, run a production line, serve our customers, and keep our sanity.

This year (finally!) after seven straight years we’re done. While there will always be maintenance and improvements, we’ve completely built our facility. 

Will we miss making malt schedules around concrete work and fire sprinkler tests?

Nope.

• We’ve got new malts for you to meet!

Worrying less about construction logistics allows us more time for innovation, and this year we rolled out two new malts, with the newest hitting the shelves just this month. Please welcome Munich Wheat and Chit Malt to the Root Shoot family. Wanna give them a try? Just shoot us a line!

• We’re hoping to continue the winning streak.

In March, we had a pretty impressive win at the Malt Cup, and we’re gearing up for 2024’s competition. Samples have been submitted and over the next months, the judges will be doing their work. While any business enjoys winning awards, for us the real benefit of the Craft Malt Cup and our work with the Craft Maltsters Guild is the challenge to always get better. 

And with construction over, an excellent staff on board, and a solid harvest sitting in our silos, that’s our focus for next year. Doing what we do, and doing it just a little better, every day, year in and year out. We make malt so that you can craft your liquid art.

Make Mrs. Jones proud, one craft cocktail at a time.

- Your Root Shoot Malting Team