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Robert  Filhart:  farmer,  risk-taker, proud michigander

8/1/2015

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Our role in the craft beer industry is to be the link between farmers and brewers. All of the work that we do happens between when the farmer harvests the grains and when the brewer mashes in, and it represents an important conduit between the crop and the keg.

Spread across several fields outside of West Branch, Michigan, Robert Filhart is growing 90 acres of premium barley for Koops’ Malt Haus. The Metcalfe and Conlon two-row barley has headed out and is looking even better than we could have hoped. The once green rolling hills of our northern Michigan farm are starting to turn a golden hue that makes us dream of the inspired beers that will be borne of their fruits.

Robert Filhart personifies Michigan agriculture. He farms fields in West Branch and Coleman and is the owner of the Rosebush Sale Barn. For decades he has grown alfalfa, oats and soybeans, and has dealt in the buying and selling of dairy cows throughout the Midwest. He even owns and pilots a single-engine plane that is painted to look like a dairy cow. We don't know if he calls the plane “Bessie,” but we would like to think that he does.

Robert Filhart is new to growing barley, but he is an old and experienced hand at farming, and he knows the ins-and-outs of growing a cash crop.

“It was cooler and damp this spring,” Filhart says, “That’s good for small grains. This two-row barley is heading out and looking nice, it will be ready for harvest in late August.”

Filhart has noticed the increase in demand for two-row barley in the last several years, undoubtedly an indicator of the thriving craft beer industry in Michigan. Our search for a barley farmer put us in contact with Filhart through Paul Gross of the Michigan State University Agricultural Extension.

“I had looked into growing barley years ago, but there was no market for it in Michigan, it was a feed crop here, you had to go to Wisconsin to sell it as a cash crop,” Filhart says. “I had no interest in growing barley as a feed crop, and I certainly didn't want to haul it to Wisconsin.

“I’ve known Paul Gross for many years, and he called me up and told me that he had a couple of guys here interested in contracting some barley.”

Those “couple of guys” were, of course, Chip and Chris Koop, and the result of that introduction is the 90 beautiful acres of barley now growing in Filhart’s fields.

An enthusiasm about growing barley as a new crop was part of what attracted Koops’ Malt Haus to Filhart as a grower, he possesses the same pioneering spirit and passion for Michigan based agriculture as we do.

As good as the burgeoning barley looks, Filhart’s rye fields are a sight to behold. A winter crop, rye is planted in the dry days of early fall and harvested in the arid summer weeks- a convenient prospect for grain farmers.

“There’s more flexibility with winter crops like rye,” Filhart says, “You can wait until the fields are dry to get out on them, both in fall and in summer. The rye is looking really good this year.”

Koops’ Malt Haus will be using Filhart’s rye in test batches this fall.

Our relationship with Robert Filhart is indicative of our devotion to producing a Michigan based malt, made for Michigan brewers. Larger malt houses deal with larger farms, and we understand that. But we are a grassroots business, and we walk the fields where our crops are grown, and we swap jokes with the farmer that harvests our grains.

We know where our grains come from, and we think that you should too.





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crash  course  in  malt  surgery

8/1/2015

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Albert Einstein famously said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new.” Here at Koops' Malt Haus, we are trying new things all the time, so it stands to reason that we have had our share of follies.

In the past year, Chip and Chris Koop have immersed themselves in the sacred art of self-education, devouring information about micro controllers, relays, programming, air volume mechanics, thermal dynamics, plumbing…scavenging. We just like to call it “engineering.”

We started the first prototype of our malting machine in August, 2014. That first build was made out of stackable wooden crates and boards, supporting a five-gallon rotating grain drum; all of the duct work was made from PVC tubing. There was little temperature control- readings had to be taken manually and adjustments made from there. The only automated aspect of the system was a micro controller for the timed rotation of the grain drum. Crude, we know, but the object was to find out what would work on a larger scale, and what would not. We learned a lot.

The lid on the rotating drum worked it’s way off while Chip and Chris were at their day jobs, dumping the grain and spoiling the first batch. Lesson learned. The brother’s devised a new latching system for the lid and hatches, and also addressed the temperature control issues. The next incarnation of the machine included a heating system that was fabricated from a heated bathroom fan assembly. We noticed that the grains were drying out to quickly, so a spritzing system was added to the array. All of the new bells and whistles were automated through micro controllers.

One can never be too safe, so a smoke detecting sprinkler system was rigged above the prototype. The sprinkler system promptly failed and flooded all of the micro controllers. Every electronic element had to be packed in rice and dried out.

Once the components were dry, everything was reinstalled and the heat was ramped up to try to save the batch. Operating now without a sprinkler system, Murphy’s Law took effect and, two hours later, the machine caught fire. Not so much a blazing inferno as a slow, smoldering frustration.

It was time to take a step back and evaluate the situation. Failure not being an option, it was decided that the structure of the machine needed to be considered as much as the function.

This brings us to our current system- Rig 2.0, shall we say.

Today’s prototype is, for all intents and purposes, fireproof. The all-steel construction sports an external drive rotating motor; in fact, all of the electrical and heating components are installed outside of the system’s enclosure, the only thing within is the rotating barrel itself.

With computer based micro controllers we can change the internal environment of the enclosure on the fly. We have complete control over airflow, temperature and ventilation; everything is sealed tightly.

The drum itself turns on a hollow tube bearing system, which allows us to run forced air or water through the malting environment without the use of rotary seal components or unreliable lines.

So you can see, we have had some headaches along the way, but the misadventures were a great way to fine tune our method. Our current prototype is safely and consistently producing a quality malt, and is the blueprint on which our full-scale system is being built.

Consistency and quality, innovation and determination: these are the keystones of Koops' Malt Haus.

As for Einstein, we don’t know if old Albert was much of a beer drinker, but we like to think that he would admire our spirit!




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