Be confident that we will match your needs to provide consistent quality and quantity, while still producing that terroir (taste of the land) that makes your products unique.
Our 6th hop harvest occurred in September 2016. As in past years, brewers who joined us for the harvest could purchase fresh hops (for wet hop brewing) on the harvest dates. Three varieties, Cascade, Nuggets and Sterlings, were dried on-farm in our oast. A small portion of our hops were kept on-farm for dried whole cone packaging. The remainder of our hops will be pelletized and sold with the Wisconsin Hops Exchange. If you are interested in purchasing pelletized hops, please visit them at www.wisconsinhopexchange.com. They have many varieties available!
Autumn Moon Farm, Inc. intends to begin packaging and milling whole grains and flour later in the Spring of 2017. The mill installation was completed in December of 2016 and our food processing equipment – and licensing – is currently underway! Construction will likely continue throughout the 2017 growing season; Malting is hoped to begin in the Winter of 2017-18.
In 2016, Barley, Wheat and Oats were harvested and approximately 26 tons are stored on site for processing – approximately 16% of our farm’s grain capacity. As demand dictates and our facilities are constructed, we will increase the number of tons for on-farm production with each harvest.
We’ve currently completed phase 1 of the facility construction for our on-farm Malthouse and Mill and all construction inspections are complete.
The mill installation was completed in December of 2016 with packaging and equipment supplies arriving weekly. Our Food Processing License application is in progress so that inspections can be complete very shortly after the cleaning and testing of our milling and packaging equipment are complete. Then we will be ready for grind!
We are working with local equipment manufacturers to produce our custom built drum malting system. The system is currently in the engineering phase; dependent on the final size configurations, we intend to be in production of at about 2 tons of base malt per week sometime in Spring of 2018. Production of specialty malts (dark, caramelized, crystal, etc.) is slated to begin after the 2018 harvest (July/August).
The excellent response from our brewer and baker survey already has us planning for phase 2. We are preparing to expand both our facility and equipment, to increase our malting and milling capacities to up to 4 tons per week relatively quickly – more if the actual demand meets the potential demand preliminary survey results indicate.
We are currently planning our crops for the 2018 season. Please help us plan our 2018 acres and beyond; fill out the applicable surveys to help us serve your future needs. Not sure where to start? Feel free to contact us.