The Grain School
August 12, 13, & 14
Single Day Pass: $90 Weekend Pass: $250
We have Scholarships available for those needing financial assistance. Please fill out this form to apply for a Scholarship.
Agraria Center for Regenerative Practice has collaborated with Tecumseh Land Trust, Antioch College, Cornville Seed, Appalachian Staple Foods Collaborative, and Rural Action to offer a 3-day Grain School to our friends in the Midwest on August 12-14, 2022. Over the course of three days, participants will have hands-on experience on the topic of Ancient Heritage Grains. Join us for farmers panels, beer tastings, baking demos, and lectures on various grain related topics such as The History of Beer and Dispelling the Myth of Backyard Grains. Come for one day or all three days!
Daily Schedule
Presenters
Jon Branstrator
Jon bought his first mill, a 8" Meadows, along with a Allis Chalmers All Crop 60 pull type combine in the late 70's. Milling his own grains and some that he purchased was a very satisfying experience. Local customers, like Ha Ha Pizza in Yellow Springs, really liked Jon’s flour and used it in their whole wheat pizza crust. Jon left the family farm for a number of years to pursue work in Costa Rica. When he returned to the farm he grew produce and commodity grains until seeing his old mill rekindled his interest in milling. Jon located heritage Red Fife wheat, Ohio Blue Clarage and Leaming Yellow seed and returned to his passion of growing and milling his own grains. Now with the purchase of harvest, seed cleaner, and a 16" stone mill, his passion projects are coming together. Current projects include helping to develop a Regional Grain Hub with Brandt Farms, studying corn culture in Oaxaca, teaching soil health and practicing regenerative agriculture on his preserved farm.
Read more about Branstrator Farm here
Michelle Ajamian
Michelle is principal owner of Shagbark Seed & Mill, an organic grain processing facility in Athens, Ohio, that she and her partner, Brandon Jaeger, started in 2010. SHe is a 2015 recipient of the Outstanding Woman in Innovation award. MIchelle and Brandon founded the Appalachian Staple Foods Collaborative (ASFC) in 2009, an informal network that led to the launch of Shagbark Seed & Mill. Michelle brought ASFC to Rural Action in 2019, to support new enterprises and advance high-nutrition staple crops on a regional scale.
Sean White
Sean White is the Co-Founder & Head Brewer of Little Fish Brewing Company, in Athens Ohio (his hometown). Little Fish opened in 2015, with the principle of creating beers brewed with sustainability and terroir from locally grown brewing ingredients. Since opening, Little Fish has expanded with a full farm-to-table kitchen, and is currently working on opening a satellite taproom in Dayton, Ohio.
Amalie Lipstreu
Amalie is the Policy Director at the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association. She has more than 25 years of public and social service experience and focused on agriculture and food systems starting in 2002 after receiving a Master of Environmental Policy from Kent State University. She advocated for and subsequently directed the Ohio Food Policy Advisory Council and the Office of Sustainable Agriculture at the Ohio Department of Agriculture. She joined OEFFA in 2014 focusing on food and agriculture policy at the state and federal levels. She has worked in land use around farmland preservation including agricultural easement purchase and donation programs, transfer of development rights, cost of community services and agricultural zoning. Recent work focuses on organic and regenerative agriculture systems, soil health, structure of agriculture policy, the role of agriculture in climate change and local and regional food systems resilience.
Pat Quackenbush
Pat Quackenbush is currently the Parks & Museum Program Manager and instructor at Hocking College after retiring a little over a year ago with 40 years as an ODNR park naturalist supervisor and environmental educator. Specializing in a strong hands-on approach to education, this style fits perfectly with brewing education. Pat has over 20 years of brewing background, brewing certification from Cornell University, and has won multiple awards and medals for his unique brewing styles. Owner of Backroads Boo & Brew along with his author wife Jannette and children, he operates a brewing school, farm, and brewing supply shop in the beautiful Hocking Hills of Southeastern Ohio. Pat teaches all aspects of brewing, hop growing and analysis, malt and specialty grain evaluation, water quality, and more.
The Brandt Family
The Brandt Family Farm is located in Fairfield County, Ohio. We are in the outskirts of Columbus and are first and foremost a grain farm. Our crops include Corn, Soybeans and Wheat, and include many other cereal grains sold through the on farm cover crop seed business, Walnut Creek Seeds, LLC.The Brandt Farm has used soil conservation practices for over 50 years. These practices include No-Till, Crop Rotation, and cover crops between cash crops. We continue to challenge ourselves to improve land stewardship practices. One of these challenges is to grow Heritage Grains and provide locally milled flour to our community. We are pleased to partner with other farms in this venture to build soil health, farm resiliency and food security in our neighborhood and through out the region.The Brandt Family Farm is a diverse grain farm supporting three generations. David Brandt has operated the farm for over 5 decades. His son Jay and wife Ann returned to the area in 2014 to run the cover crop seed business and help on the farm. Jay and Ann’s adult children Christopher, Isaac and Therese have joined the farm and seed business and are adding their contribution into the maintenance and growth of the diversified family business. The interest in Heritage grains lead to the purchase of a flour mill, which lead to interest from the community, not only for flour and corn meal, but for other farm families to participate in the local food movement and collaborate to bring food to the region.
James Luckett
For the past four years, James has been baking naturally leavened whole grain bread in her home - a microbakery known as Blue House - for friends, neighbors and fellow villagers of Yellow Springs, Ohio. Before turning their attention to bread making, James worked variously as an artist, educator and cook, pursuits that continue to inspire and inform the bread he makes today, loaves characterized by blending fresh stone-milled heritage grains with locally sourced seasonal ingredients to generate novel and unique flavor experiences.
Ruth Palmer
I am a Classical archaeologist teaching since 1995 at Ohio University in Athens in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies. My research specialty links archeological evidence for grains and other agricultural products with the earliest administrative records from the Mycenaean Greek palaces. Grains are central to our understanding of the development of agriculture, and complex cultural institutions in these early civilizations of the Mediterranean were defined through food and alcoholic drink, in particular bread, meat, beer and wine. My research compares the different kinds of evidence for production and consumption of different types of food and drink, and their relative social values, in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece from 3000 to 1000 BC. In my Classical civilization and Classical archaeology courses I emphasize the importance of food and drink in creating and defining ancient communities and have developed a course, Food, Drink and Identity in the Ancient World which looks in depth into traditional subsistence agricultural systems and ancient foodways as known from archaeology and ancient literature. I have also guest lectured on the history of ancient beer and its sources of information for Professor Mick Held’s brewing seminar at Ohio University, and I look forward to the opportunity here to trace the history of beer to its early modern times.
Andrew Martahus
Andrew Martahus grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Graduated as a chemical engineer from Washington University in St. Louis in 2014. He founded Haus Malts with his father, Craig Martahus, in 2015. Haus Malts supplies breweries, distilleries, and other food companies with malt and raw grain. Haus Malts uses locally sourced grain including barley, oats, rye, triticale, wheat, spelt, emmer, einkorn, and millet.