Rocky Ridge Brewery’s quality assurance manager Drew Hennessy has been getting up to speed on the particulars of storing malted barley.

Founded in 2016 by Hamish Coates and his partner, Mel Holland, with Hamish’s father Colin, the brewery is located on the family farm, ‘Rocky Ridge’, at Jindong, near Busselton. Since 2021, they have sourced barley from Brendan and Gab Savage’s  ‘Tolga Farm’ in Kulin, 340 kilometres north-east of them.

Hamish says the goal is to optimise every part of the process for sustainability, and grain hygiene is imperative throughout the value chain.

It’s not just about reducing emissions; it’s about creating a responsible and efficient value chain from the farm to the glass.

‘Tolga Farm’ has been working to reduce its emissions and, in 2020, achieved Certified Sustainable^™ classification. Boasting an 80 per cent reduction in emissions compared with conventionally farmed products, this single-origin barley is now fully traceable.

The farm’s ethos matches that of ‘Rocky Ridge’. Hamish says installing storage on-site represents a giant leap forward for the brewery in reducing its carbon footprint. To close the loop, spent grain from the brewing process is fed to cattle on the ‘Rocky Ridge’ farm.

Drew Hennessy says barley from ‘Tolga Farm’ is malted by Joe White Maltings in Perth. Being single-origin batch-malts, they needed to ensure sufficient storage on-site.

Drew Hennesy with Rocky Ridge Brewery Founder Hamish Coates (left). Photo: Evan Collis

Seeking advice on the matter, Drew reached out to Ben White from GRDC’s National Grain Storage Extension Project through Joe White Maltings and Boortmalt. The project provides information and  training to use best practices for on-farm grain storage.

“We took delivery of three silos in 2023, two 50-tonne and one 20t capacity silos, and made sure we installed them in a well-ventilated area,” Drew says.

Storing malted grain has different requirements from raw grain. It must be held at low moisture levels to avoid microbial infection.

Ben and his team assisted us with information around setting up a controlled atmosphere treatment using carbon dioxide recaptured during the fermenting process.

This treatment is easier to manage in smaller, gas-tight silos and involves replacing oxygen with carbon dioxide. This deprives insects of oxygen over an extended time.

“Red flour beetle is our major pest of concern, and by using carbon dioxide together with meticulous hygiene and an organic structural treatment of Dryacide^™, we have achieved good quality storage so far.” An on-site laboratory monitors for beer spoilage organisms, including microbes that can come in on the malt.

Drew estimates that on-farm storage has saved more than 70t of carbon dioxide emissions annually in malt emissions. “Additionally, there are savings in freight  and handling emissions from sourcing  grain locally.”

The business is growing fast. ‘Rocky Ridge’ now produces more than a million litres of beer a year.

Read also: Pest resistance raising the knowledge bar for stored grain.