So, a modern combined harvester doesn't sort out ergot? To me it seemed that as contaminated seeds are bigger and probably weigh less, it might be possible to construct a mechanism to sort them out. But yeah, I don't know that much - I always thought that in my small-scale homesteading I won't be growing cereals. Maybe more about this topic later on =)

I think that if I keep on growing rye, I'd mostly use it to make porridge. So, using water / brine to sort out ergot sounds like a plausible idea. Hmm, I have an old manually operated coffee grinder which dates back to post-war era, and I'd like to test if that is good for grinding the grain, so that I could cook porridge out of coarse whole-grain flour. But with my limited experience about milling I'd guess that the grain has to be dry for grinding... So, yeah, let's see how it goes. As long as my harvest stays really small, it is possible to just manually pick the ergot away before storing the grain.

PS. Ah, and thanks for recommending those other bands. I've been especially enjoying The Hillbilly Moon Explosion. They rock!