GROWING HOPS
As you can see from my pics, I feel mine are growing slow as well.
Dartgod - are you just watering well, are you fertilizing daily???
I just water, although in May I didn't until I seen the weather man talking about not having rain for 19 days. I probably stunted their growth some then. Anyway, I had leaf compost on them and never added any fertilizer. Since then I've been reading up on growing them and it said to use a 8/8/8 fertlizer in the spring so I'll try it next year.....it also said to only keep 3 or 4 bines and trim the rest back and after they get going good to take the leaves off of the first 3 feet of bine to allow air circulation and to help with disease and downey mildew prevention.
GOODBREWING.......
Mid July update.....as you can see the plant on the left is full of cones while the one on the right is just starting to have the cones come on....the one on the right is loaded.......
LEFT
RIGHT
GOODBREWING..........
My lady is a avid gardener, and has decided to take this on. With manual labor supplied by yours truly. Probably next spring.
Do you use them off the vine or dry the hops & save to brew later. If so, how?
I have a dehydrater that I use for jerky.
You will need to dry them before using.
I just put them on an old screen and had a fan circulating air and they dried out in about 3 days and then I vacuum sealed them and put them in the freezer....as far as making a fresh hop ale, I'll probably do it next year when my plants should be more mature and I'll have extra ones......
GOODBREWING........
man im jelous, i know my growth was about 2-3wks behind yours and i still dont have any cones.
Wet hop ales.....
Wet Hopped Beers
Definition
Wet hopping is the use of fresh hops that a have recently been picked. Hops are not hard to grow in most areas of the US. They are grown from a rhizome, which is a root-like 'stick' that is planted. Wet hopping is a fun and rewarding way of using home-grown ingredients in your beer.
Because of the moisture content of fresh hops as compared to dried pellets, plugs, or whole hops you might get from a manufacturer, one ounce of fresh hops will impart much less bitterness than a comparable mass of the same variety that has been dried.
How Much to Use
An equivalent weight of dried hops imparts about six times the IBU of a fresh, non-dried hop of the same variety. So, let's say you have grown some cascade hops in your back yard, they seem ready, and you are ready to throw some in your Pale Ale. First thing you will need to know is the AAU% of your hop. Well, that's not easy without lab analysis. No worry, just take the medium range of the hop variety to get an idea. Since cascade is in the 4 to 8% range generally, we will take the average ((4+8)/2=6). Ok, so 6% is roughly what we will say our AAU is. Now, divide this number by six (because the ratio of fresh/dried AAU is 6:1). That gets us down to 1 AAU%.
You can now plug this value into a New Hop Variety in your handy BeerSmith program called Fresh Cascade, and factor these into your recipe.
One note about wet hops - they seem to impart a 'green' flavor into the beer - so go easy. My recommendation is to use dried hops for the bittering and add your nice, fresh wet hops in as an aroma addition.
Another note - if you're reall worried about it, wet hops will decrease your gravity a little bit due to all the moisture. Probably a point or two a most. Not a big deal in my book, but worth noting.
END OF JULY UPDATE
Hey BrewLuva check out the size of these pines cones;)
Won't be long before it's time to start harvesting and I still have a lot that are just starting to form into cones....I ought to have a pretty good crop this year.....
WOW!! nice cones!!!, I still have nothing impressive 