Growing Hops 2010
i've used plugs, but only for bittering. I know they are made for aroma, but I only used them when I couldn't find centennial in either pellet, or whole. Actualy, maybe I should keep using plugs for bittering, as they do filter out better, but they tend to be more expensive, and are not easiy to weigh out.
Maybe i'll try an all plug batch. I gotta get brewing anyway, got my kegerator to set up, and nothing to put into it. looking like october before I'll get anything done, as work is getting hectic.
it's getting, it's getting, it's getting kinda hectic.
90's hip hop, gotta love it, ha ha
Broke open a Cascade this morning. Isn't this beautiful?
Still smells just a little bit green, but it is papery and look at that lupulin... Mmmmmm
Crabnut, I just tested out my hop plug prototype. Couple of things, 1.5" is too small. I was shooting to make half ounce plugs and the 1.5" ID pipe is too small. I found a 2" pipe and that seems to work well.
The concept is sound but the materials are not. The wooden plug piston I made cracks under the pressure of the C-clamp. I ended up placing a strong 1.25" OD washer between the piston and the C-clamp to distribute the pressure and that seemed to solve the problem.
The plastic end cap on the PVC pipe started cracking. I tossed it and replaced it with a small piece of hard wood. It seemed to hold up well.
I ended up breaking part of my C-clamp in the process. It was a cheap one so I'm going to try again with an older,stronger one. I stuck the "C-clamp plug maker" in a vice and cranked down on the clamp and had to use a pipe for leverage once it started getting down to the bottom. That's when the ball/cup thing on the threaded part of the clamp broke. But once I popped the plug out it was about 1/2" thick and held its shape.
I need to locate a food saver. I've asked everyone under the sun and it seems everyone used to have one but threw it out after it stopped working. You'll need to vacuum seal them within a couple of minutes of popping them out because they'll start expanding. I'm going to try again tomorrow hopefully with some better materials. If all goes well, I'll post some photos.
I know what you mean about the food saver. when I had a hobby farm I bought a chain saw, the salesman said you can cut 3 cords of wood a day easily with this. So I bought it. took it back a week later and I told him the best I could get was a couple small piles, no where even near one cord. He took the chain saw and pulled the rope and I yelled "WHAT THE HELLS THAT NOISE?"
DC
Thanks DC. Good start to my morning.
I think I will be busy this week with hops. Of my two plants, the Cascade is ready now and will produce likely four to six oz dry, with more from the Glacier, but it's not ready. Likely a week out. My other two sources of home-grown, are both going to go this week. My normal ten plant source, good for a bushel basket normally, had a really bad year this year. Only likely to get about eight oz from him, but he is picking it for me this year. The last source is new to me this year and has not been harvested for a couple of years. No idea what I will get, but will be doing the whole thing my self.
I can rig up just about anything for compressing plugs in the shop, but I sure would like to get better bags for my foodsaver. Zip-locks don't hold a vacuum all that long. Anybody have a good cheap source for vacuum bags?
Fritz
I ended up buying the Seal a Meal vacuum sealer at Walmart last night. It had a lot of good reviews and I figured I'd just take it back if it didn't work. I made 5 oz of plugs today so far. My contraption works for the most part but its just time consuming. I feel like this is the way the Amish would make hop plugs.
Making plugs really makes for a good space saver in the freezer though. The bag of plugs is no more than 1/2" high while a bag of 5 oz of hops is just a giant ball. While I don't have access to the materials and tools that I need I'm going to talk to my brother who's a machinist and see if he can build me something, or at least couple parts, out of metal that I can use to build a better plug maker. I'd really like to make it compatible with a pneumatic impact gun - maybe even something that can do multiple plugs at once.
My hops (container grown on my balcony) aren't producing a thing this year because of crazy weather and lively neighbor bushes and their bugs. They have, however, died and come back for a third time this summer so they really WANT to live for whenever I can get them out of this neighborhood where they get mugged of all their nutrients every year.
I harvested my Cascades last week on Thursday, and got them on a screen to dry. All my neighborhood hop sources ended up a bust. The ten plant source ended up with really just enough for himself, and the other one just let their hops grow wild. That plant had lots of bines, but only produced like maybe one ounce total. The lack of cultivation and nothing to grow vertical on really impacted how it grew. Virtually no hops. I was really bumed. But, I was down at my LHBS, getting the ingredients for the BKB Fall Community Brew, in the back of the warehouse grinding my grains, and started talking with a local club member who was in the midst of a brew. He fresh hopped his brew, and had almost a bushel of Amarillo left over. Gave me quite a bit of them. I took them home, dried them as quick as I could, and last night plugged them with the Cascades. Ended up with 7 oz of Cascade, and 13 oz of Amarillo. FPB, I used your thought process but my supply of drain pipe consisted of some 3" diameter. My son had a broken wood baseball bat, so I chopped the end, and used it as a ram. I also made seven or eight 3" round spacers from a plastic bucket lid. With the setup I used, I was able to plug 4 one ounce plugs at a time, compressing them with a pipe clamp, and it worked great. Vacuum packed them with my new seal a meal bags from Wallmart, just slick as a whistle. I will take pictures when I plug the remaining Glacier Hops tomorrow. And what a happen stance on those 13 oz of Amarillo I just basically fell into. Got to love the home brewer brotherhood.
I promised you pictures of the plug making, and finally got around to posting them. Sorry about the delay. I'll post the final product pics and one of the apparatus here, but will add a new thread in equipment so that we can compare our plug making systems more throughly. And yes. Without a vacuum seal system, the plug making effort would be a waste and they expand out again if a few minutes if left alone. I ended up with 7 oz of Cascade and 9 oz of Glacier from my plants, only 1 oz of Centennial from a friend, and 13 oz of Amarillo from the home brew brotherhood. Last year, I ended up with like 10 oz from a friend, which took up almost as much space as a small turkey in the freezer and SOMBO was a bit cranky with me about it. This year, the thirty oz of home grown hops I ended up with in the freezer took up maybe half as much room and are much better protected long term in the oxygen tight vacuum sealer bags. Here are the plugs I ended up with. This picture shows four one oz, dry weight plugs, sealed together, two and two, separated by a small sheet of plastic so as to be conservative with the use of the vacuum bag material.
Below is a picture of the plug press in action.
LAST YEAR I ONLY GOT 4 OZ.THIS YEAR I HARVESTED OVER A POUND.CASCADE ONLY THOUGH.
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