Grow your own, uk?

[Beef Pot Noodle]

Hi, saw a similar thread about this topic on another homebrew forum. I have a big garden and was looking to have a vegetable patch, was wondering if anyone had experience of growing their own barley or hops? I expected there'd be a problem with long term storage but thought I'd ask for others experiences.
And as I'm in the Uk no gloating from anyone in lovely sunny regions please :nah:

 

[BarnsleyBrewer]

I can't imagine anyone growing their own barley, hops yes but barley???

Malting it is a specialised job never mind growing and harvesting it..

BB

 

[cutnrun]

I worked in a grain lab for a summer job once but it was a while ago so take this with a pinch of faded, teenage, drunken summer salt....

There are many grades of barley with many levels of usefullness. Farmers go to a lot of effort to get the right grain to grow to the right quality and everything is monitered, from startch content, water, protien, germ and so on. The quality of the batch of grain can range greatly.

As for amount of grain... i think you would be looking at 3 tonnes per acre average but that is a bit of a guess from long long long ago!


basically not worth the effort when Rob can get high quality stuff easily and at not a bad price really!

 

[JulesRS]

You can definitely grow hops, reasonably easily. You will need to give them a lot of space though. They're big climbers!

 

[Titus A Duxass]

I'd like to grow some hops but can only find seeds through Amazon and they are limited to common hops.

I can't find a German supplier which I find bizarre - not even the native Halletaller.

Has anyone got a pet supplier.

 

[BarnsleyBrewer]

You need to get an hop rhizhome, I bought mine from this supplier....
Mine is a dwarf variety "Prima Donna", I get enough each year from one vine for around 150-200 pints.

<<APLUS-HOPS>>

Best time to plant before the end of Feb :thumb: :thumb:

BB

 

[boozy_shoes]

I've got this book and although its from the US it's quite useful especially as it covers the growing of herbs for brewing and how best to utilise them in beer. It mentions types of malt for brewing and how to harvest and dry malt. It DOES seem an awful lot of effort though for as others have said something that is relatively cheap to buy. But if the tiem and interest is there to do it I would love to hear how you get on!!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Homebrewers ... 281&sr=8-1

 

[tbert33]

You need to get an hop rhizhome, I bought mine from this supplier....
Mine is a dwarf variety "Prima Donna", I get enough each year from one vine for around 150-200 pints.

<<APLUS-HOPS>>

Best time to plant before the end of Feb :thumb: :thumb:

BB

Cheers for the link BB. I know where ill be ordering from tonight!

 

[Titus A Duxass]

Cheers but that's a non-starter, I think they'd have problems posting to Germany. Could probably get away with seeds.