Hop plants/rhizomes - growing report

[jceg316]

This is what I did this year. I had 3.5kg of Fuggles to dry out, so made some frames with a fine mesh stapled to it. I then put them on trestles in my garage and put a fan on them. They took about 3 days to dry out and would of been even quicker if I didn't turn the fan off over night. I ended up with just over a kilo that is now vacuum packed and in the freezer. I used 100g of them in a brew I did last Sunday, it was very satisfying using hops I have grown myself.

Looks good! trouble is I'm terrible at DIY, but I'm sure I could trade some beers for someone to make me some frames.

I tried laying out my cascade in a room and had a fan blowing over them, but they started to smell pretty bad :S. I put them on a plastic sheet though which may have been a problem. Once the dehydrator was free I put them in there to finish them off.

 

[sdt7618]

Well this first year I got once dried

135 g of saaz
130g of cascade
40 gram of target and
29 gram of northern brewer.

Going to use them to make my first extract beer next wee, probably some kind of IPA using the target and possibly the northern to bitter and th cascade for aroma

 

[Godsdog]

cut them all down today and repotted the cascade and centennial ready for next spring,hoping they come back stronger as they were only first year hops and yielded very little:thumb:

 

[johnnyboy1965]

cut them all down today and repotted the cascade and centennial ready for next spring,hoping they come back stronger as they were only first year hops and yielded very little:thumb:

What size pot did you go for?

 

[Godsdog]

What size pot did you go for?

the centennial is in the square grey planter and the cascade in the large brown pot which I have put a 2 litre bottle of pop next to them so you can see their size in relation to it,the only one I have in the ground is the progress one you kindly gave me which went mad this summer,i re potted the two of them with farm yard manure from the forge mill lane farm shop a fiver a bag:thumb:

 

[Godsdog]

Just a quick question to experienced hop growers/ users,creepy crawlers/ little insects within them,won't they possibly infect the brew as you can't get rid of them all as they reside deep in the hop cones so they get dried along with the hops,thinking more along the dry hop line rather than in the boil

 

[sdt7618]

Just a quick question to experienced hop growers/ users,creepy crawlers/ little insects within them,won't they possibly infect the brew as you can't get rid of them all as they reside deep in the hop cones so they get dried along with the hops

Not an experienced grower, but kinda hoping that a week in the freezer will get rid of any nasties.

 

[gnelson]

I freeze all mine fresh. I've tried drying them and have been pretty disappointed with the results. They seem to lose a lot of the oils. I think you need to use a fast drying technique for it to work. Only learning curve for using fresh was guessing the weight to use.

Regarding the little beetles etc., if the cones are dried, the bugs will all run off to find something alive to live on. Freezing them will kill the insects and almost all the bacteria and fungal spores they carry. Obviously the hops themselves are all covered in spores etc, but you don't need to worry as the boiling wort will sort all that out.

This year I've managed to harvest enough hops for my entire years brewing. Enough for 6 10 gallon brews. The only hops I'll need to buy is for my hefeweizen brew in the spring, as I only grow English hops.
That is from 1 2.5year old Fuggles plant, 1 2.5 year old Prima Donna and 3 baby fuggles plants (1 half year old and 2 1.5year old). All growing in the ground at my allotment. Reckon I'm going to have a huge excess next year.

Any would be growers in the north east of England, I can pot up spare plants next spring- I'm up near Consett.

 

[MagnusTS]

I freeze all mine fresh. I've tried drying them and have been pretty disappointed with the results. They seem to lose a lot of the oils. I think you need to use a fast drying technique for it to work. Only learning curve for using fresh was guessing the weight to use.

That is very interesting. I was just about to post a question to this thread asking if you could just freeze fresh picked hops without drying.

I have more hop questions if anyone could help:

How long do people store their home grown hops for?

How do you know how much to use for bittering without knowing the Alpha acid %?

Thanks!

 

[MagnusTS]

Has anyone else had this problem?

Just got home to find an aphid infestation. Day 2 of the drying process and it looks like the hops got too dry for aphids and they have moved out en masse.

I am not very popular at the moment.

The hops looked perfectly fine when I picked them, with no sign of aphids - they must have been hidden up inside the flowers.

If I'd used these hops for wet hopping I would have put a shed load of aphids into the wort. I'm sure it wouldn't have affected the taste, but I wouldn't feel very happy knowing I'd brewed up a load of bugs.

So does anyone have any ideas for getting rid of hidden aphids before drying or wet hopping? I have a load of cascade still on the bine that I was hoping to bring in next week.

 

[gnelson]

I have more hop questions if anyone could help:

How long do people store their home grown hops for?

How do you know how much to use for bittering without knowing the Alpha acid %?

Thanks!

Hi Magnus,

My hop harvest does me for a year, kept in the freezer. I'm drinking my second last brew from last year, and it is still got plenty if bitterness and plenty floral notes. They seem to keep fine Luke that (should do really). That was last years harvest, my first year almost self sufficient. This year I am fully self sufficient, and next year I think I'll be chucking spares on the muck heap!

Regarding knowing the bitterness, just trial and error! Part of the fun! I do think my 'fresh' (frozen) hops give me more bitterness than dried bought ones. This is based on some loose tests: I dried some hops to see how much weight they lost, and it was more than 75%. That suggested I needed to hop about 3-4 times the weight with fresh hops! I decided this was way too much, and went with the old cooking adage of using double quantities of fresh herbs to dried. My brews have still been more bitter with the same recipe using my own hops.

I hope that helps give you a starting point.

Glyn.

 

[sdt7618]

Has anyone else had this problem?

Just got home to find an aphid infestation. Day 2 of the drying process and it looks like the hops got too dry for aphids and they have moved out en masse.

I am not very popular at the moment.

The hops looked perfectly fine when I picked them, with no sign of aphids - they must have been hidden up inside the flowers.

If I'd used these hops for wet hopping I would have put a shed load of aphids into the wort. I'm sure it wouldn't have affected the taste, but I wouldn't feel very happy knowing I'd brewed up a load of bugs.

So does anyone have any ideas for getting rid of hidden aphids before drying or wet hopping? I have a load of cascade still on the bine that I was hoping to bring in next week.

Yeah I had this, but to be honest, once the were dry the bugs had moved out. But I have room away from the wife to dry them so no harm done

 

[Rogermort]

Finished drying and packing mine this evening. Truth be known I could have done with harvesting them a week earlier but we were away on holiday.
Dried weights were 214g Cascade, 450g Northern Brewer (both second year crops) and 44 grams of Challenger. The green aphids had all moved out by the time the drying was complete in the garage.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MagnusTS]

Thanks folks, really helpful advice as always.

I dried my First Gold in a mushroom riddle over 3 days. The aphids moved out on day 2, and I've not seen any bugs since then. I dried them down to one quarter of their weight at harvest, and they are now in the freezer waiting to be used.

I have one little worry now, and that is the lovely hops smell has disappeared as they dried. Now they are dry I am sure I can get a faint whiff of onion when I stick my nose in them. I'm hoping I've not harvested too late, or over-dried them. When I rub a flower apart I do still get a nice hop smell again.

I had an idea about the estimating the bitterness. I thought I'd do a small quick extract brew; just a 4.5L demijohn with ~500g of DME to test the hops out. I thought a mini-brew would be a good way of testing the bitterness of the hops and adjust quantities before scaling up to a full 23L AG brew. Also, no point me wasting a day doing an all-grain batch if there is a chance I will end up with 40 pints of onion flavoured beer.

 

[MagnusTS]

And here it is; my mini-extract brew using homegrown First Gold hops.

I set the AA value to 4%, which is a couple of % lower than the minimum in the range for First Gold.

And I spread the additions out over the 60 min boil to try and even out bitterness/ aroma with unknown AA value.

Here's what I tried:

4.5L extract brew
600g light DME in 5L water
60 min boil
6g First Gold at 60 min
6g First Gold at 30 min
8g First Gold at 15 min
8g First Gold at 5 min
8g First Gold at flame out - 20 min hop stand

I think that should give me about 36 IBU, but I am being conservative with my estimates. Who knows?

I does look a little like I am boiling up Brussels sprouts.

I'll wait and see how it turns out.

 

[MagnusTS]

So how are everyone’s homegrown Hop beers coming along?

I brewed four 5L mini brews:
First Gold
Cascade (wet)
Cascade (dried)
Cascade (shop bought)

I’m planning to do a comparison between wet, dried, and shop bought hops, see if I can tell the difference.

It’s early yet, and they are not all ready, but the First Gold came out really nice. I could really taste the spicy marmalade flavour.

Unfortunately the 2 batches with homegrown Cascade have not turned out so nice. Not unpleasant, just quite bland.

These are all from 1st year plants, so maybe they will be more flavoursome next year?

I was beginning to think all the effort of looking after them, harvesting (getting scratched), drying (bug infestation) and guessing aa values, was maybe not worth it when I can buy them for a fiver or so. But I am really pleased with the First Gold pale ale (photo below), so will definitely be growing and harvesting again next year.

 

[Gunge]

Magnus - I shoved a ton of my First Gold into a stout soon after harvest. All I can say is "liqourice"! Really nice and I'm reserving the rest for future stouts.

 

[Bigjas]

I am really pleased with my Fuggles and Progress hops that I grew this year. I have made (and drunk) a pale ale using both and it went down really well. I have also brewed a stout and a porter using the Fuggles, both are conditioning but my test taste of the stout was very encouraging.

It has been very satisfying brewing using my home grown hops.

 

[Gunge]

It has been very satisfying brewing using my home grown hops.

Ye it's a blast. Trouble is, I ain't got a clue how much to use from one harvest to the next until at least one brew is done. For the stout I mentioned above (first brew from this year's crop ), I went completely overboard with the hops as I had the feeling that they weren't very 'strong'. Fortunately I'd guessed just right. All part of the fun, really.

 

[johnnyboy1965]

Its time to give your hop plants a little TLC. You should have, by now harvested
and cut down leaving a short stub. Pile the tops high with any organic matter, well rotted horse manure is best but anything organic to keep them cosy during the winter.