Growing Hops 2006 -2nd Year
I was surprised in early April to see chutes already coming up. Here is the Centennial plant on April 5.
Middle Cascade on April 5.
Right Cascade on April 5.
April 22.
May 17. Good grief. They are already up to the top of the twine. Wonder what they will look like in a couple months. They are 1.5 months or more ahead of last year.
June 3. Cascade.
June 3. Centennial.
July 5. Cascade.
August 26. Cascade.
September 3. Centennial.
September 3, harvest day for Cascade.
The 4 bines are pulled down and the picking begins.
A few of my larger cones.
This year I got 2.5 gallon buckets worth. It was the second year of the hop plants. I got 1 bucket last year, so I was pretty happy with this harvest.
Close-up of the Cascades on harvest day.
Here they are on a screen in my garage.
Here they will sit until they are good and dry. Then, into Ten Buck Ale #2 with them!
Here is an update. After four days on the screen, they were extremely dry. A very nice fella offered to help me vacuum pack my hops. I thought, why not? Here they are in a grocery bag on their way over to his house.
This is what gets somewhat perplexing. At left you see 2 oz vacuum packed. At right, in the bowl, you see 2 oz waiting to be packed. Look how many hops it takes to get 2 oz! The thing is, they weigh MUCH more when they are not completely dry, even if they are only slightly still wet. My hops this year were super bone dry, and hence they hardly weighed anything.
I expected to get 10-12 oz at least, but in the end I got 7 oz. Two packs of 2 oz, and two packs of 1.5 oz. Good enough, but not quite as much as I thought. You can see above how many hops in the gallon buckets it takes to get a measly 7 oz.
Pictures from Ten Buck Ale #2 Brew day, using some of the homegrown hops.
I put about 1/2 oz in the brew pot before I collected the first runnings.
Mmmm. Hops and wort... Here is a video of the action. 1.2 MB
Here is 6.5 gallons of wort with the first wort hops ready to be boiled.
I also took a video when I added some of the hops to the boil kettle. 2.7 MB
For the bittering hops I tried some Summit. I have not used them before. I only used 1/2 oz for the 60 min boil. I tried to divide it in half.
The boiling whole cone hops circulated in a fun motion, up and down. Video 1.3 MB
Here is the Ten Buck #2 dry hopped with homegrown Centennial hops.
© 2007 Don Osborn