Hop Yard

An amazing ACSI representation of my hop yard:

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| Willamette |
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| Mt Hood    |
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| Cascade    |
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| Tree      |
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Hop Harvest Photos

Today was harvest day for my tiny hop farm. It took about two hours out in the September sun to get everything. At the end I was a bit disappointed with the amount of hops that I harvested.



Cascade Hops
By far the biggest haul and the nicest smell. 67g


Mt Hood 17g


Willamette 10g

Hops for Homebrewing

Little video of my hops out back:

hops hops hops

Mash Lauter Tun Conversion

Here are some initial pics of my mash lauter tun conversion. My basic idea come from the Cheap & Easy 10 Gallon Rubbermaid MLT Conversion post on Homebrew Talk forums. But I was unable to find some of the needed parts and was left with a cooler that leaked.

I've gone with a simpler approach and so far so good. We're 30 minutes into the first leak test and there is nary a leak to be found.

This is just an initial test so I'm going to make it a bit nicer before I'm done. Once I'm sure that everything will work I'll detail my parts in case anyone else is interested.



In the end I'll fit a hose onto the "out" barb and be able to easily and quietly train the MLT into my pot for the boil.

More Hops

The Cascades are really coming along now. Not sure what I'll end up with at the end of the day since it's been so dry here this year. But at least I'll be able to brew some beer with some hops grown in Winnipeg!

Hops Are Here

Sorry for being quiet around here for the last little bit but the hops are coming along and the Rauchbier is aging. It's in the secondary now and has a gravity of 1.010 which was pretty low, lower then I thought it would be. This means that my apparent attenuation is somewhere around %84.38 percent...which is pretty good for me.

Here are my hop cones coming along:

Not Sure Rauchbier - One Day later

Just a quick update for anyone that may be paying attention. At 8:30pm this evening (23.5 hours after pitching the yeast) the air lock is slowly starting to bubble away in the basement.

Remember this yeast is from September 1, 2010 meaning that it has spent just over ten months in my fridge. Thank heavens for starters.

Not Sure Rauchbier

So today was my first attempt at a mini-mash/partial mash/mash extract using a cooler as a mash tun and a grain bag. A lot of things went wrong too many to list in this quick post.

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The recipe was inspired by Papazian's clone of the Shlenkerla Rauchbier from Home Brewer's Gold but modified to meet my requirements:

1. I buy my LME in 3.2Kg bins and I don't like to split them. I also don't like using DME.
2. I like to brew 23L batches instead of 19L ones.
3. I don't mind my O.G. being a few points higher.
4. I don't have enough equipment to really go much higher then 2.5Kg of grains.

Here is the recipe:

Recipe		Not Sure Rauchbier		Style		Classic Rauchbier
Brewer	Mark Mruss			Batch		23.00 L
Partial Mash

Recipe Characteristics

Recipe Gravity		1.064 OG		Estimated FG		1.016 FG
Recipe Bitterness		30 IBU		Alcohol by Volume		6.3%
Recipe Color		18° SRM		Alcohol by Weight		5.0%

Ingredients

Quantity		Grain		Type		Use
0.23 kg		British chocolate malt		Grain		Mashed
3.20 kg		Light malt extract		Extract		Extract
2.00 kg		Rauch malt		Grain		Mashed
Quantity		Hop		Type		Time
60.00 g		Hallertauer		Pellet		60 minutes
10.00 g		Vanguard		Pellet		30 minutes
Quantity		Misc		Notes

Recipe Notes

Wyest 2124 Baviarian lager yeast from Sept 2010

Batch Notes

Brew Day: Sunday July 17th 2011
- Heated 5L of water to 65C
- Added water to grains temperature went to 57C
- Added 2.5L of boiling water raised temperature to 67C
- Another 2.5 L boiling to bring to around 73
- Another 2L boiling to bring to 75 or 80

- Drained cooler into one pot collected "first wort".
- Sparged with 8L of 80C water into another pot and then brought both pots to a boil.
- Brought to a boil and added 60g Hallertauer
- 10g Vanguard for 30 minutes
- Added yeast from starter at 21C (needed to get the beer out of the tub)

Taste:

- Not that smokey at all, a bit disappointed but we'll see how it turned out once the sweetness is taken down. Very very smooth, could be the low hops, but quite tastey (albeit sweet) already.

Week 6

Well it's been six weeks and this Saturday was time to train the hop bines. I setup the trellis last weekend, but the hop's weren't long enough to train yet, but this weekend they were. I decided to add a few more eye hooks so that I can run two bines on a single piece of string and give each bine a bit of breathing room.

Willamette (Organic)


Mt Hood (organic)


Cascade


I used Jute twine (so that I can compost it in the end) and some platic pegs that I bought at Home Depot. I ran the twine so that the middle of it hooked onto the peg closest to the plant (forming a V) and then ran each end into a different eye hook to provide some space.



I'm not 100% sure about what I'm doing but the hops seem to be growing and I'm of the mind that when you're doing something like this for a hobby it doesn't pay to worry too much about it.



All that being said I probably check on my hops at least twice a day.

Week 5

So I decided to erect a temporary (well it may be temporary) trellis this weekend, so that I can train my hop bines when they get large enough:





As you can see the design is pretty simple and it took me no time at all to build once I had all of the parts together. I don't know if it will be sturdy enough but I need something in place now because I won't have time to work on it for a few weeks and this was much cheaper then buying three small trellis' at Home Depot. It should be able to support my three hop plants for the time being, and allow me to swap it in the future when I want to build a larger "more permanent" structure.

The hops are all coming along with the Mt Hood being the largest so far.

Willamette (Organic)



Mt Hood (organic)



Cascade

Hop Sprouts After a Month

Well a month after planting the hop rhizomes and I've got sprouts from all three varieties that I've planted:

Willamette (Organic) This was also the smallest rhizome.


Mt Hood (Organic)



Cascade


Now I need to start on the trellis before they get too big (no a huge rush just yet). I was waiting to make sure that the hops would actually grow, no sense erecting a 15 foot high pole in your backyard for nothing.

In case you are wondering I've used: newspapers, leaves, and grass clippings as mulch around the hops. So far it's been pretty effective at keeping the weeds down.

Hop Sprouts

Three weeks after planting the rhizomes I think I have some hop sprouts. I say think because I'm not sure (first time planting hops) and the garden tends to attract a lot of weeds. I'm still waiting for the Willamette to show any signs of life.



Cascade srpout


Mt Hood (Organic)