Sun dry hops

Previously i have dried hops in the oven but this time around it was a very very hot day... well 90f and quite sunny. Left the hops on a cookie tray with a cookie cooling rack holding them down. One day in full hot sun made them quite dry. Did not do a weight before so hard to say how this competes with the oven hops drying method.
Here is the total yeild from one wimpy plant dried and bagged. This is the potted hops plant that had its two main bines broken mid season and nothing new really came up and replaced them.

On a similar note I have added a few more images to my classic hops illustrations post.

hops cones cross section scan.

these dudes are almost ready to harvest! This is a flower from my second year cascade plant.

Growing two row barley for brewing

Let me start with the anticipated questions:
Where can I buy Barley seed for growing beer?
Organic Two Row Malting Barley
Is a 5gallon bucket enough space to grow barley?
doesn't look like it.
Does this really work?
TBD
How do you malt the barely you grow?
TBA

Here is the barley that i started indoors under the led grow lamp now going to seed. The amount of seeds on the stalks are pretty comparable to if not less then the amount i planted in the bucket in the first place. This was grown in normal potting soil.

Planted another batch in a small test area in the back yard. mixed in about two inches of compost with the old soil. Hard to describe the seed density other then by showing this photo.

About 1 month later.

Hops growing in a pot year two.

So the hop wintered over very well. very very well. All i did was cover it in a foot of mulch. So I guess that is adequate frost protection in pittsburgh.

For spring I just dumped the pot cut the thick coiling rhizomes and gave it fresh soil to work on. It had pretty much filled the pot with roots.

The dumping process was a challange. I was trying to lift it and found that it was very heavy. The reason was that the four small drain holes in the pot had huge roots growing through them anchoring the pot to the ground.


So when I say hops can grow in pots I guess I mean they can but try their best to get out. here are the shoots comming up in force for the spring:

Etched chalk writing beer bottle label for homebrew.

1) Start by blocking of a rectangular space with electrical tape







2) paint on a coat of armor etch over the blocked off area
Armour Etch - 3 oz, Armour Etch Cream




3) in 5 min remove the tape and wash off the armor etch.







4) Label the bottle with chalk.

The lovely beer shown here is my AG 90%pale two row with 10%rye and a healthy dose of cascade. Name for this recipe will likely be pregnant bender pale with rye

Growing Barley Indoors/Where can i get Barley seed for growing my own beer.

I am trying out a new LED grow lamp and want to try to either start early, or completely grow some barley for homebrewing inside.

Where To Buy Barley Seed for Homebrewing: I got mine at Johnnys'. Starting my first batch now but we will see. Organic Two Row Malting Barley

How much to plant: Jonney's suggests 2 lb./1,000 sq.ft. A bucket has a radius of 5.5" and so 95 square inches. which is 0.65 square feet. So i will need to plant 0.0013 lbs. since there are 554 grams in a lb I will need about 0.7 gm in the bucket. Which is way less then my scale can measure.... So I will throw in some random amount of seed and see what happens.

Sprouting: I started the seed under a moist paper towels and a 100w equivalent compact fluorescent to give a little heat and moisture. Since it is cold dark winter. In the spring i will just start under 1" of soil as suggested.

Growing: Now that it has sprouted I am growing this under my 14 watt led grow light.

Great hops(humulus lupulus) illustration plates from very old botany books

I plan eventually to make my own. until then here is the source material
i am accumulating. A great set of images to inspire your beer labels.

The first is from google books medical botany or illustrations and descriptions. The text of this book is quite interesting and worth reading. info on lupulin extraction and the role of hops in beer and other medical uses.


From a german botany book from 1885. Flora von Deutschland Österreich und der Schweiz by Otto Wilhelm Thomé









Kholer's Medizinal Pflanzen.
if you click around this place will sell prints of the images of all the medicinal plants. Tempting but not ready to drop the $40 yet.



Thanks to the help from ubc botanical forums peoples in finding these on the big web.

 Uncertain of the source of this one. Found it on this page.










"National Geographic Society, 1915-1924...elegant and articulate representations of 175 medicinal plants found in North America." Many more Scanned and posted here.

One more with unknown source. posted in Aaron Rossells flicker.

Make Your Own Beer - Shop equipment and ingredients and view helpful videos and tutorials at Northern Brewer - Click Here!

Great hops programme (english for program) BBC

BBC Hops radio program

Two row pale and cascade small scale brewing experiment.

I am experimenting with making the simplest beer I can imagine. The eventually goal is to brew beer that i have grown myself but I need to wait till next sprint to get my barley going. This is a great cheap way to work. Without the cost of hops or extract I am able to make these 1L batches of beer for ~$3

9/22/09
1.75lbs two row pale extracted then boiled down to 1.25L. (small scale all grain brewing extraction by this method)
0.5oz dried homegrown cascade (60min) 0.1oz dried homegrown cascade (5min). no hydrometer. I would guess it was too high though. put in secondary 10/3/09. results were not hoppy enough for a good pale.

9/26/09
1.75lbs two row pale extracted then boiled down to 1.75L, 0.3oz dried homegrown cascade(60min) O.G. 1050. put in secondary 10/3/09. results were not hoppy enough for a good pale. tasted just like above pale.

10/20/09
1.00lb two row pale. 0.5lb rye. stuck mash.

11/11/09
1.25lbs two row pale. 1 cup rye. 0.5oz cascade pellets. O.G. 1060. 0.5 gallon batch.
bottled 12/13 no secondary

11/12/09
5.5lbs two row pale. 0.5lb rye. 1.25oz cascade pellets. O.G. 1060. 1.75 gallon batch.
bottled 12/13 no secondary.
At bottling tasted great. may be the one i make a label for->

2/3/10
5lbs two row pale, 0.5 medium crysta, 0.5 rye, 2oz cascade O.G. 1060
By far the best batch. Crystal added a little sweetness that balances the rye

7/19/10
4lbs two row pale. 0.5 medium crystal, 0.5 rye. leftover malt from previous batches that did not fit in the fermentation containers.

when are hops ready to be harvested?

Check out minute 3:30 of this video


In summary:
Immature- lighter green, does not spring back, moisture, grassy smell. lighter colored lupilin glands
Mature- darker green, burnt tips, dryed out, papery noised when squeezed, Springs back, richer color of lupilin glands

Check out this guys page for the photos he was talking about

can hops (Humulus lupulus) be grown in a pot or container? yes

I had a great first year with my cascade plants but I think the best one was the one out front in a pot. got 6oz (before drying) which was the best of the first year plants. This was in a roughly six gallon container. I am sure the eventually the size limitation will catch up with it and it will be surpassed by the free range plants but pretty good start. This post follow this plant in its second year.


Now the question I have is what to do for next year. Should I repot before winter? give it new soil to work with in the spring? or would messing with the roots make it less hardy for the winter?















FAQ
What size pot should i use for my hops plant?
You can get away with the 5-10 gallon range with reduced yield. The people who seem to get pretty good yeild use half barrels.

how to dry hops with a gas oven

Lots of ways to do this. I spread the cones on a cookie sheet and leave them on the floor of the oven. They get mildly warmed by the pilot light so they dry quick without molding or cooking.

I then rough up the cones a bit daily for a few days. once the seem very dry. I put them in zip lock baggies. Suck out the air as well as I can and throw them in the freezer.


Make Your Own Beer - Shop equipment and ingredients and view helpful videos and tutorials at Northern Brewer - Click Here!

Looking for something to do with hops other then beer?
Chocolate hops cupcakes

Drying Cascade Hops.

My first attempt. Today I harvested 2oz. of cascade cones with the intention of brewing a half gallon of beer this weekend. We will see if this ends up being enough dry weight. I am leaving them on the floor of the oven above the pilot light as suggested by the guy at the homebrew store.

Dry they got down to a little less then an ounce. I put them in with a 1l extraction of maris otter.








unrelated note here is a crazy caterpillar that was attacking the hops

Growing my own wheat for beer (or maybe ravioli)

I started by sprouting the seeds in a cookie tray covered in damp newspaper and wrapped in a garbage bag for about seven days.


here is the wheat starting to come up as wheat grass.


I started the wheat in pots indoors but then moved it outside. here it is forming seeds.



Over time the wheat gets dry.

Here it is post harvest. This is about half the total.


I think I will thresh in a couple week so for now the wheat is decorative. The 1/2lb package likely made about as much seed as I started with so no big gain there. I will update when I thresh and cook or brew with it.

This is the kind of wheat I used and a couple barley grass links for those of you who want to give it a try.