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 I am trying to do a better job of updating these things..... Not as exciting as it used to be when they would give flat percentages off.

 My next big project is going to be wine making. Any tips for a beginner? I live in california now so hopefully could get some local extract. Again I would like to focus on making a small volume the first time around.

Bitters from hops

Making my own bitters starting with Hops as the bittering agent. homegrown herbs. I started with four jars one with dried homegrown hops, one with the peel of a grapfruit, one with rosemary and cloes and one with slices of prunes. I left all four soak for two weeks before mixing them to taste. I found that it was best to use mostly the hops and grapefruit jars.

Here are the completed bitters.
The bottle is labeled using armor etch and chalk as shown in this post.

Hops shoots with garlic and oil recipe.

I guess it is suggested you cut back to about 5 shoots per plant for best yield. The internet suggested that you can eat the hops shoots. So I did. Only the nice purple ones that had not spread leaves tasted any good the others were much too tough.

They can be prepared like you would asparagus. for me that means coated in olive oil with garlic salt and pepper. Then I broil on high until they start to change color.
What do they taste like? garlic olive oil and salt.
Is it safe to eat hops shoots? I plan on updating this blog later today or tomorrow. If there is another post the answer is yes.

Discussion on eating hops shoots on the grow hops list here

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:

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

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.

Hops brownies/cupcakes recipe (Baking with Humulus lupulus)

What with the abundance of both hops and zucchini that seems to be going on I made a big tray of chocolate zucchini cake modified from the recipe in this thread. Most modifications were based on what I did or did not have around at the time but if you want good zucchini cake you might want to click that link. I did not have enough space in the bread so I made two cupcakes that were augmented with 3 cascade cones ground in each.

Recipe for the Hops Cupcakes extrapolated to a full batch.
2 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
1/2 cup granulated and 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1oz dried cascade hops
2 tbs
2 egg
1/3 cup whole milk
4 oz 60% dark chocolate melted
2 cups course ground zucchini

Method:
- Preheat oven at 375F,
- butter cupcake tin.
- Mix melted butter with melted chocolate, sugar, milk, ground hops and egg.
- Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, salt and ground espresso
- Add flour mixture to the butter chocolate mixture in 3 steps, whisking until each addition is reasonably well combined before adding another batch
- Add the zucchini and ripped up hops.
- Bake until knife comes out clean ~30min.
- Add a small cone on top as a garnish.

When hops attack

hops attacking and beheading a sunflower

another photo from today. "wild" kittens at the disc golf course.

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

Bamboo trellis for hops

This turned out to be a fun project all I used was twine and 15c bamboo from construction junction. It is about 10' tall and tied to the gutter.



Now hopefully this little guy will but up to the task.
the source of all info hop related




6/21/09
Updated photos.



Got lots of these flowers. I hope they actually turn into cones.

Growing my own beer

While this is maybe not that feasible of an idea but the wheat is growing outside and doing fine despite the fact that it has been snowed on. Still have yet to get barley seed. The most important thing is the Hops have finally sprouted. I got them from northern brewer and planted them about two weeks ago. Willamette and Cascade are also up but not quite as big yet. The will likely be in the pots for another month then out to the yard.

As this process is likely to be very low yield, especially in the grains, I will be using my very small batch all grain extraction processs.