HI, I'm more of a lurker than poster, but I'd figure I'd share my fun brew day. This is my second year growing hops in San Diego, and I have 2 plants, a cascade and nugget. Here's the cascade, its trained to hop twine up the side of the garage, and then across to the fence.
This year I (unintentionally) waited a month later to harvest, and harvested *most* of the hops on 8/25.
They were pretty dry and some had even turned completely brown. The hops were super papery and broke open real easy. Still plenty of lupulin, and even the brown ones smelled good when I broke them open. Recently, the cascade started growing a lot of side shoots and has young hops and even some flowers still.
All said and done, I wound up with 18oz Nugget and 7oz Cascade.
I think I harvested more hops this year, but wound up with less weight than last year, which I can only think is due to the earlier harvest last year. Put the hops in the freezer overnite, and brewed the next morning.
Last year I did a Rye IPA with the hops, but this choose a Pale Ale instead. Originally, I wanted to start out with a Pale 31 type grain bill. Unfortunately, the LHBS was out of Munich malt, and just did a little taste test on what grain was there. The Crisp British Dark was the best, so I subbed in some of that and some Honey Malt. Here comes the recipe:
This year I (unintentionally) waited a month later to harvest, and harvested *most* of the hops on 8/25.
They were pretty dry and some had even turned completely brown. The hops were super papery and broke open real easy. Still plenty of lupulin, and even the brown ones smelled good when I broke them open. Recently, the cascade started growing a lot of side shoots and has young hops and even some flowers still.
All said and done, I wound up with 18oz Nugget and 7oz Cascade.
I think I harvested more hops this year, but wound up with less weight than last year, which I can only think is due to the earlier harvest last year. Put the hops in the freezer overnite, and brewed the next morning.
Last year I did a Rye IPA with the hops, but this choose a Pale Ale instead. Originally, I wanted to start out with a Pale 31 type grain bill. Unfortunately, the LHBS was out of Munich malt, and just did a little taste test on what grain was there. The Crisp British Dark was the best, so I subbed in some of that and some Honey Malt. Here comes the recipe: