2008 Iowa Hop Report

Did my first hop pickin'..... here is what I started with;


Picked Cascades off the right plant....

Cones are getting big...


Bines are really thick and healthy...

Hop pickin' set-up

Geez Louise!!! Not even a wow.....

..... how disappointing.

You guy's must be going malty on me.

Sorry S, I just saw this post. WOW!
I haven't been over to visit my hops (at a friend's house) for a couple weeks but I hope I get half as much as you. Those cones look amazing large.

Has your friend been watering them? This is the time when they need alot of water.

I will say these are pretty big this year. They bigger than they have been in the past. It seems like the very last cone on the bine off-shoot is always the biggest.

This is a kegger tub w/ about 2-3" deep....



.....with cascades.

I think your hop pole needs a viagra or you need to use your cones but at least you have a hop pole. I hate the fact that any hops i tried to grow would dry before budding

beerthirty said:

I think your hop pole needs a viagra.....

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That's funny. My hop pole semi-flacid. Its waiting to go, "Schwing!", at the last of the pickin'

It's been so cold here, that three of my plants haven't even topped out yet. Fuggles & Cascades are flowering, but it looks like a meager harvest this year.

I thought about growing hops this year, I'm from waterloo, tried to find people who had grown them no luck untill now. thanks for the post and guess what i'll be doing next spring

That last picture showing the hops in the tub...are they ripe enough? Mine look to be at that stage and I thought they were still too young? I'm getting concerned that I should be picking my hops now!?!?!

7Enigma said:

That last picture showing the hops in the tub...are they ripe enough? Mine look to be at that stage and I thought they were still too young? I'm getting concerned that I should be picking my hops now!?!?!

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Yes they are. Every year at or near the Iowa State fair time hops are ready to pick. 1st & 2nd week of August.

They get big and change from darker to lighter color. The will change in feel; going from silky smooth like a flower to a paper feeling.

Pull one off the bine and squeeze and roll it between your thumb and fore finger. It will smell good and be a little sticky.

You can see the lupilin or pollen-like powder under the top leafs of the cone.

The last and most obvious way is that some of the cones start turning brown. You need to pick them before this happens widespread. Mine are starting to get tiny spots here and there. So I know it time to start picking.

With all that said I tend to look for the biggest first. In the next two weeks I'll have 75% of them picked.

I will get about the same amount tonight or tommorrow when I pick again. :rockin:

Thanks for the advice. I'll be doing that ASAP when I get home from work. I'm guessing I can probably harvest a good 20% if they are even slightly riper than yesterday...

Dude, you are my hop hero!

That is freakin awesome!! I can't wait until I can settle in a place and grow some hops...

I planted mine the 3rd week of May - 2 each Nugget, Centennial, and Cascade. One of the Cents. never came up but the other is doing well and produced the first cones. My Cascades are a little week but now seem to be taking off a little better. The Nuggets are the strongest and are just now producing a gang load of flowerettes. I simply hope to get enoughbthat once dried I can make a batch of brew. I plan on burying some of the vines this fall to produce shoots that can be divide up next spring to share with some club brew buddies if they are interested and also replace the Cent. that didn't come up. If I have extra cuttings next year I'd be glad to share with some of you nearby folks. Maybe meet at Old Capitol Brewery in IA city for a brew and hand-off?

Wow, that's awesome! How many ounces does that 3 gallon batch end up drying down to?

I don't know yet. I just put them in the pail to give people an idea of how many I collected. I'm guessing about 4 oz. maybe more.

jfrizzell said:

Wow, that's awesome! How many ounces does that 3 gallon batch end up drying down to?

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I finally got them packaged up. I got 9.5 oz.

There's more to pick tomorrow. :rockin:

Schlenkerla said:

I finally got them packaged up. I got 9.5 oz.

There's more to pick tomorrow. :rockin:

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How squished down was that 3 gallon batch when you picked them? I've done 4 harvests now, and easily have picked 3 gallons worth and upon drying and storing I have ~3oz.

7Enigma said:

How squished down was that 3 gallon batch when you picked them? I've done 4 harvests now, and easily have picked 3 gallons worth and upon drying and storing I have ~3oz.

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I don't think it was pushed down at all. I had some really big cones. Some of the biggest were 1.25" in diameter & 2" long.

Pretty awesome. I planted cascades and goldings this year. Got about 7 cascades cones and no goldings at all. I really need to work on my irrigation setup.

I threw the cascades in my last batch at flameout just so I could say I used my own hops.

Impressive!

I would like to plant some in Omaha next year. May I ask where you got your rhizome? Also, any hints for getting a good yield like that?

ThreeDogsNE said:

Impressive!

I would like to plant some in Omaha next year. May I ask where you got your rhizome? Also, any hints for getting a good yield like?

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Buy your rhisomes from Freshops They are usually available in Feb to March time frame and that's it. If you buy them later the quality is questionable.

A good yield per plant year one is 3-4oz. I've gotten 11.5 oz so far off of one plant!!!

If you water them regularly every other day and hit them with miracle grow they will establish and great root base. Then the following years they can almost fend for themselves.

My watering system is two 5 gal water buckets nested together. The top is drilled out with tons of tiny holes to make a false bottom. Then on the lower bucket I drilled a 5/16 hole on side and forced in a 3/8" hose to water the hops. Like Charley P's Zap-Tap Lauter Tun. I fill the top half of the bucket with a compost/manure blend from Menards. When I water I just fill the bucket and stir, then let it drip. I opted for black buckets so the sun will heat up the water.

It works pretty damned good!! :fro:

Here's an idea of how big they were, these are dry but have shrank a little bit.


Group shot of the nuggets....


I only wish the nugget yield was as good as the cascade I think I'll get about 2 oz.

Damn, that's impressive!

I'm going to start growing at my parent's next year. I can' only hope to have a yeild like this someday... this rocks! :rockin:

ohiobrewtus said:

I can' only hope to have a yeild like this someday...

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You can... All you need to do is fortify the soil at planting and water about every other day once it starts getting warm.

I think the first year planting is key.... I dug an 18" wide hole about 12-18 deep. This was in rock frick'n hard clay. Then I poured one 40# bag a compost/manure in the hole. Then another two 40# bags of black dirt on top. Picture a big mound above ground. I slitted the peak, dropped the rhisome in horizontal then covered it up so it was 1.5-2" below the top. Then I put bark mulch over the top. It was about 6-8" above ground when I was done. Then by fall it settled close to level.

After that I watered it regularly once got warm nearly every other day and I used a $hitload of miracle grow.

They say the roots will grow as much underneath the soil as above. I believe this to be true if they have the nourishment. This year I had at least 15-25 sprouts coming out of the ground around Easter.

Put extra effort into soil prep and watering and you'll have monster bines!!!

The main nugget bine is as big around as my little finger. I amazed everytime I stand out there looking at them.

Damn impressive, hat's off to ya! Next year I'll be on the miracle grow band wagon.

i finished my harvest 2 days ago and wound up with 1 lb. fuggles, and 1.5 lbs. cascade. dried. this is the 3rd. year for most of my plants and the cones have gotten bigger each year. in az. its hot and dry so i use a drip system twice a day usually. yesterday i brewed a pale ale useing 1 oz. of each and when i checked the OG the taste test was very hoppy, so i guess the potency has come back close to original.
gary

Just found this thread. Cool! I'm thinking about planting Hops this spring and was wondering how they would do in Gods Country. AKA-Iowa.

Didn't have time to read the full thread but I will. SWMBO want's dinner.

I'll be in Des Moines this week and plan on checking out the LHBS you got any pointers?

RonRock said:

I'll be in Des Moines this week and plan on checking out the LHBS you got any pointers?

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Beer Crazy. They close at 16:00 on Sunday.

Ted

Hello Ted. Welcome to HBT. I'll be sure to check out Beer Crazy.
Thank You,
Ron

RonRock said:

Just found this thread. Cool! I'm thinking about planting Hops this spring and was wondering how they would do in Gods Country. AKA-Iowa.

Didn't have time to read the full thread but I will. SWMBO want's dinner.

I'll be in Des Moines this week and plan on checking out the LHBS you got any pointers?

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I'm in Des Moines. East Side to be more precise.

To answer your question. They will grow like crazy if you feed and water them every other day during the first year. After that they kind of do it by themselves. I started watering mine regularly after April. This last season I didn't water them at all but it was a really wet spring and summer.

Susan - Hello, I'm a fellow Iowan (Ames) and have recently gotten into the homebrewing! I'd really like to grow my hops and have a few questions for you about doing so. Do you mind? Where abouts do you live? Do the hops take any special conditions to grow (more or less sun, partial sun, regular watering, etc...) Like I said, I'm pretty new to this, and I'm very new to the concept of growing my own hops, so any information would be great! How long have you been growing? Does it take long after planting the rhizome to produce a large vine that produces hops? Thanks again for your help - Matt from Ames

dillon1320 said:

Susan - Hello, I'm a fellow Iowan (Ames) and have recently gotten into the homebrewing! I'd really like to grow my hops and have a few questions for you about doing so. Do you mind? Where abouts do you live? Do the hops take any special conditions to grow (more or less sun, partial sun, regular watering, etc...) Like I said, I'm pretty new to this, and I'm very new to the concept of growing my own hops, so any information would be great! How long have you been growing? Does it take long after planting the rhizome to produce a large vine that produces hops? Thanks again for your help - Matt from Ames

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Susan's the wife... Not me.

Been growing them 3 years going on 4

Getting big vines (actually bines) takes about 2 years. My first year resulted in a 4 oz/ plant but I watered them like crazy and set the soil up for great root growth. I used fertilizer/compost and fresh black dirt.

This was my first year set-up. This picture is from June '06, I believe.

They are easy to grow you just need to be dedicated to regular watering and doing the occasion fertilizing.

Been looking at the bines starting out of the ground this year. I'm gonna have to do some digging & cutting. There too many offshoots coming out right now. My main plants don't need the competition!

All I can do is smile though!

Its pouring cats & dogs and they are predicting 5" of snow.