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My cascade, 5th year I think.

Glad your hops survived, and hope your power is back. We only lost it for 24 hours, lots of debris too. My hops survived but they’re attached pretty good to the obelisk I grow them on.

I do biab 1 gal and 2 gal batches and have found it easiest to do full volume. Like you I put the grain bag in a strainer over the wort after the mash but then I just press down on it several times with a glass Pyrex measuring cup to squeeze some more out if it. To maintain mash temp I used to...

I use 22oz rhubarb and 15oz strawberries in a 2G batch, or a 60/40 ish ratio of rhubarb to strawberry and get a great rhubarb taste and a lot of strawberry aroma. You can taste the strawberries too, but the rhubarb is stronger, although the beer is not overly tart. Really wonderful flavor...

I did several one gallon extract kits when starting out and bottled right from primary using a mini autosiphon and just the tubing without a bottling wand. It was a little tricky but I worked out a way with a clamp that kept the siphon in place on the edge of the fermenter and another type of...

+1 to considering smaller batch size. Since you don’t need as large a kettle, you can try brewing on your kitchen stove with a kettle you may already have.

Brewing today, weekend-eve, a 3rd batch of my new favorite, strawberry rhubarb wheat. With homegrown rhubarb.

I made one a little while back and can look up the exact recipe when I get home. But pretty sure I had to use Saaz. For yeast, I used WY1007. Did not do anything special to clarify it but I remember it being pretty clear and champagne like. I really liked it, still have one bottle left I've...

I recommend checking out the one gallon recipe kits at craftabrew.com . They have a great variety of styles, including some hard ciders. I brewed several of their kits when I started out and was very happy with them. You may even want to try some stouts. I didn’t think I’d like them but...

Sorry you had such a rough time! I hope things do go better next year. I'm in MA and have had issues with leaf hoppers but they certainly don't cause the damage those white flies did.

Welcome! I’m in MA and just cut mine back 5 days ago. Mine had only gotten a few feet high so far. I’ve cut back this late before and still had lots of growth afterwards so I’m hoping for that again. We’ve had a lot of cool rainy weather, they should take off once we get to a more sunny warm...

I also recommend starting with an all grain kit so you can focus on learning the process first. If the beer doesn’t come out as you hoped it’ll be hard to know if it was the recipe or your process. Biab is a great way to go too.

+1 to the small Big Mouth Bubbler

I’ll just add that I use 3G Better Bottles for my 2.5G batches. Smaller batch experiments are fun and a great change of pace and so it may be worth it to have smaller fermenters on hand. I do 1G ish experiments since my usual size is 2.5.

Congratulations! Love the idea of bay leaves and citrus zest.

If it were me I’d cut the bull shoots and hope for new growth, just to see if that helps. I once cut the first shoots back in late May and still had great growth afterwards. I’d also check with a local university cooperative as suggested to be sure your fertilizing and watering regimen are on...

They can be used after planting, I try and add some each year, although sometimes I don't get around to doing one or the other. And like you said, there is some dilution involved, I'd have to check my notes on which one or both. The bags have some good instructions on them too. The soil you...

Hopefully you won’t need neem oil, but i have used it the last few years to try and get rid of leafhoppers that live on the underside of and cause damage to the leaves. For fertilizers, early in the season bloodmeal (for nitrogen) is good for growth, and potash is good later in the season to...

I love the idea of combining them with flowers, looks terrific. I may steal your idea, mine are about 5 years old and I'd like to change my setup a bit. The first year of growing is a lot of fun, enjoy!

I used a black cherry flavoring once but it did have a fake taste to it, although I suppose that could vary depending on the amount used. I had much better success making a lemon lime hefeweizen using Simply Limeade juice. And I get really nice flavor using fresh then frozen fruit to make a...