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2014 Hop garden photo thread

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What were you expecting? Did you smell the hops? I had been smell testing mine for about three months before I picked. Assuming you used wet hops, I just bottled my Pale Ale that was all home grown wet hops. Wet hops into the boil, wet hops in at 2min, and wet hop secondary. It is big and rich and floral and fruity and a bit grassy but not in a bad way.



Over all I am amazed with how complex it was and I am hoping that a little CO2 will help brighten the whole thing up.



Wet hops are way different than dry hops, your yard hops are way different than any farm hop...it's all an experience/experiment.



From my experience, an infected starter will smell like sulfer. I've never considered grapefruit a bad smell, I wouldn't consider it wasted yet. You should be getting grapefruit from cascade and centennial. I have an American Barley Wine that is overwhelmingly sweet and grapefruit like at bottling but even in a month out mellows. Just my $.02 but I suggest letting it run it's course.


Thanks guys for the advice. I'm going to let it go for a few weeks and see. I used 1450 and it usually is a pretty consistent shooter. So well see what the FG is and if it keeps dropping.


I would described the sent as rich and strong notes of sweet fruits.

I guess I was expecting my bitterness from them. I used 10oz cascade, 19 oz centennial, and 6 oz chinook. All late boil expect for a 5 oz buttering addition at 60.

I also tossed in 6 oz of wet hops into secondary.

RDWHAHB

Time will tell



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Thanks guys for the advice. I'm going to let it go for a few weeks and see. I used 1450 and it usually is a pretty consistent shooter. So well see what the FG is and if it keeps dropping.


I would described the sent as rich and strong notes of sweet fruits.

I guess I was expecting my bitterness from them. I used 10oz cascade, 19 oz centennial, and 6 oz chinook. All late boil expect for a 5 oz buttering addition at 60.

I also tossed in 6 oz of wet hops into secondary.

RDWHAHB

Time will tell



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You got it. I'm sure it'll be fine. It makes sense that you're getting such strong aromas from this batch, the late additions provide the aroma. You roughly have an equivalent of 7 oz of dried hops as late editions. Plus over an oz. for dry hopping. I love citrus hops so I think you're sitting pretty. Let us all know how it turns out. If you're not fond of it, let it sit awhile and come back to it.... good luck!
 
I used Yoopers apa recipe and changed the hop amounts to match my harvest For the record


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Went out into the 90 deg heat to harvest my 1st year Saaz plant.

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Started to wrap up the 2014 year at my house this week. It's a bit early, but watering schedule is going to be too light for the direct sun the pots are sitting in right now and the finally got here blistering >100F heat indexes.

Basically I cut all the bines back to about 5ft, to leave some green growth on the plant. All pots put back into their wintering spot and the remaining bines drapped over nearby bushes so they can still get a bit of sun. This will reduce water evaporation a lot and still allow them to continue getting ready for winter.....I HOPE.

No pics of that, but how about a wasp video from my hop garden area?

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh2-tKVuY10[/ame]

Today my hand iches like heck, but thanks to mamma for the saying "vinegar for vasps and base on bees". Oh, and thanks to the GF for actually having vingar in the house...lol.
 
Pulled in the Chinook today, got just under 8 pounds wet, not bad considering I chopped everything down to grade on Memorial Day weekend so I could paint my deck.
First shot is what I could reach from the second story deck, the rest I cut down from the first story.

Oast is loaded up pretty good, house already smells amazing!

Cheers! :mug:

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Pulled in the Chinook today, got just under 8 pounds wet, not bad considering I chopped everything down to grade on Memorial Day weekend so I could paint my deck.

First shot is what I could reach from the second story deck, the rest I cut down from the first story.



Oast is loaded up pretty good, house already smells amazing!



Cheers! :mug:


Nice!

Dank beers coming up


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Do these look ready to pick?

Top two pictures Centennial. Bottom two Columbus.

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Did some research and decided to pick the Centennial. Got 3.3 oz wet, so I should expect about .55 oz dry right? Gonna wait another week or so to pick the Columbus.

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First real harvest of the year from one of my Columbus bines. In a few days the other one will be ready. It's a couple inches thick. Think it will be about a pound or so dry. Gonna take it to work after dry and measured and press it into half ounce plugs on an arbor press.

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First real harvest of the year from one of my Columbus bines. In a few days the other one will be ready. It's a couple inches thick. Think it will be about a pound or so dry. Gonna take it to work after dry and measured and press it into half ounce plugs on an arbor press.


What's your process for making plugs ? Did you make a 'mold' and a holding chamber similar to a large garlic press ?


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What's your process for making plugs ? Did you make a 'mold' and a holding chamber similar to a large garlic press ?


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I have a piece of 1/4" wall d.o.m. tubing and an aluminum slug that slips inside. Figure smashing it into the tube with a 1 ton press should suffice. After that I will put them into the food saver for storage.
 
Harvested 3.5 oz of what I guess you would call wet. they seemed dry to me, but then what do I know. this is my first time picking them. this was a chinook plant and only 2nd year. theres more bines that look like theyre growing more, but too early to tell. some may have been picked too early, as the ones at the top seemed bigger and more ripe!

Great experience all the way around!

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Here are some pics of my town house roof top grow:

I have 5 plants: 4th year cascade, 4th year willamette, 2nd goldings, 2nd year hallertau and 1st year saaz.

I harvested the willamette on Saturday and put 10oz wet in a brew and dried the rest down to 14oz. The other plants aren't ready yet.

Impressive...what is you water/fertilizer/care schedule for such small pots? I had my plants in big ol blue buckets with those white rope handles, and you appear to have had a better harvest in tiny little planters.
 
Impressive...what is you water/fertilizer/care schedule for such small pots? I had my plants in big ol blue buckets with those white rope handles, and you appear to have had a better harvest in tiny little planters.

It's hard to tell the scale from the pictures but the planters are decent sized: The blue rectangular ones are 120L rubbermaid containers, the beige one is 190L and the circular brown one is a 25" planter from home depot. The trellises are all 8' tall with exception of the hallertau (the 25" circular planter) as its mounted on my neighbour's balcony making it 12' tall (he's from Czech Republic and down with the cause). I used potting soil in all the planters, I watered pretty much every day (soaking them with a garden hose until water was running out the base) and I used a powdered 20-20-20 fertilizer I got at homedepot every couple weeks.

...and Willamette. That variety is a beast and doesn't seem to care how small the container or trellis is. It had cones starting at waist height all the way to the top. The only downside is its willamette! :p

A guy I know from the homebrew club has a hydroponic setup and has spectacular results. He got more than twice as much off of first year plants than you should be able to get off of mature bines grown in the ground. I'll get him to post some pictures.
 
If they are tan/brown they are probably too far gone. I would check their aroma first. Take a cone and smush it in your fingers then smell it. If if smells like hops it is fine. IF it smells like garlic or something else then they are too far gone to use.
 
Today was harvest day for my Cascade. I got 65 ounces :rockin: :ban:

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One of my bines escaped and had a good time climbing a small maple tree

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I'm no where near 65 oz but a guy gave me some cascade and hallertau.

Pry about 2# dry




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I took a picture (almost) every day from May 1st to September 6th (harvest day), plopped them into a time-lapse and this is what I got:



I used about 10oz. of the wet hops to brew a wet-hop pale ale. The rest just barely ended up fitting in my new drying frames.

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There are six layers of hops in there.
 
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That's awesome. I love how the sidearms come out and you see the little green hops starting to for, weighing down over time. Good work on the time lapse!
 

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