I would like help selecting hops to grow

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gosolo

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The local grower I am working with has these varieties available:
Cascade
Centennial
Chinook
Crystal
Nugget
Galena
I’m interested in them all. I’m located in a cold pocket in NW Oregon, gardening zone 6, with frequent winter temperatures in the teens. Trying to avoid varieties that would cross pollinate, which would cost the variety specific character. Am also interested in having an approximate reflection of the bittering and aroma hops in proportion to what may generally be used.
I have a good location for about 10 plants and hope to have them in the ground February-April.
Am very interested in any and all feedback and advice. Thank you in advance!
 
btw, are you just looking to grow hops, or are you looking to play with hop genetics?

Unless you are growing from seed you rarely run into a male plant at all. And if you're simply interested in growing hops for use in brewing it's not cross-pollination that's the concern, it's any pollination, because plants waste energy making seeds. But, again, unless you're within wind-borne-range of someone growing male plants that's a non-issue...

Cheers!
 
btw, are you just looking to grow hops, or are you looking to play with hop genetics?

Unless you are growing from seed you rarely run into a male plant at all. And if you're simply interested in growing hops for use in brewing it's not cross-pollination that's the concern, it's any pollination, because plants waste energy making seeds. But, again, unless you're within wind-borne-range of someone growing male plants that's a non-issue...

Cheers!
Not interested at all in breeding, just brewing. Thanks for your feedback. Proportionally, should I have more bittering, more aroma, or about equal, in general terms? I’m new to this, obviously, having only brewed 5-5gal brews.
 
I grew Chinook, Cascade, Centennial and some Fuggles for eight years before giving it up. I would say at least 3:1 aroma/flavor to bittering just judging from my own recipe usage...

Cheers!
 
What were the difficulties you encountered when growing? Here in Oregon, the problem is more often, trying to get things not to grow.
 
Lol! Honestly, I found the growing pretty easy, though I did prepare the beds quite thoroughly: I dug out a three foot wide two foot deep trench, filled it with a mix of loam, sand, vermiculite for drainage, and rotted cow poop, planted the 16 rhizomes an inch deep, gave them some water when a finger-deep poke felt dry-ish, and a couple weeks later they all were peeking through the soil.

First year I got enough to brew a few batches, the next year I got 12 pounds of dried cones, the next year 18. I was giving over half of each year's harvest away and vac-bagging/freezing the rest for many years before I gave it up.

The biggest problem I ran into was spider mites, way tougher to manage than aphids. A few of the eight years I grew the mites were difficult to keep up with: if you miss the initial attack they multiply to enormous numbers so quickly you'd think it was an overnight thing.

tip: Doctor Bronner's castile soap mixed with water was highly effective on mites - and aphids - but you need to catch the wee bastids early and pound them often because their reproductive cycles are on the order of a few days...

hops_21july2014_01.jpg


The view from my office door a few weeks before harvest. Heady aromas!

hops_06aug2015_01.jpg


Cheers!
 
Beautiful plants! Nice looking place too. I’m guessing that’s your home and you have the fortune to work at home?
Thank you for your help and the warning about the mites. I can only do the best I can. Am looking forward to trying the hops thing.

I retired 2 years ago and moved to Oregon, have since, got my blacksmithing shop set up, caught sturgeon, hunted mushrooms, shot pheasant, learned to brew beer and bake artisan sourdough bread, planted a little hazelnut orchard, Marion berries etc etc.
I can’t believe how much work retirement is!
 
Thanks for the kind words. Yes, our primary residence, with true southern exposure on the long side, and my office is dead center 2nd floor. I designed SSDs for the last decade for the biggest USA flash memory manufacturer before I finally retired last March and I can say stepping out on the upper deck and being surrounded by C-hop aromas was always a nice break :)

I tried retiring in 2007 and two years later I ran out of projects across the collective family properties and had to go back to work or I'd have driven both myself and my wife nuts. Fortunately the engineering world I ran in is small and tight and I had someone that used to work for me offer me an excellent situation. Ten more years doing something I've always loved was just right, but even the good things need to end eventually, so I pulled the trigger.

I'm still learning how to be retired but I think I'm getting better at it :D

Cheers!
 
Not interested at all in breeding, just brewing. Thanks for your feedback. Proportionally, should I have more bittering, more aroma, or about equal, in general terms? I’m new to this, obviously, having only brewed 5-5gal brews.

One of the problems you will likely run into is this:

You will not know what the acid content of your hops is and so recipe calculation can become *slightly* more complicated from a bittering perspective. There is a rough range for commercial varieties and so you could, in theory, just assume middle of the range and go with that, however your results may vary.

As far as bittering vs aroma, my personal “practical” approach suggestion to most people is to grow 1 high alpha for clean bittering like Magnum or Galena that you can use for a lot of different styles but then grow other multi purpose varieties in addition to that for other styles (EKG, Centennial, Cascade etc). Side note: Galena can be used as a dual purpose as well. Again, by no means a single approach question. Grow what you’ll brew with. No need in putting in that much effort to grow something you’re not going to use.
 
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I’m new to brewing and am grateful for your help.

My theory is that I could take a recipe I like and replace the hops that are bittering for those I can grow and likewise the hops for aroma. (Obviously following the hop/boil schedule)
I’m aware that the finished beer will differ but think it will be pretty good.
Is there a flaw in this idea?
 
I’m new to brewing and am grateful for your help.

My theory is that I could take a recipe I like and replace the hops that are bittering for those I can grow and likewise the hops for aroma. (Obviously following the hop/boil schedule)
I’m aware that the finished beer will differ but think it will be pretty good.
Is there a flaw in this idea?

Not sure anyone in this forum really could find a flaw in growing your own outside of the care and maintenance but if you’re a gardener or just enjoy growing things, it’s good fun. And the product is worth it. You’re in Oregon so you get fresh hopped beers available to you, but those of us that don’t, growing allows you to experience this.
 
Other than the retirement part, I have been following the same plan-growing hops I use in brewing since I had the garden space. I am in SoCal, so I have had limited success because of the hot and dry. I use our kitchen scraps and leftover brewing materials as mulch and water them almost every day in the summer.

I tried Zeus, but I think after 2 years it has given up. Idk, I will wait to see if it’s new location will allow it to grow. It was still the same size as when I bought it from Great Lakes Hops.

Cacade, Centennial, and Eroica gave me minimal amounts year one, but I just had to move them mid-season, so I am hoping the crowns will produce better this coming season.

The Shaddock and Old Mission are heavy producers. My pale ale from these two hops was amazing.

Eroica is my only straight bittering, the others are either dual or aroma only.

I have room for at least one more, but I don’t know how a British or German variety would work here in the desert. I would love a Golding. You would probably have great success.

Aphids were my biggest pest, but the ladybugs kept them down to a small population. It was just a shock to see all of the little green bodies in the boil. The caterpillars weren’t too heavy, they liked the tomatoes more.
 
I have decided on 3 varieties; Cascade, Nugget, and Crystal.
The decision is based on several things, pest and disease resistance, readily adapted to many recipes as both bittering and aroma, locally grown and available, and last but not least, recommended by some folks I greatly respect.
It was amazing to see, when doing the research, how many prominent varieties of hops have been developed in Oregon and Washington.
The recommendations from a local hops farm and developer, is to keep 5’ between varieties to reduce intermingled runners. This being said, I will be planting (2)ea of the 3 varieties.
 
Keeping 5 ft between varieties is good advice. I planted a cascade and a goldings about 3ft apart and I’m pretty sure a lot of what I think is goldings is actually the cascade since it grows and spreads like crazy.
 
Cross-pollination is only relevant to breeding. It will not affect flavor in any way. And in the case of hops, it just won't happen at all, because all cultivars are female and thus yield no pollen.
 
In selecting varieties to grow consider (obviously) what you like to use/what beers your prefer to brew as well as what will thrive in your area, local university cooperative extensions can be a good resource. I started out with nugget because it is a duel use hop. I’ve expanded and currently have 8 varieties, one is strictly for bettering, other are also duel use or strictly aroma, and that is more than enough to keep up with. Regarding pollination it’s a possibility that you’ll end up with some seeds in your cones, (I have) I suppose they aren’t just sterile I wonder if after a few years if I’m still harvesting what I think I am or is some of the seeds from unharvested cones are growing.
 
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