Successfully Growing Indoors

Brewer's Friend 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
ASublimeDay said:
I've got cones that are about 3/4 of an inch, and there are a lot of them. Unfortunately, the vines have become such a mess overlapping and wrapping around each other that it's going to be damn near impossible to distinguish which cones are which without hacking them down and going to work pulling them apart from the chicken wire (next cycle I'm thinking three tomato cages...make it much easier to keep each crown to one bine and to differentiate which is which).

Will the hops continue to produce as long as I keep them under a 12/12 lighting cycle or will there come a day where I can cut all the vines at once and have all or most of the cones ready at or around the same time?

Would it make for a decent beer to just have a salad of Nugget, Chinook, and Cascade for all three stages of additions and for dry-hopping? This is assuming they're in approximately even quantities.
Click to expand...

If you don't mind not knowing the IBU, that'd be just fine. I'd try to separate out the cascade if you can since you'd want that one for late addition and dry hopping. But worst case you'll get a tasty beer :). I'd be conservative with the hops in case you get more nugget/chinook than you realize as they have substantial bitterness. Or just use late-addition 20min, in case you go overboard (less bitterness the later you add hops)
 
Taken 22 days into flowering: A side view of the top of the canopy

photo(2).jpg
 
The top of the canopy. The vines haven't had to be trained for a week or so now. They just climb over eachother and weigh each other down to the surface of the canopy. Plus they're flowering so intensely that growth has slowed a lot.

photo(1).jpg
 
A side-view. The very bottom leaves have died off, but theres such a healthy canopy (12" on the left, 18" on the right) that it hasn't affected photosynthesis at all. Plants continue to exhibit a healthy green color, thick bines, and are producing burrs and cones rapidly.

photo(3).jpg
 
The "crab theory": when one bine tries to rise up and make something of herself, the others just drag her down :)

photo(6).jpg
 
I'm currently 31 days into flowering and I have cones ranging from the size of a quarter to much bigger (safe to assume these are the cascades?), and I smell absolutely nothing except a faint pollen smell when I open the box. If you bury your nose in some of the bigger cones you can smell hops but smell hasn't been a concern at all.

I'll post some pics on Monday. They're really starting to put out some impressive cones.
 
I wonder how fast the plants can switch back to veg growth after harvesting? if they need a 'winter' dormancy period before going full grow mode that could slow you down. On the other hand, my cascades seemed to keep pumping out burs very late into the season last year - maybe its possible to keep them in a permanent flower mode if light and temps stay in the sweet spot.

I was skeptical before but youve made very cool progress.
 
starman said:
I wonder how fast the plants can switch back to veg growth after harvesting? if they need a 'winter' dormancy period before going full grow mode that could slow you down. On the other hand, my cascades seemed to keep pumping out burs very late into the season last year - maybe its possible to keep them in a permanent flower mode if light and temps stay in the sweet spot.

I was skeptical before but youve made very cool progress.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliment!

I plan to harvest, let them finish flowering, harvest again, then switch to about 7 hours of light for a week or two to let them move their resources back to the roots, then chop them down and re-veg, this time with a four-week 24-hour light cycle, instead of 16 hours.

The chicken wire is a flat-out mess, and harvesting is going to be tedious. I was also unable to limit each plant to one bine once I got into flowering. The chicken wire is too close to the soil and chopping excess bines became nearly impossible once the wire got filled. I'm thinking three tomato cages for next time. Training the plants all around, up, and down the cages. It'll make for an easy harvest, more effective light distribution, and easier access to limit the growth to one bine. I'll also be able to differentiate varieties more effectively.

That said, the hops are plentiful, and what I assume to be the cascades are huge. None of them are ready yet. Makes me wonder just how big those cascades will get!
 
Great job Sublime! I can't wait to see how it turns out.

I am going to be starting my own alternative hop growing method this season, and hopefully I'll be able to document a grow log as well as you have.

Would obtaining cuttings from a local hopyard yield viable cones on the first harvest or would they need to develop for a year similar to conventional grows?
 
CorralitosGrown99 said:
Great job Sublime! I can't wait to see how it turns out.

I am going to be starting my own alternative hop growing method this season, and hopefully I'll be able to document a grow log as well as you have.

Would obtaining cuttings from a local hopyard yield viable cones on the first harvest or would they need to develop for a year similar to conventional grows?
Click to expand...

Considering how the first year is spent on root growth, if you kept the hops root bound and the bottoms trimmed + well fed, I imagine you could get a decent yield the first year. Not a full yield, but better than nothing.
 
booherbg said:
Considering how the first year is spent on root growth, if you kept the hops root bound and the bottoms trimmed + well fed, I imagine you could get a decent yield the first year. Not a full yield, but better than nothing.
Click to expand...

Get crowns from Great Lakes Hops. They're already at least a season old.
 
Okay guys harvest day has come and gone. They flowered and matured fast - about 50 days. Grand total from crown to harvest was about 80 days. Here's the whole chicken wire removed from the box and on a table.

photo.jpg
 
And now for the conclusion:

While they flowered fast and seemed very happy, the tangled canopy, which is what allowed them to grow indoors, is precisely why my harvest was disappointing. Without the ability to pick through and find mature cones day-by-day and allow for a full season of harvest, I was forced to chop down and harvest in one fell-swoop.

The cones I did get were impressive: big, fragrant, and a beautiful green color with big glands and lightly browned tips.

That said, the harvest was a pitiful 6 dried ounces. While this does make it cost-effective on a monthly basis (it just barely is worth more than the electricity), it isn't worth the trouble or the mild fire hazard.

I'm interested what results others may get (I'm sure somebody as stubborn as me will think they can top the results :) ), but for me it just isn't worth continuing.

That said, it was an awesome experience and I'm really glad I did it. The three crowns will be separated into self-watering paint buckets (see link below) and placed in my northern-exposure 8x8 foot front window. I probably could've gotten impressive results if I had done this in the first place. I'll be creating another thread for this next indoor project.

The box is easily disassembled and I'm sure I'll find a use for the plywood. The light I may keep for starting outdoor vegetables. Thanks for reading! I'd be happy to answer any further questions.

:mug:


This is the self-watering container. I use two home depot buckets (total $5) and a cheap tupperware container. They're amazing and plants, especially water-hogs like hops, love them! You don't need a hole-saw if you don't mind a little elbow grease and a knife. The pipe also isn't a requirement. You can just heavily top-water and rest assured the basin has plenty of water. It also works for two rubber-maid bins if you want to do a bigger pot. You could easily make one with two 25+ gallon rubbermaid bins. There are videos on youtube with VERY impressive results (7 foot tall tomato plants!)

 
Last edited by a moderator:
O wow..very nice...I could see how this could be done..4 by 4 screens. Do just like they use forr mmj..scroging..but u hav to weave the plant in a unaformed manner..would even work in a greenhouse with light shade to force flower and use leds and hps to augm.. 4ent sunlight... hav one type per screen 4 screens per 1000 hps...
 
I think you would benefit from running a vertical bulb and allowing the hop vines to grow up the sides of your box, instead of in a scrog with a horizontal reflector. Instead of using chicken wire, you could staple orange construction fencing along the walls and train the vines to grow up the walls. By using a vertical bulb you will increase the area that is exposed to the sweet spot of the light and further increase the number of cone sites exposed.
I can see just by looking at the final picture of the screen that a lot of those vines are getting choked out by growing along the flat (horizontal) screen. Open up that center space by training the vines to the wall and you will have more air flow through the middle parts of the hop plants. Just a little advice from a few things I noticed.
Great thread! :mug:
 
Yeah, I don't see why anyone would grow hops indoors. 1. hops don't costs THAT much to buy so I don't see how it would be cost effective 2. The only reason people grow pot indoors is b/c it's illegal, hops are legal so why not use the free sun that is outside?

Also, if you are going to grow them indoors, you no need to only leave the lights on for 18 hrs during vegetative stage, you can leave the lights on 24/7 until you are ready to start the budding cycle and switch to 12 hrs on 12 hrs off. And if it's like pot, pot usually doubles in size from the time you start the 12 on 12 off till the time of it's ready for harvest.

Only thing I can see this being useful for would be to start the plants in doors, leave the lights on 24/7 and get them nice and big and then plant them outside once the weather is warm enough. You might would need to slowly acclimate them to the outside but it should work.

Also, since hops are legal, why not just grow them near a window indoors instead of artificial lights? I think it's the temperature more than the length of daylight that would keep them growing, so seems like you could start them in the winter by a window till the summer.
 
bhughes said:
Yeah, I don't see why anyone would grow hops indoors. 1. hops don't costs THAT much to buy so I don't see how it would be cost effective 2. The only reason people grow pot indoors is b/c it's illegal, hops are legal so why not use the free sun that is outside?
Click to expand...

I would love to grow hops indoors, simply because growing them outdoors isn't an option for me. Not everyone lives in Fayetteville ;)

Is it cost effective? Probably not. But, then again, nothing I do to make beer really is. It just seems like a fun thing to do.
 

Similar threads

Airborneguy
They’re growing back!
Replies
0
Views
448
Airborneguy
Airborneguy
Rodent
Seedless grape growing
Replies
15
Views
811
day_trippr
day_trippr
BugAC
Homegrown Hops prognosis - Southern Louisiana
Replies
5
Views
1K
BugAC
BugAC
shrews824
My First Attempt At Growing Hops.
2
Replies
41
Views
4K
JAReeves
JAReeves
Aleforge
Has anyone had success in growing hops in Missouri? If so what species?
Replies
4
Views
1K
LokiM4
LokiM4

Latest posts

Back
Top