growing hops questions????

Spartacus

wanting to grow my own. seed and plant catalogues (burpees) talk about "female" plants in 4" pots with growth to 25 feet for $18.99
4 varieties in 3" pots for $28.95.
no mention about use in brewing beer.
what do i want to grow for eventual home brewing?


tom

reloader44mag

When brewing beer ballz are always estential...I would grow a set of those first[;)]

Cubslover

I am growing Cascade and Willamette hops. 2011 was my first year.

Look at midwestsupplies.com in a month or so and pre-order Rhizomes. They are root clusters for $4.95. They are a hardy plant and only need trimmed back each winter. They also have a ton of information for you.

You do need to find a suitable place to plant, they will grow in excess of 20'. I have my Willamettes climbing a 14' high deck (lattice underneath) and they grow across the deck via the handrails.

My cascades have a 1/2 Poly rope from a landscape timber that outlines my patio to a tree, they climb up at a 30* or so angle. It is cinched in a way that I can lower it to harvest.

Many people use a wood trellis or some sort of pole/cable system to grow theirs. Do some research and find what you'd like to to. They can be very fragrant and are natural mosquito repellents, so somewhere along a patio or deck would could be a great place.

When using them to brew, you have a couple different options. The hops that brewers use are dried down. As the alpha acids don't leave the cone when it is dried. Also, when you buy hops, they've had the %AA measured so you can calulate your IBUs. If/When you have a large harvest, you can either dry them down, and use them at a "Typical" AA% amount, say Cascades at ~5%AA, or you can dry them down, and send a bit in to have them tested. It's about $40-50, but if you have 20-30lbs of hops, it can be well worth it.

Another idea is a fresh-hop ale, one of my favorite beers of all time is Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. It's a fresh hop IPA and the first ever mass-produced (still a rare find) fresh hop ale. You could brew a standard Pale ale at 35-40 IBUS and get HUGE flavor from dryhopping with fresh hops.

Gander

Which hops to grow will depend somewhat on the beer styles you like, what grows well in your climate and hop interchangeability.

Cascade has to be one of the most used and versatile hop, it would be my first choice. Willamette, Cluster, Fuggles, Mt. Hood, Hallertau and Chinook are the other hops that I use most often and find these will substitute for a wide verity of other hops as well. Here is a link to a hop substitution chart for you to ponder.

http://www.brew365.com/hop_substitution_chart.php

I have had much faster success with planting started plants than rhizomes. Both will grow fine but you should have a greater chance of a first year harvest using rooted plants.

I have a Cascade, Fuggles, Chinook and Nugget planted as started plants in my garden, the first year each grew to the sixteen foot cable and gave a harvest of a half pound or more of dried hops . These four gave me over a hundred ounces of dried hops this year; they are now several years old. I added a Mt. Hood rhizome this spring and it made it to about seven foot and only produced a few cones but should come on strong next year(small plant on right).

This is what they looked like the first of July; I harvested the cones the first and second week of September.