Thursday, February 14, 2008

Rhizomes!!!!

I just ordered some Cascade Rhizomes. In light of the worldwide hops shortage I'm going to take a shot growing some myself. I don't have a ton of space in the backyard, but hopefully I can get a couple vines going. More of an experiment more than anything. I don't expect to grow enough for all my brewing, but if I can make one or two batches with my own fresh hops, that will be fulfilling. Once I get them growing I'll post some photos.

I also ordered one of those 6 gallon plastic "Better Bottles" to add to my fermentation equipment. Now I can have a couple different brews going at a time. It is ported at the bottom so I can do away with cumbersome siphoning.

Coming up on tap soon is going to be a honey-blonde ale. I'm using pilsner extract with some honey malt specialty grains, and a whopping 3lbs of white sage honey!!! Will be done by springtime and will be a good lawnmowing beer. (OK, it takes me about 5 minutes to mow my tiny lawn, but that's enough to earn a beer isn't it?)

3 comments:

Jeff Louella said...

I'm also growing hops for the first time this year. I plan on building my trellis this weekend. I will be growing 4 varieties. Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, and Nugget.

Check out my hop trellis design.

John Karlis said...

Hey Jeff, your trellis design looks nice. Wish I could put something up as high as 16 feet. Unfortunately the city here probably frowns on setting up poles like that. Maybe I'll have to bribe some neighbors and city officials with beer. I'll probably go up 8 feet then train the bines horizontal after that. Anyway, good luck with your hops!!!

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