Home Grown Hops

Early this year I decided to order some hop rhizomes from Left Fields Hops. This has to be done in Feb/March because they sell out fast. Once the snow left my order arrived and I planted Cascade, Nugget & Goldings. They are growing up the side of the house which I will show below:

Here we have two hop bines growing, Goldings on the left and Cascade on the right. They are growing up string. The string is tied to a stake in the ground and then fastened to a hook under the eaves of the house.

This hop bine is Nugget which is a good general purpose bittering hop. It is growing up 3 long bamboo canes that I bolted together. This method didn't work the greatest so I will use just string next year.

The photo above shows how the hops start flowering, This is called a burr. Basically the sticks eventually turn brown and the hop forms.

Here are a couple shots of fully formed Cascade hops. The cascade is putting out an excellent crop for the first year. These hops are just about ready to pick. I've read they are ready when they turn light green, feel dry to the touch and the end is slightly browning. They will also change from having a grassy smell to a nice hop smell.

The other hops are doing well also but producing a little slower. The nugget has many burrs currently so it will produce a nice harvest of bittering hops later this season. The Goldings is not producing much in its first year. Maybe just enough for a 3 gallons batch of English Ale I hope.

Blanche De Chambly Bottled

Above is a shot of the Blanche De Chambly clone taken during primary fermentation. Being a wheat beer I was expecting much more krausen but it did bubble more then usually.

OG was 1.052 and FG came in at 1.010. So this brew finished up with an ABV of about 5.5%.

Here it is all bottled up. There was enough to fill 32 500ml (17 oz) bottles. I was short about 8 bottles, I guess the beer fairies took their share. This was bottled about 10 days ago. It should be pretty much carbonated now. I'll following up with a photo of it in a glass once I crack the first one open.

Look for an update on the hops I am growing next....