Growing hops ...

[King Ruddager]

Easy or hard? And where does one get themselves started?

 

There's so many varieties so realistically I'd see myself growing something fairly common like an Amarillo. Although in practice I'd only use my hops every now and then I'd still quite enjoy telling people I grown my own [wink]

 

Oh, and do they smell?

[Hairy]

There are a few guys on here that grow their own. But Yob dead set has a Hop Amazon (or Hopazon) in his back yard.

 

He should be able to give you some pointers.

[Guest]

I'd see myself growing something fairly common like an Amarillo.

 

Amarillo is a proprietry product and is only grown by a single farm in the US... it cannot be sourced in Australia

 

Rhizomes / Cuttings can be found within Australia (Various types like chinook, cascade, fuggles, EKG, Victoria etc, mostly during winter.. I got mine from fellow forum members on AHB

 

There is a thread each year on peoples crops HERE but you will need an active account to view the photo's

 

They are pretty easy to grow and dont smell that much, well the 'cones' do if you squeeze them.

 

Do not get seeds from ebay, wait and get a cutting / rhizome.

 

Yob

[Guest]

Hop Amazon

 

Cant wait for next year, thats when Im expecting some real results

 

[ninja] [love] [bandit]

[King Ruddager]

Ok, that's a good start. Perhaps I'll pop over to AHB and as a few questions.

 

So why not eBay seeds? (curious)

[PhilboBaggins]

Hi Ruddager.

 

I'm growing for the first time this year. I got a Chinook rhizome from the good Dr. on AHB and the thing has gone absolutely monkey-s**t. About 3.5-4m up with flowers beginning already.

 

I'm looking into propagation, and it seems we live in the same state, so if I have success with cuttings I'll let you know.

[Canadian Eh!L]

Hi Rudd,

 

I have grwn hops Iin the past but as of late I have only collect ferral hops out of back yards and the such.

 

I recommend getting the variety that is your favouite dry hop. The reason I suggest this is the fact you cannot determine the Alph Acid % (AA%) of your home grown crops. This AA% varies from year to year depending on the season (ie hot/dry vs. cold/wet). This makes recipe formulation very difficult. It would always be a bit of a "crap shoot" as to the bitterness of your brew.

 

Stick to hops with a labeled AA% for the bitterness/flavour and then hitting it hard with your home grown dry hops.

 

Good luck!

 

[AdamH1525226084]

So why not eBay seeds? (curious)

 

I believe its because you need a female, and with seeds you don't know what gender (i can't believe s.e.x got edited) you're getting.

[King Ruddager]

Sex got edited? Whenever I type "hooray" the hoor part gets bleeped for some reason.

 

The stupid thing is that sex is the correct term! Gender is more of a social term, so they could sell you a male hop plant that gets around wearing make-up aand dresses and it'd be correct to say it's gender is female.

[Guest]

I believe its because you need a female' date=' and with seeds you don't know what gender (i can't believe s.e.x got edited) you're getting.[/quote']

 

Spot on.

 

Stick to hops with a labeled AA% for the bitterness/flavour and then hitting it hard with your home grown dry hops.

 

I agree about the Bittering, however a small pilot brew could sort that out pretty quickly.. but yeah, use your favorite bittering commercial hop for the bittering but I would argue that flavour and aroma additions (say 30 mins down) should be fine.

 

I guess at the end of the day a small pilot brew would be good in all instances but we tend not to really [innocent]

 

Last year I picked them off the bine and just threw them into a jug and pored beer on them (one lacking much by way of aroma) and BOOM!! totally reignited my love of Chinook

 

Yob