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Anyone Else Growing Hops This Year?


PhilboBaggins

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200-300 flowers should get you about that much in grams of wet flowers, dried out to about a quarter of that so somewhere between 50 and 75g dry. It depends on the size of them though; my first harvest a couple of weeks ago netted around 280g wet, which dried out to about 78g (if I'd left them there for the few more hours of my second half they would have dried too much). A lot of these flowers were about 5cm or more in length, and I expect there were around 150-200 of them. I suppose I could go look at the photo and count them lol

 

This morning I picked another smaller harvest from my Cascade of 90g wet flowers, so these should dry out to around 22-23g over the next couple of days, which will give me about 100g dry so far this season. There is another burst of burrs on the plant at the moment, so in another few weeks or so there will be another harvest, probably a similar size to the first one. Pretty good going for a first year plant.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

In this photo is the Cascade in the foreground with the Hallertau behind it. There are more cones on the Cascade than it looks, they are just hiding under the leaves and also on the other side of it. The dead parts interspersed amongst it are a bine that somehow got chopped off at the ground about a month ago, but otherwise it's going really well. The newer cones on it have reverted back to a more normal shape and form now after that period where they all went weird, so I'll definitely be getting another harvest this year, probably another two harvests with the new burrs that are on it too.

 

As you can see, the Hallertau is not looking all that great. For some reason when I picked the flowers that were on it, most of the leaves on the bines died and fell off. It didn't really produce many laterals this year either. A month ago or so it was looking as healthy as the Cascade plant so I don't really know what happened to it. There are a couple of little new shoots popping up out of the soil so at least it's not dead. Will just have to see how it performs next season I guess.

 

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Cheers

 

Kelsey

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Hey Ricko, I haven't used any of this year's harvest in any brews yet but I did use my Hallertau harvest of 40g in a lager beer last year which turned out really well. I used these as a late boil addition. I should be able to get 2-3 batches out of the Cascade harvests this time, I've got 100g ish in the freezer now, and there are more maturing on the plant so I'd expect from the looks of it maybe another 40-50g to go.

 

I haven't used them for dry hopping yet, and I'm unsure if I will because I can do with them not blocking up the bloody FV tap when it's time to keg the beer. I might do it on one batch though just so I have at least tried it.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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Nice looking plant there mate! Some form of pale ale would be the go yeah, you'd probably get a few batches worth from those hops too. I have a harvest coming again from my Cascade which I'm guessing will take the total for the season up to around 140g dried. Got some pale ales planned, maybe even do one with all home grown hops. The only problem with that is not knowing the AA% for bitterness calcs. I suppose I could just wing it lol

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Nice looking plant there mate! Some form of pale ale would be the go yeah' date=' you'd probably get a few batches worth from those hops too. I have a harvest coming again from my Cascade which I'm guessing will take the total for the season up to around 140g dried. Got some pale ales planned, maybe even do one with all home grown hops. The only problem with that is not knowing the AA% for bitterness calcs. I suppose I could just wing it [img']lol[/img]

thanks dude, i was really surprised at the groth and the the amount of hops produced, looking forward to making a nice ale this week biggrin

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Just did another harvest of my Cascade, this time got about 150g wet, although that number might be a little overstated since some of them had water drops on them from rain overnight. In any case it should dry out to I guess somewhere between 30 and 40g to go with the 100g already dried and in the freezer. There will be another harvest in another 3-4 weeks when the last lot of flowers is ready to be picked. From the looks of it, that one will be a small harvest maybe around 50-60g wet.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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First harvest of cascade on the weekend. 700g of wet cones with about another 700g maybe more to be picked in the next week. Not bad for a first year considering we moved it in September and it didn't really take off till Jan. Weather wasn't the best here in SA this year.

 

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  • 4 months later...
  • 1 month later...

No rhizomes for sale but I do have the first shoots of the new season popping up in my Cascade plot. They'd already started popping up a few weeks ago but then I buried them under about 250mm of soil when I topped it up, and the first one reached above ground on the weekend (pic below). I'll be around there again tomorrow picking up some things so I'll have another look.

 

The Hallertau plant had also begun sprouting again, and it was buried under a similar layer of soil on Saturday so I'm not expecting to see it above ground for another few weeks now. And finally the Fuggle plant in the pot is sprouting as well, that one I'm not really doing anything with though, I'm just keeping it alive until such time as it can be moved to a bigger home, which probably won't happen until such time as I own a house rather than rent one.

 

Looking forward to the new growing season and hopefully I can get some good yields off the Hallertau and Cascade to brew with early next year.

 

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Cheers

 

Kelsey

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  • 2 months later...
Just wondering if anybody has some rhizomes for sale this year. I'm in NSW. Chasing a few different varieties. Keen for just about any variety.

Thanks

 

Bigkeg,

 

I am very late to the party but Whitehouse Nursery (google it) in Fern Hill, Victoria, has Challenger, Chinook, East Kent Golding, Fuggle , Golden Cluster , Hallertau , Hersbrucker , Humulus lupulus, Mt Hood , Nugget, Pride of Ringwood , Red Earth , Saaz , Target , Tasmanian Cascade , Tettnanger, Victoria , Vienna Gold and Willamette for sale.

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  • 9 months later...

Had to run to the olds yesterday morning to grab a sack of pilsner malt for the brew day. Had a look at my hops while I was there. The Cascade is sprouting a handful of shoots, so it looks like that one will be going again this season.

Nothing in the Hallertau yet, but I may have killed it when I set fire to the nutgrass and dead hop bines after last season, poured a bit of metho on it then lit it up and it burned the grass in under a minute but it kept smouldering under the soil which did a great job of getting rid of the nutgrass but probably buggered the root system of the hops too.

I'm not too worried about it though, it's a bit of a pain looking after them when I'm not living there anymore. Once we get our own place next year I'll move them across though. I'll still do the Cascade this year, hopefully will get enough off it for at least one batch.

Cheers

Kelsey

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I've got some Columbus and some Cascade in the ground this year. First time growing them. It's more about just seeing how they grow and experimenting rather than doing it for an end product. If they do grow, and I get some hops to play with at the end I'll be pretty happy. I have no big expectations though.

I've heard of them starting to pop their heads up but there's no sign of mine doing that just yet. 

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Just south of Port Macquarie in New South Wales.

They are in pots for my first time around so I'm not expecting anything too grand. Kinda just hoping they aren't dead at this stage haha. I've given them a water every now and then so the dirt doesn't dry up too much and used some Seasol on them the other day.

I rigged up a bit of a pole and pulley system after having a bit of a look online. Not sure if it will work but was fun to do.

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I got a small cascade plant last year from ebay, it grew bout 6 foot then died back over winter, didn't produce any hops. Its poking its head out again but not looking that flash, I'm about the same as you abit of water and seasol. I'm on the sunshine coast and pretty sure the climate is far from ideal, fun experiment though.

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They will grow fine pretty much anywhere, but the location affects the yield. Southern areas are better for flowering, partly due to the longer daylight hours and partly due to the colder winters. In an attempt to mimic that winter cold, next year I'll be removing the entire root system, cutting off a few rhizomes and storing them in the fridge for a few weeks before replanting.

I found on all my plants that they flowered the best in the first year, I suspect due to cold storage periods.

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